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Eventually it'll make more sense to just use the human brain as a renderer. Perfect photorealism is fairly worthless without a solid method of interaction and

by rl3 10y ago

Eventually it'll make more sense to just use the human brain as a renderer. Perfect photorealism is fairly worthless without a solid method of interaction and the ability to literally suspend disbelief. Direct neural interfaces will be capable of everything, not just rendering. That said, I can't help but think of a scenario where we have functional neural interfaces but haven't yet mastered the human brain's grammar, and thus resort to "driving" the brain with traditionally-rendered images rather than feeding it the information required to create a scene from scratch. In such a scenario, the requisite quality of the traditionally rendered images might be interesting. Would photorealism be required, or simply a low-quality rendering to convey general structure? Presumably the brain would enhance the latter case to the point of photorealism—or at least to the dream equivalent.

richmarr 10y ago
Agreed, considering the amount of processing and information loss that happens in the optic nerve (in people with healthy vision) you could save yourself a lot of processing, and get a higher fidelity result (potentially indistinguishable from reality).
- visarga 10y ago
  If I can tap into the brain, I'd make it like in Matrix, to be able to upload skills and connect minds together wit AI.
- ricksplat 10y ago
  I expect it would be some kind of a merge of the two (without severing the optic nerve that is) - neurons work by accumulation so you would effectively have the two realities summed - which would be neat for augmented reality. Two fully immerse you could close your eyes or put on dark glasses. A friend told me this is how visual hallucinations on LSD work ...
ricksplat 10y ago
Something like this would be the key breakthrough. For all all their versatility the human eyes have not evolved to be (have not been designed for - depending on your viewpoint :) an optical interface for digital systems. Most of the hard work at the moment is in working around the "limitations" of our visual pipeline. Rudimentary technology that does just this has been around for a while as assistive devices for blind people [0] albeit only rudimentary shapes and movement can be portrayed. I believe ultimately the most effective technology will be that which integrates directly with the visual cortex, which I read somewhere has neurons arranged somewhat isomorphically with the visual field [1] I think this should be sufficient to stimulate both higher cognitive and the more reflexive automatic visual systems [2] though IANAN and really haven't look at this area in depth for a number of years. To get into the realms of pure science fiction about it [3], this could even be done by way of the pineal gland, which has some optical features that are largely unused. Perhaps it was put there like that for a reason ... [0] http://www.fightingblindness.ie/cure/retinal-implant-technology/ http://www.fightingblindness.ie/cure/retinal-implant-technol... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinotopy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinotopy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-streams_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-streams_hypothesis [3] http://www.crystalinks.com/thirdeyepineal.html http://www.crystalinks.com/thirdeyepineal.html
- robryk 10y ago
  Such interfaces might be closer than you think. An interface that stimulated the processing layer that detects complete objects (e.g. bananas) was used in a research setting to provide vision to blind people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthesis#Dobelle_Eye https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthesis#Dobelle_Eye It had bad resolution, required those people to learn how to see using it, and had biological problems (wires exiting the skull); all these do not seem to be fundamental problems, but ones that require incremental development.
  - ricksplat 10y ago
    I think transcranial stimulation could be an interesting possibility for exploration. Currently crude therapeutic devices if TMS could be more finely targeted you might be able to get around the "wiring" problems. I think as you mention humans learning to "see" might be a part of the solution too - meeting the machine half way - as it were
Mahn 10y ago
Sadly we are still very far away from understanding the human brain enough to be able to connect and communicate with it directly, so while that would be great, in the next 20 years it is more feasible that we'll just keep polishing the existing idea of screens in front of your eyes.
runeks 10y ago
Why do you think the human brain would be useful for rendering? The brain processes input from the eyes, it doesn't render anything. The scene of reality is already rendered, we only need to look at it to experience it. VR requires building and rendering a whole new reality; the brain has evolved to experience an existing one.
- rl3 10y ago
  >The brain processes input from the eyes, it doesn't render anything. The scene of reality is already rendered, we only need to look at it to experience it. What about dreams?
Pica_soO 10y ago
That approach is flawed. What if the imagery to "draw" something is not preexisting. If somebody had not seen alien, he could not envision such a scenario equally vivid.

by rl3 10y ago

richmarr 10y ago

Agreed, considering the amount of processing and information loss that happens in the optic nerve (in people with healthy vision) you could save yourself a lot of processing, and get a higher fidelity result (potentially indistinguishable from reality).

visarga 10y ago
If I can tap into the brain, I'd make it like in Matrix, to be able to upload skills and connect minds together wit AI.
ricksplat 10y ago
I expect it would be some kind of a merge of the two (without severing the optic nerve that is) - neurons work by accumulation so you would effectively have the two realities summed - which would be neat for augmented reality. Two fully immerse you could close your eyes or put on dark glasses. A friend told me this is how visual hallucinations on LSD work ...

ricksplat 10y ago

Something like this would be the key breakthrough. For all all their versatility the human eyes have not evolved to be (have not been designed for - depending on your viewpoint :) an optical interface for digital systems. Most of the hard work at the moment is in working around the "limitations" of our visual pipeline. Rudimentary technology that does just this has been around for a while as assistive devices for blind people [0] albeit only rudimentary shapes and movement can be portrayed. I believe ultimately the most effective technology will be that which integrates directly with the visual cortex, which I read somewhere has neurons arranged somewhat isomorphically with the visual field [1] I think this should be sufficient to stimulate both higher cognitive and the more reflexive automatic visual systems [2] though IANAN and really haven't look at this area in depth for a number of years. To get into the realms of pure science fiction about it [3], this could even be done by way of the pineal gland, which has some optical features that are largely unused. Perhaps it was put there like that for a reason ... [0] http://www.fightingblindness.ie/cure/retinal-implant-technology/ http://www.fightingblindness.ie/cure/retinal-implant-technol... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinotopy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinotopy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-streams_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-streams_hypothesis [3] http://www.crystalinks.com/thirdeyepineal.html http://www.crystalinks.com/thirdeyepineal.html

robryk 10y ago
Such interfaces might be closer than you think. An interface that stimulated the processing layer that detects complete objects (e.g. bananas) was used in a research setting to provide vision to blind people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthesis#Dobelle_Eye https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthesis#Dobelle_Eye It had bad resolution, required those people to learn how to see using it, and had biological problems (wires exiting the skull); all these do not seem to be fundamental problems, but ones that require incremental development.
- ricksplat 10y ago
  I think transcranial stimulation could be an interesting possibility for exploration. Currently crude therapeutic devices if TMS could be more finely targeted you might be able to get around the "wiring" problems. I think as you mention humans learning to "see" might be a part of the solution too - meeting the machine half way - as it were

Mahn 10y ago

Sadly we are still very far away from understanding the human brain enough to be able to connect and communicate with it directly, so while that would be great, in the next 20 years it is more feasible that we'll just keep polishing the existing idea of screens in front of your eyes.

runeks 10y ago

Why do you think the human brain would be useful for rendering? The brain processes input from the eyes, it doesn't render anything. The scene of reality is already rendered, we only need to look at it to experience it. VR requires building and rendering a whole new reality; the brain has evolved to experience an existing one.

rl3 10y ago
>The brain processes input from the eyes, it doesn't render anything. The scene of reality is already rendered, we only need to look at it to experience it. What about dreams?

Pica_soO 10y ago

That approach is flawed. What if the imagery to "draw" something is not preexisting. If somebody had not seen alien, he could not envision such a scenario equally vivid.