Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: cyborgs – Page 72

New AI algorithm brings us closer than ever to controlling machines with our minds

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh today published research showing how they’d solved a frustrating problem for people who use a brain-computer interface (BCI) to control prosthetic devices with their thoughts.

While the research itself is interesting – they created an algorithm that keeps the devices from constantly needing to be re-calibrated to handle the human brain’s fluctuating neuronal activity – the real takeaway here is how close we are to a universal BCI.

BCIs have been around for decades in one form or another, but they’re costly to maintain and difficult to keep working properly. Currently they only make sense for narrow use – specifically, in the case of those who’ve lost limbs. Because they’re already used to using their brain to control an appendage, it’s easier for scientists and researchers to harness those brainwaves to control prosthetic devices.

Cyborg computer chips will get their brain from human neurons

If you enjoyed this article or found it informative and wish to share it, you can do so from the following link: https://www.facebook.com/383136302314720/posts/564255487536133/

A.I. has already gotten to almost sci-fi levels of emulating brain activity, so much so that amputees can experience mind-controlled robotic arms, and neural networks might soon be a thing. That still wasn’t enough for the brains behind one ambitious startup, though.

Cortical Labs sounds like it could have been pulled from the future. Co-founder and CEO Hong Wen Chong and his team are merging biology and technology by embedding real neurons onto a specialized computer chip. Instead of being programmed to act like a human brain, it will use those neurons to think and learn and function on its own. The hybrid chips will save tremendous amounts of energy with an actual neuron doing the processing for them.

Creating Superman (and woman): Who benefits from human enhancement?

Research involving bowhead whales has suggested that it may one day be possible to extend the human lifespan to 200 years.

From the demigods of Greek mythology to the superheroes of 20th century comic books, we’ve been intrigued by the idea of human enhancement for quite a while, but we’ve also worried about negative consequences. Both in the Greek myths and modern comics and television, each enhanced human has been flawed in some way.

In the area of lifespan enhancement, for instance, Tithonus, though granted eternal life, shrunk and shriveled into a grasshopper, because his immortal girlfriend Eos, forgot to ask Zeus to give him eternal youth. Achilles, while super strong and agile, had a weak spot at the back of his heal, and Superman would lose his power if exposed to “kryptonite”. As for Khan’s people, their physical superiority, both physical and mental, made them overly ambitious, causing a third world war that nearly destroyed humanity in the Star Trek backstory.

Using genetic modification, nanotechnology, bionics, reconstructive surgery, hormones, drugs or any combination of these approaches, real-life human enhancement is looking ever more achievable. As with the fictional examples, the idea of enhancement being a double-edged sword will surely remain part of the discussion. At the same time, though, because enhancement means mastering and manipulating human physiology and the basis of consciousness and self-awareness, the road to enhancement will be paved with advances beneficial to the sick and the disabled. This point must be at center stage when we weigh the pluses and minuses in various enhancement categories, especially physical capability, mental function, and lifespan.

Scientists develop AI that can turn brain activity into text

“We are not there yet but we think this could be the basis of a speech prosthesis,” said Dr Joseph Makin, co-author of the research from the University of California, San Francisco.

Writing in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Makin and colleagues reveal how they developed their system by recruiting four participants who had electrode arrays implanted in their brain to monitor epileptic seizures.

These participants were asked to read aloud from 50 set sentences multiple times, including “Tina Turner is a pop singer”, and “Those thieves stole 30 jewels”. The team tracked their neural activity while they were speaking.

Meet 2020’s Real Life Cyborgs

Over the last five years, London-based photographer David Vintiner and art director Gemma Fletcher have been documenting the subculture of transhumanists across Europe, Russia and the United States. Their photobook I Want To Believe, due out this spring, explores these enthusiasts’ achievements and motivations.

Dispatches from the transhumanist movement.

/* */