WorldCon 2013 Report: Day Three — Wiring the Brain

Saturday, August 31, 2013

wired brainRamez Naam

This session was absolutely fascinating. The speaker was both entertaining and informative. Enough so that I made a point of purchasing his books later.

My Notes

  • Most of the research today is for medical purposes
  • One the earliest implementations was the cochlear implant
  • It could eventually lead to telepathic cyborgs, but right now its usages are much more prosaic
  • It's not fantasy to pump information into the human brain; it's technology
  • Training time is down to less than an hour for some patients to control remote limbs with their brains
  • Scientists have developed a chip to replace a damaged hippocampus (formation of long-term memories)
  • Test rats ended up with "super memories"
  • Prefrontal cortex implants (intelligence) more than correct functions (leading to the planet of the cyborg super apes?)
  • Mostly today, our electronics are used to communicate
  • Can we use this technology to transfer information between two different brains?
  • Primary source of research might be medical; second is military
  • Bridge data between two chips to see if the second rat can use the data from the first rat
  • Neural dust
  • Remote rats share information when implants are activated
  • Remote professors share data
  • Lower visual fidelity than normal
  • This is your brain we're talking about
  • Computers are perfect, right?
  • Hacking and spam in your brain
  • Hacking of medical devices is here now
  • Check out his books Nexus and, soon, Crux