7 ms·
Turning brain signals into useful information
- dewiz 9y agoI hope that before the end of my career I get to write code with just my thoughts. Add a method here, a loop there, refactor this block out with, etc.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoIt wouldn't be faster: coding is not input constrained, but thinking constrained. So just being able to connect your thoughts to the input method wouldn't change much, instead the computer really needs to augment those thoughts instead. The trick would be using this tech to create a much tighter feedback loop with the computer, but just having it isn't sufficient.
- justinpombrio 9y ago> It wouldn't be faster: coding is not input constrained, but thinking constrained. Well, it depends on how bad your RSI is. For some people it is input constrained.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoSure, but then this becomes niche to RSI sufferers and other people who can't type easily like voice input.
- keenmaster 9y agoSure, but perhaps the reduced mental load from having your thoughts instantaneously actualize would free up capacity for a higher quantity and quality of ideas. The somewhat faster feedback loop should also improve reward seeking behavior.
- drb91 9y agoI disagree. Many times coding is input constrained—common refactoring patterns are one obvious example. You enter a pattern of tight input-evaluate-respond-repeat loops where you evaluate the refactoring change at every location where the text would also change. Very few problems worth solving can be solved without a better editor than pen and paper, and thought controlled ast aware editors are the logical conclusion of that. Hard problems would not be better aided by better input. In my experience, very few money making products deal with hard problems, just boring problems.
- booleandilemma 9y agoI’d much rather type out a program than write it by hand with a pen and paper though. “Thinking it” might be the next logical step.
- simias 9y agoMy main problem with coding is not the input, it's the visual feedback. I hope that before the end of my career I get to write code which is not just a long series of ASCII text files.
- pokemongoaway 9y agoYa most people's brain signals contain nothing of value ;P
- tabeth 9y agoI'm not sure how this would work in practice. Thoughts are incredibly noisy. Any mechanism that could filter out the noise basically can decipher intent. I'd argue intent deciphering is the actual problem trying to be solved by these devices (e.g. I wish I didn't have to type. I wish the computer just knew what I wanted to type, not that I wish the computer simply typed out what I thought). Solutions like "oh, just keep on thinking of the same thing over and over again" is highly error prone and will definitely be slower than typing. Say you wanted to type "[the quick brown brown quick the quick brown quick the brown]" a strategy of repeatedly thinking of the phrase to be typed will be error prone, regardless of any ML techniques you use, simply because it cannot be known in advance what you wanted to type unless you knew the intent. Perhaps it'll pick it up as "the quick brown", or "quick brown the", and so forth. --- Another problem can be illustrated below: Say you had your brain device on now. You're ready to reply to this. Horse poop. Oh, I guess you read the above and now have "horse poop" typed. Well, you can just remove that --- "add comment" "submit" Too late.
- Vanit 9y agoI think all you've illustrated is how not to design for brains :) Why would you need to even think in terms of inputs or buttons? Why even use words when you could post or consume thoughts directly?
- YaxelPerez 9y agoHorse poop. Presumably a device like that would use some heuristics to guess the correct words, like your phone's autocorrect.
- omeid2 9y agoI don't disagree with your analysis but I think you're making the assumption that brain signals. So instead of "that is stupid", "add comment", "you're wrong on the internet", "submit", I think we could be able to have more information about the context of the words: (:commentary "that is stupid") (:request-interaction "add comment) ; from which the AI figures out it is a button on the screen (:request-input "You're wrong on the internet") (:request-interaction "submit) In essence, maybe it is possible to detect beyond just words and understand the context, just from the signals too.
- vadimberman 9y agoThe big question for me at least is, are these signals uniform or have some kind of similarities for specific concepts or actions from person to person? If every brain has its own language, the effort is magnitude higher.
- egocodedinsol 9y agoSome aspects of the signals are individual-dependent, some are consistent across individuals (for some definition of individual-dependent and consistent). I know that's vague, but it's accurate.
- vadimberman 9y agoVery interesting. Are any of these consistent aspects associated with the type of action or thought?
- tvural 9y agoI predict that BMIs are going to suffer from the same problem as AI, where the applications that are working in the short-term get very overestimated because they are confused with the long-term where you create a singularity. If you had a BMI that could read/write the entire brain on neuron-level resolution, you could create computer back-ups of people, and if hardware were fast enough you could create superhuman intelligence. If you just have cochlear implants and prosthetics, the best case is a world where nobody is impaired, which is good, but still very far from a singularity. The Neuralink version is that if you can do telepathy, that might be valuable in some situations, but it will probably just be like faster email until the computers become smarter than us.
