10 ms·

Scientists Can Read a Bird’s Brain and Predict Its Next Song

89 points by aq3cn 9y ago

stupidcomments 9y ago
Please, if you are going to build this kind of stuff (and I believe it's probably not 'that' hard), take an ethics course or two (don't take this literally, I just mean think about it). Unless you want to get a nasty label by your peers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCU_Grey_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCU_Grey_Area
conqrr 9y ago
Can't wait for the day when BMI + VRD is advanced enough to not need a phone anymore. It would be like having a computer inside you.
- leereeves 9y ago
  That's only exciting if it's secure, private, and completely under your control. If not, it's terrifying.
  - dkersten 9y ago
    Given the frequency and severity of both security incidents and privacy-related issues in recent history, I would be pretty confident in betting that no technology is ever fully “secure, private and completely under your control”. At the very least, you know that the fancy new brainPhone will load tons of third party analytics JavaScript...
- csomar 9y ago
  Wouldn't that make you obsolete?
osrec 9y ago
Extrapolating this to humans is scary (given the mental privacy we are used to), but perhaps inevitable. In some sense, the security of our thoughts is only through obscurity, and that may make them intrinsically insecure. Untangling that obscurity may be some years away, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility. I wonder if the brain has evolved some internal methods of encryption - I would imagine not, as I can not think of a solid evolutionary advantage for brain based encryption. A very interesting topic, and I can't quite decide if a mind-machine interface would end up having a net positive or negative effect on our society...
- mattkrause 9y ago
  Eh, the near-term applications aren't too scary. They're recording from HVC, an area of the bird brain that does that does motor planning. I think it'd be fair to say that HVC sits between the bird's intention to sing and the actual singing actions. It's really impressive that they can decode enough to reproduce the song, but you could also access the song by....letting the bird sing it a fraction of a second later :-)
  - everdev 9y ago
    Yes, but I think the scary implication is being able to detect the song and then change it before it happens.
  - jlkj8234hbn 9y ago
    What you described sounds susceptible to MITM attacks, no? Change or short-circuit just enough right before the action to cause a blip in hand-eye coordination, causing the target to topple down the stairs, or "slash wrist" instead of "cut carrot"?
- trophycase 9y ago
  It's not inevitable unless people believe it. Seriously I don't know when people collectively lost the will to actually trying and dictate the rules of our society
  - zaptheimpaler 9y ago
    Agreed. I think its because since the scientific revolution we got the idea that science/technological progress will gradually cure all of humanities problems. Its accepted as fact by many that capitalism + science will solve every problem under the sun without any intervention on our part.. even though its obvious the market does not always serve society, and that many societal problems are far outside the realms of markets.
  - jonknee 9y ago
    When has legislation worked to prevent technology? Just look at North Korea and see how well that's working.
mattkrause 9y ago
Here's a link to the actual manuscript, instead of a strange summary that somehow drags Elon Musk into this: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/27/193987 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/27/193987
dh5 9y ago
The male zebra finch, like many other songbirds, purposely attempts to sing the same song over and over without any variation, including in pitch and volume. This is because singing is primarily a courtship ritual, and females are attracted to high song stereotypy in males. A random song can be selected out of the hundreds sung daily and 80 to 90 percent of the other songs will be pretty much exactly the same. While the research is of course impressive, it's a bit premature to extrapolate it to humans, or any other animal.
- iak8god 9y ago
  I'd love to see this tried on Mockingbirds, which mimic other bird songs but also a huge variety of sounds. The ones in my neighborhood even do car alarms, and rapidly cycle through a whole range of noises at the top of their little lungs. The repertoire seems to vary a lot from one bird to the next, I but was never even able to pick out a pattern for the one guy whose venue of choice every night all spring long this year was a bush right outside my bedroom window.
- dTal 9y ago
  Ah, that does put it into perspective a bit. A sibling comment mentions trying it on mockingbirds; how about blackbirds, whose song never repeats (although it does show structure and they occasionally mimic)?
ilzmastr 9y ago
"We implanted 16/32 site Si-probes in male, adult zebra finches and recorded simultaneously their song and neural activity in HVC; then we used these data to train a long-short-term memory network (LSTM 5) to translate neural activity directly onto song. The goal of the network is to predict the spectral components of the song at a time bin ti, given the values of neural activity features over previous time bins"
- amelius 9y ago
  I wonder how much better the network performs than a network based on: previous songs, time of day, motility, temperature.
blumomo 9y ago
Maybe it's time to start encrypting our thoughts as it's being applied all over the internet ;p
armada651 9y ago
Next step: Editing the playlist
- unkown-unknowns 9y ago
  Then make the bird sing the complete soundtrack of Doom.
jlebrech 9y ago
"help me"

