8 ms·

IBM: Mind reading is less than five years away. For real.

124 points by azazo 15y ago

farico 15y ago
"you can control the cursor on a computer screen just by thinking about where you want to move it." Imagine writing code by thinking only?
JoeAltmaier 15y ago
A little fanciful I think. The stuff about generating your own energy through captured kinetic energy is silly. My house has a 20KW feed - thats about 27 horsepower. On my bike I produce a tiny fraction of a horsepower. Its many orders of magnitude off.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- cullenking 15y ago
  You definitely produce more than a tiny fraction of a horsepower :) I have a watt meter on my bicycle, and I can easily average 250 watts for an hour ride. Well, easily meaning sweating profusely and worked at the end of it, but still, that's 1/3rd of a horsepower for an hour. I can put out 1 horsepower for a few seconds, and I am not a great cyclist...
  - JoeAltmaier 15y ago
    Ok, YOU produce more than a tiny fraction. I'm 52 and out of shape. I can ride 50 miles if you give me all day, but no way am I putting out more than 1/10 of a horsepower. And NO WAY am I putting a generator on my bike while I'm riding it!
    - zifot 15y ago
      Yeah, but isn't it that the premise of the article is that you would combine energy from various multiple sources like, I don't know, 10-30 per house? Water flowing in pipes, generated heat, gathered kinetic energy? It would be interesting to see some calculations how much could be gained that way.
    - cullenking 15y ago
      I think you'd surprise yourself :) you could easily peak 250 without much issue, and could sustain 125 without too much of a problem.
- dholowiski 15y ago
  Plus, much of the 'waste heat' produced in my house (computer, bike, cooking) is released into my house, not lost... the only one really is the heat lost from water down the drain.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- tjmc 15y ago
  Indeed - it's just weird that they're focusing on capturing low grade kinetic energy right when photovoltaic solar is at the tipping point of beating grid power with under a 5 year payback period. Expect (in sunny climates) to see a switch to solar panels on the level that we saw from CRTs to flat panels a few years back. But the really interesting thing in energy in the next 5 years is going to be price drops in storage. We could conceivably see the first lithium-air batteries for cars, which will finally get costs down to within striking distance of petrol. I also suspect we'll start seeing widespread grid storage installations - possibly using sodium-sulphur batteries to absorb and redistribute inputs from distributed renewable sources. The 2-way grid is the next big story in energy.
kingkawn 15y ago
i am setting an alert in my calender 5 years from now with the text of this article and the author's email address.
brendn 15y ago
Can someone change this to link to the actual IBM blog entry [1] instead of the CNET fluff piece? [1] http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2011/12/the-next-5-in-5-our-forecast-of-five-innovations-that-will-alter-the-landscape-within-five-years.html http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2011/12/the-next-5-in-5-our-f...
catshirt 15y ago
probably depends on your definition of "mind reading", but sounds like it warrants a longbet.
blhack 15y ago
Linkbaity headline, there. "Mind reading" already exists kindof sortof maybe good enough to cnet to write an article about. This is at the top of my Christmas list: http://emotiv.com/ http://emotiv.com/ In fact, here is a comparison of consumer Brain Computer Interfaces: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_consumer_brain%E2%80%93computer_interfaces http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_consumer_brain%E2...
- dkersten 15y ago
  One of my best friends just finished his phd in brain computer interfaces and "mind reading" totally already exists (for certain very specific definitions of "mind reading").
  - cjfont 15y ago
    Most likely not same definitions that come to someone's mind when they read it within a sensational headline such as this one.
    - dkersten 15y ago
      Agreed, definitely a much stricter definition.
