Mind Over Machine 331
broKenfoLd writes "Monkeys moving robotic arms by manipulating a cursor on a computer screen, simply by thinking about it? Mice who cause their water tube to dispense some refreshing H2O just by wishing it? Signal processing and decoding has long been a dream of Matrix fans and lazy system administrators for years, and science is amazingly keeping up! Popular Science's Carl Zimmer has written a fascinating piece documenting recent progress in decoding brain signals and interpreting commands issued from thoughts alone. If you heard a single violin playing Beethoven's 5th, you would be able to tell what piece of music was being played even though the rest of the orchestra was not heard. In the same way, by monitoring a relatively few neurons, computers can recognize patterns and allow programming based on these patterns to say, know if a mouse is thinking about pushing his water lever.
You can pass the time waiting for Matrix-style video games and motionless system adminstration/utilization by reading the full article."
Channel surfing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Channel surfing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Channel surfing (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Channel surfing (Score:5, Funny)
The trick is to marry someone who enjoys watching porn with you. It's not that hard; if I can do it, anyone can.
Re:Channel surfing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Channel surfing (Score:5, Funny)
Something's wrong (Score:4, Funny)
Then what's the point? Especially when married?
Re:Channel surfing (Score:4, Insightful)
They've got this thing with emotional bonding and sensible family life.
Nice try, but I know several women who do enjoy porn. You're just not getting to know the right women.
Porn isn't about objectification. It's about visual stimulation. It does not exclude or preclude emotional bonding or sensible family life - unless you have an unhealthy preoccupation with it.
Just remember: everyone's different. Not everyone shares your particular problems with sex.
Re:Channel surfing (Score:5, Funny)
>
> Nice try, but I know several women who do enjoy porn. You're just not getting to know the right women.
Or he's not showing them the right pr0n. (This is Slashdot, after all.)
Re:Channel surfing (Score:5, Insightful)
In most cases, it just requires communication about the subject. If you explain why you like porn, it's not longer a problem.
No, it doesn't mean you love them any less.
No, you don't necessarily want them to do those things.
No, they're not being screwed*; they get paid thousands of dollars for this.
Explain that it's visual stimulation, and it means that you're not pawing at them for sex all the time - that it gives you options. Explain how men basically want sex all of the time (believe it or not, most women do too... it just surfaces in different ways - it's more emotional than physical).
And if you're going to watch porn with a woman, don't go for usenet stuff or bargain bin video store pornos. Get yourself some of the classy Adam & Eve stuff designed for couples, which actually have a real plot (or at least, more of a plot than most), and pick the video based on what you know turns her on.
You'll be surprised. Sure, not all women will react that way - a lot will react exactly as you've described. But the only way to truly find out is through in-depth, honest communication. And that takes effort.
* erm... well, you know what I mean.
Re:Channel surfing (Score:3, Funny)
Intelligent, insightful relationship advice regarding women on /.
(Hold me, I'm scared...)
Re:Channel surfing (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Channel surfing (Score:2, Funny)
We have got to see if Shakespear was better than 1000 monkeys don't we?
Useful... (Score:2, Funny)
Sounds like an old joke we shared around the IT dept about 20 years ago related to 'anticipatory paging', why not anticipatory programming. Hmm. Useful
"after the nth time the process failed I gave the computer such a look that the software uninstalled itself, the harddrive cra
Re:Useful... (Score:3, Funny)
THEN x = 3
IF x == uninitializedValue
Re:Useful... (Score:3, Interesting)
Just don't forget one thing! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just don't forget one thing! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just don't forget one thing! (Score:2, Informative)
This was on HDNet via DirectV (Score:4, Interesting)
I esp like the lady with the leads out of both sides of the back of her head....
She looked very Borg-Like.
This could be bad... (Score:5, Funny)
Can you imagine what might happen when a "hottie" walks though the office?
Re:This could be bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This could be bad... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This could be bad... (Score:3, Funny)
What? Outlook automatically downloads all youre V1@gr@ spam onto your drive for your perusal?
Re:This could be bad... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This could be bad... (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting question. I love questions like this that we can debate, secure in the knowledge that we will never find out the real answer. Eventually we will find out what it is like to have this working, but we geeks will never find out what it is like to have a "hottie" walk though the office.
