fiat luxemburg

A pretty good piece about brain-computer interface work and locked-in syndrome.

Oddly, it’s in Esquire. Also, it’s by the youngest Foer (which might have something to do with the title); he edited my high school newspaper when I was a freshman.

But more importantly, this stuff is amazing. They are putting electrodes into the heads of people who cannot move at all and using them to interpret motor signals related to speech and sythesizing the corresponding sounds. The subject in the article can do vowels pretty good and the researcher’s goal is real, full speech within five years. Just so we’re clear, this isn’t the Steven Hawking voice simulator—that’s still controled using his limited range of deliberate motion and selecting letters and words. This is digitally produced voice controlled directly from the brain in the same fashion that we control the motor functions of our native speech ability.

From the description of the “Neural Signals Inc.” office, where this work is being done:

Three engraved patents hang on a wall near the door, including US 7275035 B2, “System and Method for Speech Generation from Brain Activity,” granted September 25, 2007, to Dr. Philip Kennedy, a pioneer in the field of brain-computer interface (BCI) research. On the opposite wall there is a small poster that reads:

WHO BENEFITS?

TODAY: ALS, Brain Stem Stroke, Other Locked-In Patients

TOMORROW: Spinal Cord Injured, Cyborgs, Enhancement of Normal Humans

They are doing things that I still think a lot of people would think aren’t possible. It’s hard for me to imagine progress in this area stopping or even slowing down. The article very briefly touches on the larger implications of this work for ideas of self (it’s not that good a piece). I still think such questions get too little attention and will become practical matters sooner than expected

The “singularity”, in literal terms, refers to a horizon of technological development that we cannot see past. It’s become primarily associated with self-improving artificial intelligence. But, more radically self-improving existing intelligences (that is to say, augmenting human mental capacities using artificially computation devices) might be a more plausible scenario.

I suppose there is still a tendency to write off this sort of technological speculation as somehow baseless or more appropriate to fiction than the world we live in. Impressive and accelerating technological advancement in the area of brain-computer interfaces suggests that in this case that is inappropriate. On a time scale of years, sure, ignore it. If one plans to live for a few more decades, well…

I think it’ll get interesting is all.