BMI: Brain Machine Interface. Is this the future?

That's why you slowly replace all of your brain with cybernetics. That way, you don't notice anything while managing to gain functional immortality.

^ Methinks that's a little too close to dying and creating a new mind that just thinks it's you.

edited 19th Feb '12 7:03:34 PM by RTaco

If you do it slowly enough, its pretty much what our brains do already, just mechanically instead of biologically. That would require nanites, though.

Call me when they can do with out the major brain surgery.

^ ^^

Agreed on both counts.

Mm. Another transhumanism discussion on TV Tropes that assumes we're going to have things be far more advanced than is likely within our lifetimes.

When they already have BM Is available, it wont be too long before we have them.

Also, define major brain surgery.

Really any brain surgery is major brain surgery.

What set said. The brain is an incredibly delicate thing. If the doctor makes one slip up, they can permanently damage the patient. We don't have any kind of machinery available to make up for the loss of intellect that brain damage can cause. Or cure death.

I'm not the only one seeing the potential downsides to this, am I?

Considering what hackers can do these days with computers, I can only imagine what they might be able to do with computer chips that are directly connected to the human brain.

You could say that about anything tech wise. Doesn't stop anyone from trying.

Also, the BMI is just a tiny microchip they attach to a certain portion of the brain. It's not some huge apparatus from Star Trek.

No you're not.

You can say that about any piece of technology alright, but most of them aren't wired into the organ that defines your fucking existence.

Okay, we're getting derailed.

Not really. The topic was the potential applications and consequences of being able to control machines with a chip in your brain. Some people are going to think of the bad ways it can be applied.

No, the topic is about the potential applications of BMI technology. It's partly my fault it got derailed, but we should rerail it.

Anyways, this could go a long way in helping disabled people.

Ghost hacking anyone?

Actually, there's a company called Emotive that is already designing BM Is for gaming purposes. Best thing for you slightly paranoid people is that it is entirely external. It is a hat the picks up your brain waves interprets that as an input so no implants are needed. And it works, as shown in an episode of Prototype This.

edited 20th Feb '12 11:58:43 AM by IraTheSquire

The problem is brains can be hacked. They apparently already can do so - visual thoughts have already been extracted as images from brains. Of course this only works if you have access to the brain... which is what such a BMI or DNI would be. If your directly connected brain to internet, say, it's possible your brain gets hacked via the net.

So, yes, I can see why people would refrain from such technology, and that's fine. For me personally, though, I think the potential outweighs the risks.

edited 20th Feb '12 4:59:26 AM by Octo

Sure, if you connect the brain to the internet.

Thing is though, as far as I know most BMI out there in development are designed to be receiving signals from the brain, not gettting signals in (except for the bionic sensors like the cochlear implant, but that's not designex to receive signals from the net. It will be extremely strange to hear a website in a series of odd noises), so most likely trying to hack into the brain via BMI will be like trying to broadcast with a radio or tv set: it doesn't work.

Here I present you with a philosophical question.

If we take A, and make a perfect copy of his brain which runs simultaneusly with his own brain and can function indepedently, and then kill A while we keep his copied brain running... then, is he still alive???

What if we take A´S brain and replace some functions of his brain, slowly but surely, with a computer until A is gone... is A still alive???

Example 1, he's definitely dead (though I would consider the digital copy to be a person, just a new one). Example 2 is much fuzzier, but too close to death for me.

edited 20th Feb '12 9:01:50 AM by RTaco

Here's a good question; assuming the human brain has enough room, if you copy one person's mind (person A) and stick it into another person's (person B) brain, would person A still be considered living, just in another persons mind?

Kinda off-topic, but it leads into BMI if you follow the train of thought. Eventually we will get to the point of that being possible, among many other things, and then we face some serious ethical questions about what is and isn't life, which is why so many people shy away from cybernetics. It may seem technophobic and insane to dislike a cybernetic arm, and I personally don't have anything against it, but if you take that and continue with it, who knows what you'll get.

Or this might all be conjecture and never happen. That's the funny thing about the future.

Professor, some of the potential applications are bad ones. Saying people can't voice them because you don't like that there's potentially bad applications for this technology is unfair.

At any rate, I would not want to hook my brain up to the internet at all. Partially out of getting hacked, but mostly out of fear of getting goatsed. Who the hell wants that transmitted directly to their brains? DX

Although I can just imagine the potential rick rolls this would cause. Jeez.

I don't really have a problem with the thought of cybernetic arms. It makes sense that we would try to make artificial limbs that are as like organic limbs in function as possible. The more it acts like a real limb, the more comfortable and normal a lot of people will feel about it. I predict that our prosthesis will only get more sophisticated from here on out. It's the whole digitizing the brain thing where it gets weird for me.

Having your entire memory on a chip does provide one advantage with goatse and other... undesirable things.

Real Life Brain Bleach. Just remember to leave note "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT CLICK LINK TO X"

But then you'll get curious and click it again. I mean how bad could it have been?