Congratulations, you have posed the perfect open ended question.
Re:This could be bad... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This could be bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
When you "think" about doing something, you are deciding via pros and cons, deciding outcome, looking at all options, recounting experience, true desire... on wether to do something or not. When you really decide to act, you act. That signal to act causes you to act. Thinking about acting is not acting. The final go ahead trigger to act is what matters. How else could you make a logical decision about anything? If you take out the thought process involved, we all would be living in a completely different world.
Consider the mouse and the bottle. If the mouse really wanted to get a drink, he would go over and get one. It's not like some force is holding him back and he keeps thinking about it but he just (slow superhero struggling voice) can't moooooooove.
Re:This could be bad... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hahaha. You're absolutely right.
Now, enough
Re:This could be bad... (Score:3, Insightful)
We have that already. (Score:5, Funny)
I call it sleeping.
Re:We have that already. (Score:3, Funny)
Not such a big deal (Score:5, Funny)
Say it all with me now... (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I find it facinating that the brain can so readily adapt to adding and removing hardware ( limbs ), but reading about it is even cooler.
What other computer do you know can learn how to use foriegn devices without a driver disk?
Re:Say it all with me now... (Score:5, Funny)
umm.. not just yet. (Score:5, Interesting)
but over all its really cool that they are even able to do this at all.
Re:umm.. not just yet. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:umm.. not just yet. (Score:5, Funny)
95% is better than me and my friends after a night out onthe town and we make it home ok. 95% is pretty good betting odds, too.
Re:umm.. not just yet. (Score:2, Funny)
Well, so they claim, it's a robot that just appeared one day and keeps complaining about this horrible pain in all the diodes down its left side.
Wow, Me Too! (Score:5, Funny)
"Mice who cause their water tube to dispense some refreshing H2O just by wishing it?"
Uncanny! Just this morning I caused by "water tube" to dispense liquid just by wishing it too!
Thinking... (Score:2, Interesting)
Printing out poster-sized Pr0n just by visualizing it?
Everybody... The day is now!!!
Cell Phone (Score:5, Insightful)
How about living in a way that our bodies were actually meant to. Exercising, working with our bodies, and communicating in person. Eventually we will just be sitting at home, in a lazy-boy with our brains plugged in to a network and all work from home. But, that would suck!
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cell Phone (Score:5, Interesting)
Every action being publicly known would cause you to think through everything you do. Every thought being public would cause you to fear thinking too much - about ideas that might be too controversial, sexual fantasies you might want to indulge in, feelings of hatred and hurt towards someone and so on. If your thoughts take you too far, perhaps you'll be an Enemy of the People(TM).
I don't think it'll be a better world. I think peer pressure and desire of conformity would mold people into the same shape, strangling creativity, initiative and independent thought. Not to mention what sects and such could do - brainwash initiates until they too are true believers.
The only way it would be a good idea is if you could directly point to an action it would cause, in order to prevent it from happening - much like Minority Report. But the film convieniently circumvents the issue since they see nothing but thoughts that do result in murder.
What if instead, they would have to monitor every thought, destroy all privacy, and couldn't tell if a perpetrator really would go through with it until the very last second? To intervene at the mere thought of committing a crime? That's the thing about thought crime - if you want it undone, it is undone. If you no longer want to kill the guy, well then it simply hasn't happened and won't happen. And the mere thought of it, I think everyone is guilty of - if even for just a flash.
Kjella
Re:Cell Phone (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cell Phone (Score:3, Funny)
"No mom, I haven't filled out the job application yet!fuckingshitfilledpieceofdeathuselesskillhatri d noneedjobgetweedsmoke"
"What the HELL was that you were thinking?!"
"Umm.. ahh, I think the electrodes are malfunctioning... wait... uhh, hold on, you're breaking u
Re:Cell Phone (Score:5, Insightful)
What about the idea that humans were "meant to" improve themselves technologically? Check out the book "Natural Born Cyborgs" [amazon.com] by Andy Clark -- he makes a pretty convincing argument that things like cellphone implants or robotic limbs aren't a bizarre aberration. Rather, they're incremental steps on the long road of technological self-enhancements that started the first time someone used the technology of writing to remember a piece of abstract information the unaided brain would have forgotten.