- Amelia45 9y agoI get paid over $90 per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I'd be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless. Heres what I've been doing, °°°°°°http://www.bosscyber.com http://www.bosscyber.com
- starpilot 9y agoI don't think I've ever used my brain signals in a useful way, so this is a step in the right direction.
- tempodox 9y agoIt's not just you. That title implies that brain signals per se aren't “useful information” to begin with. I wonder how any of us are able to read that headline at all.
- egocodedinsol 9y agoFor a good review of the the brain learning to use BMI's, see: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959438817301642 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095943881...
- stevenhuang 9y agoBack when I had to write a lot for my courses, I was wondering the same about the usefulness of EEGs [1]. At times all I wanted was to lie on my bed, point a projector to the ceiling, and write. Alas the tech/understanding of neuroscience is just not here yet, but maybe it would be in a few decades? There's a lot more in the way of interesting discussion in the link if you would like to read more. [1]: https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/9594/are-there-any-eeg-procedures-currently-available-in-development-that-can-formula https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/9594/are-ther...
- hackcasual 9y agoEEGs (at least non surgical ones) provide only the highest level information about what's going on inside of brains. It's a bit like looking at a city as you're flying 10,000 feet above it. You can figure out when it's rush hour, but you're not going to be able to tell what the most popular restaurant is. The most sophisticated EEG systems actually train your brain to use the EEG, no the other way around.
- anonfunction 9y agoI once met an ex-apple engineer who created a hat that would read your thoughts and play the song you were thinking about. It only worked for certain people and had a limited playlist to choose from but it was really cool watching your "brainwaves" on a screen and then thinking "Daft Punk Get Lucky" and having it play on the speakers.
- lsseckman 9y agohey do you have any more info about this? have been wanting to do something similar.
- senatorobama 9y agoUhh how is that possible.
- mizzao 9y agoI work at CTRL-labs, a startup focused on electromyography (EMG) based control devices. This article has a bit more technical detail about what we do: https://www.wired.com/story/brain-machine-interface-isnt-sci-fi-anymore/ https://www.wired.com/story/brain-machine-interface-isnt-sci... EEG--reading signals from the brain--is pretty hard. But EMG--capturing muscle contractions in the arm--produces relatively much cleaner data. This can then be fed into a variety of machine learning algorithms to map high-fidelity time series data to discrete signals or continuous gestures for which we have appropriate training data. Want to find more? Come visit our offices in NYC!
- frisco 9y agoIf you find this topic interesting, Neuralink is hiring. We’re looking for a lot of different backgrounds across applied physics, biomedical engineering, software and hardware. Though Neuralink sounds cool - I know many people are skeptical - the reality is even cooler. Especially if you’re great at firmware, robotics control software, or computer vision get in touch! Either through the links on the website, or there’s an email in my HN profile.
- monocasa 9y agoRemote OK?
- frisco 9y agoDepends but probably not. Basically everything we do involves hardware one way or another so difficult to do remotely :(
- sandinmytea 9y agoAre you interested in taking in a prodigal son? If you are willing to take on a generalist with unlikely skills please email drawnalong@gmail.com.
- Santosh83 9y agoAre we witnessing the very first steps on the long road to complete erosion of the privacy of our thoughts, the last remaining facet of privacy?
- westmeal 9y agoYup. I hope you're prepared to live in the woods my friend.
- pwaai 9y agoWhat if you could detect the vocalization somehow instead of relying on a very noisy data source (brain signals), which I see becoming a roadblock...subvocalization would be like being able to chat without typing...you would still be interacting with a UI that will make sure you dont give out your bank card number etc. Maybe even hold up your phone and it will beam some sort of ultrasound or laser to detect tiny movements in the larynx (I have no idea what I'm talking about) but seems like there's patent in the works by physically attaching sensors... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyN4ViZ21N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyN4ViZ21N0
- vt100 9y agoNow if we could turn useful information into brain signals...
- lamename 9y agoThis is one of the first broad-audience articles I've seen that actually acknowledges neuronal firing rates as an important practical consideration. Usually it's simplified in explanations as "binary", on or off. This isn't wrong for any instant in time (and is sometimes good enough for conceptual models), but in reality the firing rate varies as a function of the stimulus. Analog, if you like...