Let “Mind Control” Help Our Lives

by saisai

BCI (brain computer interface) has been in research for decades. Scientists have been developing it for all kinds of purposes, education, assistive technology, entertainment and so on. Many people embrace this upcoming technology and are excited about it, while there are also many issues people are concerned about – after all, this is ‘mind control’ we’re talking about here. According to Wikipedia, these below are what people have been debating about BCI:

• obtaining informed consent from people who have difficulty communicating,
• risk/benefit analysis,
• shared responsibility of BCI teams (e.g. how to ensure that responsible group decisions can be made),
• the consequences of BCI technology for the quality of life of patients and their families,
• side-effects (e.g. neurofeedback of sensorimotor rhythm training is reported to affect sleep quality),
• personal responsibility and its possible constraints (e.g. who is responsible for erroneous actions with a neuroprosthesis),
• issues concerning personality and personhood and its possible alteration,
• therapeutic applications and their possible exceedance,
• questions of research ethics that arise when progressing from animal experimentation to application in human subjects,
• mind-reading and privacy,
• mind-control,
• use of the technology in advanced interrogation techniques by governmental authorities,
• selective enhancement and social stratification, and
• communication to the media.

Clearly these issues are not some neglectable problems. If the developers or the users failed to take any of them seriously enough, there could be horrible consequences – like the example I presented during presentation with Gonzalos. Therefore, we have to only make good use of BCI, extract its great potential value, and make it only helpful for our lives. 

Actually, people have been implementing this idea into their real lives. Christina told me this really inspiring story about this girl Carly, who suffered from autism since she was born. She hasn’t been able to communicating with people that much at all until she discovered a new approach of ‘talking’ – writing down her words on computers. Her story’s been on the news, and it’s been encouraging a lot of other moms , kids, and people with similar situation. Carly recommends computer devices like iPad, iPhone, and a few other softwares which helped her expressing herself and bringing out the real Carly.

During our presentation we’ve witnessed what BCI can do. With a small headset developed by NeuroSky, a user can manipulate what’s going on on the computer just like using a mouse. If this technology was widely implemented into real life – especially for people with disabilities, the benefit would be incredible. As long as the developers, the users, and everyone keep those problems away, BCI I believe will become one of the most pragmatic technologies. Perhaps in the near future, just for the sake of it, there could be social regulations, laws established to make this work instead of going to waste just because of its potential risks.

I am Jack’s raging curiosity

by gonzalo2012

              The idea of controlling object with our  mind has always been a fantasy shared by several individuals. Various motion pictures and games have showed us the possibility of this technology and how it could change our lives. However, this technology is not yesterday news but it’s already here. Not to the extent that we can control our vehicles through our mind but we are getting close. A company called NeuroSky have developed an electroencephalography headsets that is available for the cost of one hundred dollars. It has one sensor that is attached to your forehead and its available to read your brainwaves. The headset called MindWave also comes with games that you are able to play using your mind. The most interesting part about this technology is that NeuroSky provide a developer package so you can program your own applications or games. If you have knowledge in programming I do encourage you to try this. As you can see for yourself this technology is very accessible, I  predict in less than a decade from now we will be able to integrate brain interface into our daily routines. The real question is will we be ready? What are the consequences of this new technology? Will it change us as human beings? As a society we are always looking to new ways to improve our way of life, either with the invention of the telephone, the television, the internet. All this technology pushed our civilization forward however it also open new ways of people to exploit this new havens. The difference is, brain interface is about your brain. The one organ in the body that controls your thoughts, actions, decision making, etc. What if your brain got hacked? If a device can read brainwaves then there could be a device that implants thoughts or ideas. This is a scary thought since ultimately the only thing we have control over is our free will but it won’t be free any more. With this in mind it is very important to be excited about this technology but always keep in mind about the ethical issues that arises. Never stop wondering about different ways to implement new technology and always keep an open mind.

Brain Interfacing for Bionic Purposes

by Christina

While I’ve tried to steer clear of medical purposes for brain interfacing, I believe now is a good time to address this area of brain-computer interfacing. Today, the Neurogadget.com posted a TED video about bionic parts that now have the ability to feel.

This is a pretty exciting step forward towards a world of integrated human-computing – towards a world containing a mix of fully independent humans (this is what we are now – perhaps we’ll call them the Luddites), and future-embracing, technology-addicted cyborgs.

In the video, presenter Todd Kuiken discusses the next step in bionics: an arm that so well replaces a human’s lost arm, that it allows the human to overcome barriers that are normally a problem – she can continue to use her hands to illustrate when expressing ideas verbally, use her hands as if they weren’t lost, basically, which is pretty amazing.

There’s a point where Todd explains how they added a whole bunch of electrodes to a man’s chest, to watch what happens when he “commands” his lost arm to move. In this way, they were able to record patterns of electrical signals, interpret those signals, and then create pattern recognition so that in future, the arm would move as expected to, based on the electric signals being sent through those muscles to the bionic arm. The subject in the video, explains that she was able to train her arm and get it up and running based on her own thought patterns within 3-4 hours. This is the closest they’ve come to a clinically practical device to date. That in itself is pretty interesting – and I’m not sure if it’s possible, but it would be really interesting to get my hands on that learning algorithm, or find one for the MindWave, so that one can begin to record one’s brain patterns and perhaps start to match with words, such as “kitten” (except that this might be difficult to do across the population – whilst many of us go into “warm and fuzzy” mode when thinking about kittens, I’m sure there are others with murderous, vengeful fantasies when thinking about them).