Even if you reject that argument, you have to figure out where to draw the line, and the answer isn't at all obvious. Were humans meant to see fine details on objects miles away? Toss out those binoculars. Were we meant to instantly kill other creatures without laying a finger on them? Forget your rough-hewn spearheads and boar traps, if not. Were we meant to survive heart failure? (Careful that your reasoning doesn't also conclude that gene therapy to live for 1000 years is fine too, if you want to be traditional but still humane.) To travel halfway around the globe in a matter of hours? To walk on the moon? The list goes on.
Humans are naturally unnatural. It's what makes us what we are.
Re:Cell Phone (Score:3, Interesting)
Granted. But one question is, will this continue to serve us well in future, or should we recognize that as our technology advances, we may need to become more careful about the kinds of unnatural things we do, and become dependent on? Might we end up self-modifying our species into something weaker, in some crucial respect, than what natural evolution gave us for free?
What the species as a whole does blindly may not be the right choice
Re:Cell Phone (Score:3, Insightful)
Meant to? Meant to by whom?
But what if I didn't like my neighbour? (Score:5, Interesting)
"I didn't run him over!"
"Did you THINK about running him over?"
*long pause*
I didn't run him over!
Ok, that should be SUV... (Score:2, Funny)
ai (Score:2, Funny)
They're talking about reverse engineering the brain - it would be pretty sweet, but one hell of a task to filter through all the activity and figure out what signal meant what, combinations, etc. I'm sure an Altair is all you would need to reverse engineer my brain. You'd flip maybe ten switches, tops.
Average Person (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it will ever be like in the movies (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you ever thought about suicide? Now imagine if when you thought about it a machine would come and kill you. Also I don't know about you, but I can't control my mind completely, sometimes I have thoughts that are completely unrelated with what I am doing... I really don't think I could trust a machine to make my thoughts come true, I'm sure in the future machines will be able to interpret the signals in your brain with a 99% precision, I just can't trust my own mind.
Re:I don't think it will ever be like in the movie (Score:5, Funny)
Allow me to introduce you to our management team.
KFG
oh no (Score:5, Interesting)
got the show for you... (Score:3, Interesting)
Shoulda seen this (Score:4, Informative)
Brain-Computer Interfaces for Communication and Control [sfn.org] at the society for neuroscience annual meeting. There are already paralyzed people using this type of technology (electrode and even EEG(!)) on an experimental basis.
A step to the singularity (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe in the future... (Score:5, Funny)
But that would require thinking, and that hurts :(
Re:Maybe in the future... (Score:2)
This journal.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod me down, off topic troll
What about the reverse...? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm thinking... (Score:2, Funny)
2. I'm thinking I deserve a raise. Zzzzt! agreed.
Idiot! 3. I'm thinking I'll have myself a raise. Zzzzt... done.
4. I'm thinking that the leggy busty blonde wants visit my bed tonite...Zzzzt!
5. I'm thinking I should you all leave think. Zzzzt!.. !@#RTA [NO CARRIER]
This is all cool, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is not to say that it's not important -- all kinds of prosthetic devices can be made to help people with disabled limbs or other parts of the motor control system -- so it's a great benefit to those people. The important thing is that these devices are still controlled by the human brain, and nobody has a good idea how.
The fact is, you can probably hook up whatever device to whatever portion of the brain (e.g. an artificial arm to you toenail brain area) and after some practice the subject will learn now to move it. So when they say "we don't see the brain as a mysterious organ anymore" they are telling you a bold-face lie.
The mystery would be demonstrated to be solved when we can build a computer with massively parallel and slow (up to 1kHz) elements that can match human performance in tasks like tracking, reaching, as well as learning those tasks.
So far, all the beatiful performance of the cool gadgets is accomplished by super-fast feedback and super-fast computing elements. Our neurons are ways slower, but they do much better. Therefore, the whole essense and mystery of the brain is how to connect 10^10 shitty elements into a great learnable machine. Algorythms and parallelism are still the mystery of the brain, even if the popular science magazines claim otherwise
Re:This is all cool, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does the mouse get water by thinking about water, or by thinking something completely different that happens to trigger the machine? Once he figures it out, he'll do it again when he's thirsty.
