Cyborgs and Technobodies
Thursday, August 27, 2009 by ltop
I was quite shocked to hear that people nowadays can actually play Ping Pong using just their brain. Looking deeper I found that there are several ways in which the machine can interact with our brains, which I find a bit disturbing. I mean, what's next? Are people going to start wearing brain censors to read each others’ minds? I do not like the idea of that at all. A mind can often start wandering and do we actually want people to read those private thoughts?
On the other hand, there are some positive sides as well, for example for people with the "locked-in syndrome". Some experiments were carried out using a brain-computer interface, providing a new communication channel between the human brain and the computer. One at a time, a letter would pop up on a screen and brain activity would be stronger when the letter the person wanted to use popped up. They could then write words or ever sentences with this program.
Many more examples of this type of research can be found here (link).
On the other hand, there are some positive sides as well, for example for people with the "locked-in syndrome". Some experiments were carried out using a brain-computer interface, providing a new communication channel between the human brain and the computer. One at a time, a letter would pop up on a screen and brain activity would be stronger when the letter the person wanted to use popped up. They could then write words or ever sentences with this program.
Many more examples of this type of research can be found here (link).