89 points by aq3cn 9y ago

Please, if you are going to build this kind of stuff (and I believe it's probably not 'that' hard), take an ethics course or two (don't take this literally, I just mean think about it). Unless you want to get a nasty label by your peers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCU_Grey_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCU_Grey_Area

conqrr 9y ago

Can't wait for the day when BMI + VRD is advanced enough to not need a phone anymore. It would be like having a computer inside you.

leereeves 9y ago
That's only exciting if it's secure, private, and completely under your control. If not, it's terrifying.
- dkersten 9y ago
  Given the frequency and severity of both security incidents and privacy-related issues in recent history, I would be pretty confident in betting that no technology is ever fully “secure, private and completely under your control”. At the very least, you know that the fancy new brainPhone will load tons of third party analytics JavaScript...
csomar 9y ago
Wouldn't that make you obsolete?

osrec 9y ago

Extrapolating this to humans is scary (given the mental privacy we are used to), but perhaps inevitable. In some sense, the security of our thoughts is only through obscurity, and that may make them intrinsically insecure. Untangling that obscurity may be some years away, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility. I wonder if the brain has evolved some internal methods of encryption - I would imagine not, as I can not think of a solid evolutionary advantage for brain based encryption. A very interesting topic, and I can't quite decide if a mind-machine interface would end up having a net positive or negative effect on our society...

mattkrause 9y ago
Eh, the near-term applications aren't too scary. They're recording from HVC, an area of the bird brain that does that does motor planning. I think it'd be fair to say that HVC sits between the bird's intention to sing and the actual singing actions. It's really impressive that they can decode enough to reproduce the song, but you could also access the song by....letting the bird sing it a fraction of a second later :-)
- everdev 9y ago
  Yes, but I think the scary implication is being able to detect the song and then change it before it happens.
- jlkj8234hbn 9y ago
  What you described sounds susceptible to MITM attacks, no? Change or short-circuit just enough right before the action to cause a blip in hand-eye coordination, causing the target to topple down the stairs, or "slash wrist" instead of "cut carrot"?
trophycase 9y ago
It's not inevitable unless people believe it. Seriously I don't know when people collectively lost the will to actually trying and dictate the rules of our society
- zaptheimpaler 9y ago
  Agreed. I think its because since the scientific revolution we got the idea that science/technological progress will gradually cure all of humanities problems. Its accepted as fact by many that capitalism + science will solve every problem under the sun without any intervention on our part.. even though its obvious the market does not always serve society, and that many societal problems are far outside the realms of markets.
- jonknee 9y ago
  When has legislation worked to prevent technology? Just look at North Korea and see how well that's working.

mattkrause 9y ago

Here's a link to the actual manuscript, instead of a strange summary that somehow drags Elon Musk into this: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/27/193987 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/27/193987

dh5 9y ago

The male zebra finch, like many other songbirds, purposely attempts to sing the same song over and over without any variation, including in pitch and volume. This is because singing is primarily a courtship ritual, and females are attracted to high song stereotypy in males. A random song can be selected out of the hundreds sung daily and 80 to 90 percent of the other songs will be pretty much exactly the same. While the research is of course impressive, it's a bit premature to extrapolate it to humans, or any other animal.

iak8god 9y ago
I'd love to see this tried on Mockingbirds, which mimic other bird songs but also a huge variety of sounds. The ones in my neighborhood even do car alarms, and rapidly cycle through a whole range of noises at the top of their little lungs. The repertoire seems to vary a lot from one bird to the next, I but was never even able to pick out a pattern for the one guy whose venue of choice every night all spring long this year was a bush right outside my bedroom window.
dTal 9y ago
Ah, that does put it into perspective a bit. A sibling comment mentions trying it on mockingbirds; how about blackbirds, whose song never repeats (although it does show structure and they occasionally mimic)?

ilzmastr 9y ago

"We implanted 16/32 site Si-probes in male, adult zebra finches and recorded simultaneously their song and neural activity in HVC; then we used these data to train a long-short-term memory network (LSTM 5) to translate neural activity directly onto song. The goal of the network is to predict the spectral components of the song at a time bin ti, given the values of neural activity features over previous time bins"

amelius 9y ago
I wonder how much better the network performs than a network based on: previous songs, time of day, motility, temperature.

blumomo 9y ago

Maybe it's time to start encrypting our thoughts as it's being applied all over the internet ;p

armada651 9y ago

Next step: Editing the playlist

unkown-unknowns 9y ago
Then make the bird sing the complete soundtrack of Doom.

jlebrech 9y ago

"help me"