Re:This is all cool, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Theorists suggested that when you replicate the behavior of a neuron and let them talk with 9,999,999,999 copies of that virtual entity, then we'd instantly see a computer that can think and learn just like a human. Is a neuron that complex? What is the hold up? I always suspected that this idea was a massive oversimplication of the issue at hand.
The neuron is not that complex, it is believed to be mostly understood. The research is still being done on "how does this drug affects that channel in neuron
Re:This is all cool, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, this is more or less true. The X-10 ad pop-ups were an invasion that we just barely managed to fight off with penis-enlargement spam.
Mind Wide Open (Score:5, Informative)
Thought Power (Score:2, Interesting)
Imagine the possibilities.
I Wish (Score:2, Funny)
P O O F !
Controlling your computer by thought: could be bad (Score:4, Interesting)
Then, before you know it, you've thought, "\rm -r *"
Okay, I saw something like this (minus the thought part) happen in real life once upon a time. A friend and I were just talking about people accidentally typing "\rm -r *" in the lab when suddenly, someone using the Sun boxes yelled "oh shit!" because he absentmindedly typed what we said.
Re:Controlling your computer by thought: could be (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't understand something... (Score:5, Insightful)
they say in the article that they need to "train" the computer beforehand (no pun intended)
before it can
My question, which was not answered in the article, is: Are every brain emmitting the same signals for the same action
or do they need to "train" the program for every new user (monkey)? I would think that every individual have a somewhat
unique "brain signature" and if it is the case, how can a totally impaired person train a computer to use an artificial arm or
leg or whatever if anyway he isn't able to move a "joystick"?
Can the computer associated anything as an input to compare with the brain activity?
Could (let's say ) S. Hawking program the system by blowing in a tube harder or smoother for example?
Am I clear?
As his cat goes up in flames... (Score:3, Funny)
No!!! God dammit!!! I thought a BUD LIGHT!!!
Mana From Heaven. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm thinking of.... (Score:5, Funny)
(Damn, didn't work)
Natalie Portman in my cube.
(Nope, still doesn't work)
I want to be overworked and overpaid, but still have time to surf slashdot from work.
(Woohoo! It works!)
Coding dream (Score:5, Interesting)
Typos would be a thing of the past. Imagine scanning though some source and noticing that you assigned 100 to a var rather than 10, before you can even refocus your eye on the line the value has been changed.
Grep would be a thing of the past! Need to change all the instances of a function name? Think it and its done.
I want to be the lawnmower man!
i am a bipedal broadcast station (Score:3, Interesting)
Look developers, just get speech recognition running already, willya? If what your software does to my luminous eloquence is any example of the current state of interface tech, that thinking-cap UI is going to lead to some pretty psychedelic dyslexic synaesthesia in photoshop once it gets that olfactory plugin I've been waiting for...
long term failure should be expected ? (Score:3, Interesting)
what would happen to the mouse if, at long term, she knows that by thinking about pushing the lever she don't have to push that lever anymore, the computer can't find that previous pattern because the mice have forgotten the use of the lever. thus reprogramming is re-required. seems like an infinite loop
the exciting part (Score:5, Insightful)
If you've ever tried learning an activity that instinctive reflexes like skateboarding or ice skating or even playing the piano, you realize that no matter how much instruction someone gives you, at some point you feel like once you've done it enough, you just "get it". It's the whole muscle memory thing, how your brain encounters something new and just adapts, learning exactly which neurons to fire at the right moments to get the desired affect. Seeing neuron's grow and cluster especially for the robot arm is indicative that the monkey's brain can assimilate the arm and treat it as a natural extension as opposed to a external tool with an awkward interface. In geekspeak, it's like a kernel that, on detecting a new device, can probe it, learn the API, and build its own device driver automatically, without ever knowing anything other than that it's something on the other end of a bus.
Extending that line of thought, who's to say that if the signal processing and classification algorithms advanced far enough to classify even our thoughts, our brains wouldn't be able to instinctively learn how the mind-readers worked and retaliate in return?
A squid stole my spaceship. (Score:4, Interesting)
What this really opens up is the possibility of training animals to operate machinery. Imagine taking an aquatic animal (such as a dolphin) and using it (or its brain) as the central component in a spaceship autopilot.
By stimulating various parts of the brain (including pleasure centres), one could train it to respond to your input in the way you want - it already has the hardware to deal with three dimensional maneuvering, timing and calculating trajectories and intercepts.