- bchjam 15y ago
  definitely a sensationalist headline but still a very interesting bit of tech to watch evolve. the first thing I ever saw along these lines: recreating a cat's vision from brain sensors (1999) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/471786.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/471786.stm
- bgalbraith 15y ago
  As a current PhD student working in this area, I caution you about getting too excited about the Emotiv EPOC. We've got one in the lab we've started to work with as a potential low-cost EEG system. The out-of-the-box software is kinda hokey, so you may end up with an expensive novelty you use once or twice. On the technical side, it does seem to be the best current option for consumer EEG, though most of these devices are actually strongly influenced by, if not heavily reliant on, facial muscle movements.
tree_of_item 15y ago
"ATM machine" in an IBM video? I'm slightly disappointed.
- spodek 15y ago
  I prefer to say "automatic ATM machine" myself so nobody misunderstands me.
- derekp7 15y ago
  Would you rather them call it an AT machine? I guess it could be "@machine" in that case. Point being -- if you can't choose which to leave out, then you have only half redundancy -- which is acceptable, if not optimal.
  - tree_of_item 15y ago
    What's wrong with "ATM"?
    - rimantas 15y ago
      It does not work without PIN number :(
zyb09 15y ago
Well I guess you could link brain patterns to thoughts, but how do you gonna read them without a 5 ton MRI machine?
- dholowiski 15y ago
  Who's to say a MRI machine has to weigh 5 tons 5 years from now? I imagine people once said "Sure it's great to store your recipes in a computer, but who wants to do that on a room sized computer?"
  - aheilbut 15y ago
    Gauss and Maxwell say.
    - jacquesm 15y ago
      They do and they don't. Yes, it is true that MRI machines weigh 5 tons because of the magnetic fields generated and the amount of hardware required to constrain those fields. But you could imagine an MRI machine that works with lower strength fields and better sensor technology. Imagining one is a far cry from being able to build one though and I don't see this happening in the near future (if at all). I think this prediction (like most of IBM's predictions about the future) is strong on marketing and very weak on science.
narrator 15y ago
The "No Passwords" prediction is overlooking a big stumbling block: biometric data is not that secret and cannot be changed once intercepted. You might as well just walk up to an ATM, and speak your social security number. So the ATM is secure, but it's just another trusted client with all its associated problems. The only thing biometric data is really good for is keeping track of people when they don't want to be tracked or want to hide their identity. For example, it would be a useful means of tracking and identifiying people in a prison or a border checkpoint.
moocow01 15y ago
I would say rather the capability may be 5 years away. Whether consumers want it - I'm skeptical. I knew someone who for reasons I won't go into had a computer that they had to control with their eyes (basically has a webcam that tracks the eyes and moves the cursor and then clicks when you wink). It made me realize the further integration of computing control and a human's anatomy/biology can create more problems because there is a lack of a filtering mechanism. When you type on a computer you choose what your computer does by making deliberate actions rather than your computer monitoring you and interpreting your actions. The problem with the latter is there are many things you do that does not involve your computer... pick up the phone, throw a ball for your dog, talk to a coworker, etc. When your computer is monitoring you for input it never knows when the action is for it and when it is not. So in the case of the computers based on eye control, the experience is very problematic when you have to look somewhere else for any reason. Now taking it a step further I can't even imagine how out of control a computer would be based on someone's mind. Our minds randomly fire off thoughts non-stop - its actually incredibly hard to concentrate on one deliberate thing for a long time (if you've ever tried meditation you realize this very quickly). How a computer could filter actions for it and actions that are just the randomness of the brain seems like it would be incredibly difficult in that there really isn't a definitive line there at all.
- mikecsh 15y ago
  You seem to be describing a problem that needs to be solved rather than a situation meaning that there is anything wrong with the technology. I used to have speech control turned on on my computer - you can set it to listen to everything which is basically the situation you describe with all its problems. Alternatively you can ask for it to listen for a keyword or only to listen when you press a key. I imagine similar solutions will present themselves for brain-computer interfaces.
