DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is working on another project as a part of their Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program (creating cyborgs for US army is the first): Brain implant that can give the human brain immediate access to the digital world, i.e. it will give you access to downloadable content, but it will also read your mind. http://factor-tech.com/connected-wo...s-to-downloadable-content-and-read-your-mind/ You can't just download without seeding, right?
I've thought for many years this is the logical step for interfacing with a computer. I think there has to be some significant breakthroughs for it to become a reality. But since we are actively working on it I am sure it will happen. There is a lot of good that can come from this and probably a lot of bad things that this will lead to. But I think this is going to be a REALLY significant change for mankind with implications that are mind boggling. I think it is inevitable that this will become a reality - I guess I am saying "resistence is fulitle"...
When young, brain-computer interfaces were a dream of mine, a dream that I wanted to come true. But the world changed much since then. These days I feel worried that such a conenctiuon will be used for mass manipulation. There are so many actors who want to manipulate. Companies, traders who want customers to buy, best buy overprized products. Politicians who want to hide something, or change stuff so that it appears in their favor. Criminals who want to lure victims in traps. Now my thinking is split. On one hand, I think a brain-computer interface is a revolution which will make using "the computer" much more efficient. Often the speed of reading and typing is a limiting factor, and a better interface will help a lot. It also helps handicapped people, e.g. blind ones, paralysed ones and likely more, who can't use the traditional interfaces like keyboard and displays, or not efficiently. On the other hand, the worrying points. Many people seem to be tremendously attached to virtual realities already. Virtual realities which give them memories, feelings, impressions. In their heads memories from virtual worlds mix up with memories from real world, and it requires an additional effort to keep them apart - in case of feelings, I'm quite sure a human cannot keep a bad or good feeling that originated from a virtual world, like a game, from a feeling that was caused by reality. Thus at least on an emotional level virtual realities allow manipulation beyond reality, and a more immersive interface increases this problem. I know the warning that people might get lost in virtual worlds is not new. Likely it came up the first time when books could be produced in large numbers, photographs, movies, television, and finally, the internet. So far, humanity survived and found ways to handle the difference between reality, images of reality, fiction, and virtual worlds. But each step in that ladder increases the likelyness that reality moves out of the peoples focus. And now we face another step - typing you had to do with you real hands. Reading you did with your real eyes. There was a motor-sensor cycle involved. A direct brain-computer interface does not need the motor-sensor cycle, and the last link to real world while consuming virtual worlds is vanishing. There is the dystopy of brains floating in nourishment solution, living and thinking in purely virtual worlds. Or "the matrix". Infinitel tempting and intriguiung, because suddenly the brain can shape "reality" without constraints like work, money for materials and tools and the like - for those in power in virtual reality, a thought will be enough to change the world. Well, there is no way to stop such advancements. So let's hope we find ways to make us of them withoiut them destroying us.