This was used in a novel called Space, in which GM Squid controlled a space probe. In the novel, the squid became smart enough to do a runner with it.I would look up the author's name for you all, but try typing "Science Fiction" and "Space" into Google and see what happens
Is it time for ... ClippyXP? (Score:5, Funny)
Pleeeeeeease don't let MS get their hands on this one, mister!
I thong ot well be cool! (Score:5, Funny)
-
Where is all this going... (Score:3, Informative)
The article did touch on the ethics of placing such implants into healthy soldiers, but ethics and morals that would prohibit such activity tend to be very fluid.
Non-invasive techniques may one day be developed for interacting with machines through thought, but this technology is probably much further off than taking the short-cut of hardwiring the brain.
Chicken or Egg? (Score:4, Insightful)
have they learned that every time they think about death/sex/food the water comes?
I was interested until I saw "Popular ..." (Score:4, Insightful)
Entreprenurial posers.
Still it sells magazines.
In my job, I practice with this everyday (Score:3, Funny)
Yip.
What am I thinking? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong focus? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why design an arm that has to figure out which brain signals mean "lift up?" Why not design an arm that will respond to brain signals in a number of ways, and one of them is by lifting up? We've each got the best learning device known to our species in our heads, why not use that skill? We all learned to use our original arms through trial and error (albeit when there was a lot less clutter in our heads), I've got the sneaking suspicion that we'd figure out how to make a mechanical one do whatever we want.
It would be no different than learning to swim, or ride a bike, or swing a golf club.
Then all you need is a way to get signals from the brain to the device, and you're set.
Online gaming! Just imagine! (Score:4, Interesting)
Cool, but a little scary, too.
Re:Maybe the Should Rename Magazine... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Controlling sexual predators through technology (Score:2, Insightful)
Is this a troll? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to see a simple switch based on brain activity that would toggle on during sexual thought/arousal and toggle off in the absence of that.
Jesus sweet fucking christ I sure as hell don't want to see that! What the hell are you thinking?
Children could then be taught that if somebody's "face button" is glowing when that person is asking them to [get in the car|go play with a cute pet|have some candy|etc.], to run and get help.
Why don't we just teach children that when a "person is asking them to [get in the car|go play with a cute pet|have some candy|etc.], to run and get help" without the face-button shit?
GMD
Re:Is this a troll? (Score:4, Funny)
I believe its called a penis my friend.
Re:Controlling sexual predators through technology (Score:3, Insightful)
But we shouldn't stop there, the ultimate goal is to prevent crime. So we should implement it on everybody, just in case even a law-abiding citizen starts having impure thoughts about the validity of the president-for-life's reign on the country.
Re:Controlling sexual predators through technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: A Clockwork Orange? (Score:4, Insightful)
This was the main theme of A Clockwork Orange [clockworkorange.com] by Anthony Burgess.
In it, a violent young man is subjected to a psychological process that renders him unable to commit violent acts. Undergoing it is one of the conditions for his release from prison.
One of the main questions posed by the book (or film) is whether someone who is forced to be good can be considered to be good or if they're the same person as before, just in an enternal prison. It's a disturbing idea when dwelled upon - what happened to progress, development and redemption?
Equally disturbing is the the side-effects of this operation on the character. Aside from accidentally conditioning him to despise the music of Beethoven which he'd formerly adored, there is a horrible scene where he is picked up by two of his former friends and almost killed now that he is incapable of defending himself.
I am sure that there are people who think such control over others would be wonderful. In fact, it would render people little more than robots living according to their masters' (the police/judge's) ideals of correct behaviour. At that point you might as well just kill the people.
I also can't help thinking of the main characters last words in the film of 'Clockwork Orange.'
"I was cured alright."
At that point, the audience's sympathies are with him.We've lived through the mind-altering experience ourselves and we want to be free.
Re:Controlling sexual predators through technology (Score:4, Interesting)
Penile plethysmograph (Score:3, Insightful)
The device already exists, only it works on your dick instead. Google for "penile plethysmograph" for more. It's a very good 1:1 mapping of sexual arousal. The real problem is that arousal and desire to commit the acts isn't - how many men get turned on by a hot lesbian scene, without wanting to be a lesbian?
The other fallacy is that the mind isn't one-dimension