Closer to the end of the video, Todd shows a video of a woman with a bionic arm who is able to feel textures through it. This is more impactful if you actually see the video, because she is running a massive contraption of metal joints over something, in place of an arm, and she says “ooh!”, with a jolt of almost pleasure. Very strange… and yet… here we are headed.

Todd does mention a dark side: after flying, the subject in the video had a lot of issues with her arm. The computer broke down, a wire was broken… but with a strong team of researchers, they got it back up and running.

In light of this research, it’s not too difficult to imagine a world where – forget reality – but our own bodies are augmented. Forget prosthetics for people who’ve lost limbs. How about a world where the limbs of normal people have extra-sensory input and output? Are made stronger? At this point, we can only begin to imagine what will be done with this technology. Replacing our body parts once they degrade past a certain point? How about a new spinal column for your osteoperosis-riddled back? How about a new liver for the one you destroyed in your 20s? Forget laser eye surgery – just get new eyeballs!

Our, how about transcendence?

Well, that’s getting a little ahead of ourselves. Anyway, I’ve linked to the TED talk below. Enjoy!

Mind Controlled Killer Robots

by Westley C. Côté

Today I blew up stuff with my mind… on a screen… in a game, but I did do it with my mind.

We used a Neurosky headset and the software to play a series of games like making fireworks burst, or pushing an apple, unfortunately there is not a game based on Scanners. Mainly I played the one with the fireworks in which you are supposed to blink to make the fireworks burst but I mostly found that just thinking about blinking worked better.

Just on the gaming front alone this brings to mind an interesting   list of potential ideas like games with epic psychic battles or maybe even a rail shooter where you pull the trigger with your mind. The big limitation is that it’s still pretty clumsy in terms of control, much like I recently found with Wii, you could probably get better with practice but at least for the time being it would be impossible to achieve the level of control you get with a regular controller or a keyboard and mouse. But then again I didn’t even know consumer level electroencephalography (EEG) devices even existed 2 months ago. I was still generally thinking in terms of massive headset and invasive diodes, like when they made monkey control computer cursors and robot arms.

I plan to acquire one of these headsets myself sometime within the next funding cycle and try to see what I can do with my Arduino, the only other thing I think I need to get started is a Bluetooth controller. Once I get a light blinking it should be pretty easy to run a little motor, which you could hook up to some wheels and BAM mind controlled robot, after that your just a roll of duct tape and some kitchen knives away from a MIND CONTROLLED KILLER ROBOTS, from there it just a hop skip and a jump away from Skynet or Hal. How much control I could get over the device is uncertain and depends on the values output by the headset and I would need much more time with the device than I have had already, and most of the games I saw were fairly binary using meditation and relaxation scores but a number of other things were going on, but I won’t be sure until I can start testing.

Luckily they made it pretty easy to work with the headset in this way, my guess is that all this is because it’s a product for extremely early adopters. The company understands that it must engage with hobbyist community in order to get the product out the door , because it to new and not polished enough for a general audience that has certain usability expectations.

There are also other EEG games available mostly made by Nuerosky, notably Uncle Milton’s Force Trainer which lets you do a Jedi mind trick. Another on Mindflex lets you guide a ball through a maze, but some researchers have found that it may not actually work and just exploits the illusion of control phenomenon. Some people have even made an electroencephalophone a musical instrument that make sound using brainwaves.

O f course I think the most notable part of this state of affairs is that it’s still very new and unrefined. Given some time and the exponential growth of technology refining the technology should not be too difficult better sensors better sensors and software which is more capable of sorting the precious brainwaves from background noise can make it possible to generate a wider and subtler ranges of values which allow for more control. In the novelization of the Robotech it described the characters using  EEG helmets to control their Valkyrie mechs fingers so that they could perform a verity of delicate tasks like repairs. In a future where EEG is common place and people spend their whole live using these technologies, that is they start in childhood so that the mental process can be stored in the primary cortex like when you learn languages as a child. Performing a wide variety of complex tasks could be possible since brain wave output corresponds to certain mental states all it would take is enough data a compact sensor and practice. Such advances could allow operators to perform delicate tasks remotely as if they were present  without the need for an interface that divorces the operator from the task at hand.

But for the time being the technology seems to be largely novel but that means it’s also the best time to wow people with it while it still a matter of special knowledge limited to tech specialist and gadget enthusiasts, not that long ago virtually anything made in Photoshop could wow the unwary but now that everyone knows what it is and vaguely how it works, it lacks the ability to generate awe like it used to so I had better figure out what I can do with the technology before it becomes common place and while even a fairly simple application of the technology is sill baffling to the lay person.

ciao

Brain Interface Blog

by Christina

Hello all, and welcome to the InterBrain blog, where we’ll discuss brain computer interface technology, NeuroSky, MindWave, NeuroWear, Necomimi, and all that fun, cuddly brains-talking-to-computers stuff that’s going on out there right now. Hope to see you again real soon!