DailyDirt: Connecting Brains To Other Stuff

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Mon, Jul 13th 2015 5:00pm — Michael Ho

If artificial intelligence doesn't seem to be making as much progress as we'd like, there are some other ways to try to create more intelligent beings on demand. If we can't breed smarter animals, perhaps we can make some animal cyborgs to do our bidding. We'll need some better brain interfaces, and it looks like plenty of folks are already working on them.

Neurobiologists have figured out how to connect multiple brains together by implanting microwire electrode arrays in animals -- and proving two heads are actually better than one. Researchers accomplished this feat with rat and monkey brains (not mixing the species, mind you, that would be crazy...), and they found multiple brains could perform tasks that single brains could not. These 'brainets' could someday be used on human brains... so imagine a Beowulf cluster of human brains? [url]
A low-cost headset called the Brainwriter can control digital interfaces with thought-detection and eye tracking sensors. It's not exactly a finished product yet, but... similar gadgets could become much more useful in the near future. [url]
Brain implants might be far less invasive with injectable electrode meshes that can unfurl onto various kinds of nerve or brain cells. Injecting flexible electronics into mice brains via a syringe has been a demonstrated way to monitor brain activity, and researchers might be able to create a brain interface -- so we could create a super-intelligent rat brain network to take over the world. [url]

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Filed Under: ai, animal intelligence, animals, brainet, brains, brainwriter, cyborg, hmi, implants, intelligence, lab rats, smart animals

5 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2015 @ 12:33am

We can already mix brains in people wirelessly. It's one of the central issues in the torture crap we protest against. It's old technology that has some basis in nazi death camps and was developed fully by USA and USSR researchers from the immediate postwar era along with other countries. It's all available on directed energy weapon marketplace if you have licenses to import/export and use weapons of mass destruction.
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- Jake, 14 Jul 2015 @ 4:19am
  
  Re:
  Um... what?
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  - Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2015 @ 4:29am
    
    Re: Re:
    There's an executive order that limits interrogations performed to what's listed in the army field manual. It's just one more form of torture that violates geneva and has been invented over the years.
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Ninja (profile), 14 Jul 2015 @ 4:18am

That would be interesting to say the least. Clusters of biological brains could lead to greater improvements in computers (not necessarily by adding biology into chips or something) but seeing how they work together to form a network.

Very interesting indeed.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2015 @ 4:46am

Just because one is able to do something does not mean that it should be done.
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