  - moocow01 15y ago
    I think there is some truth to that but I'd say the one difference between speech recognition and brain recognition is that speech is a voluntary action you control, while your thoughts have a largely involuntary component to it. Involuntary meaning when someone says "an idea just popped into my head" - the idea seemingly was not an action deliberately triggered. Think if while you were "mind typing" an email and suddenly the thought "god I hate my boss" popped into your head. If the filtering mechanism of the computer was poor, your computer might, assuming it was being helpful, shoot off an email to your boss saying "god I hate you". I guess what I'm saying is the way by which you could filter your own thoughts to be interpreted by your computer or not seems like an incredibly difficult proposition.
pmuhar 15y ago
I dont see this happening, or being very accurate if it does. I dont know about you guys, but my mind thinks about something new every few seconds, and one tiny piece of a thought will turn into a whole new though. Its all very random and for a computer to be able to understand and filter that seems a little too sci-fi.
cjfont 15y ago
Going down the list of 5, for each one I was thinking to myself, "Yeah right", then going through the explanations I was thinking, "Oh, well if that is what you mean by that, sure why not".
brown9-2 15y ago
I think it says something about this "prediction" that most of the text on the IBM page about it (http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2011/12/the-next-5-in-5-mind-reading-is-no-longer-science-fiction.html http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2011/12/the-next-5-in-5-mind-...) is: Vote for this as the coolest IBM 5 in 5 prediction by clicking the “Like” button below. Join the Twitter conversation at #IBM5in5
6ren 15y ago
In a sense, speech is mind-reading: you can have in your mind what the writer had in their's. This isn't just sophistry, but shows there are two problems, 1. to transmit information into and out of a mind; 2. to transform the information into a form that can be understood by another. A common language if you will. This has analogues in relational databases, where the internal physical storage representation is transformed into a logical representation of relations, from which yet other relations may be transformed; and in integrating heterogeneous web services, where the particular XML or JSON format is the common language and the classes of the programs at the ends are the representation within each mind. There's no reason to think that the internal representation within each of our minds is terribly similar. It will have some common characteristics, but will likely differ as much as different human languages - or as much as other parts of ourselves, such as our fingerprints. Otherwise, everyone would communicate with that, instead of inventing common languages.
- eurleif 15y ago
  >Otherwise, everyone would communicate with that, instead of inventing common languages. How would we communicate with it? By directly linking our brains together? I don't see why it would have a direct translation into sounds.
  - 6ren 15y ago
    You're right, that particular sentence is unnecessary to my argument and weakens it.
lars 15y ago
I've recently completed a masters thesis on EEG based mind reading, and I think I have a fairly good grasp on the state of the art in this field. I also have a copy of Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near by my bed, and I'm usually strongly optimistic about technology. But if IBM are talking about EEG based technology here, I would have to bet that they are flat out wrong on this one. I'll explain why. Something like moving a cursor around by thinking about it, or thinking about making a call and having it happened requires a hell of a lot of bits of information to be produced by the brain computer interface. With the current state of the art we can distinguish between something like 2-6 classes of thoughts sort-of reliably, and even then it's typically about thinking of particular movements, not "call mom". Importantly, what most people look for in the signal (the feature in machine learning terms) are changes in signal variance. And there are methods to detect these changes that are in some sense mathematically optimal (which is to say they can be still be improved a little bit, but there won't be any revolutionary new discoveries.) There may be other features to look for, but we wont be getting much better at detecting changes in signal variance. Some methods can report results like a 94% accuracy over a binary classification problem. Such a result may seem "close to perfect", but it is averaged over several subjects, and likely varies between for example 100% and 70%. For the people with 70% accuracy, the distinguishing features of their signals are hidden for various reasons. And this is for getting one bit of information out of the device. Seems like such a device would need to work for everyone to be commercially successful. In computer vision we have our own brains to prove that the problems can be solved. For EEG based brain computer interfaces, such proofs don't exist. There are certain things you probably can't detect from an EEG signal, meaning the distinguishing information probably isn't there at all. I'm easily willing to bet IBM money that who I would like to call can not be inferred from the electrical activity on my scalp. (Seriously IBM, let's go on longbets.org and do this.)
- Steko 15y ago
  "who I would like to call can not be inferred from the electrical activity on my scalp" If I read the blog post correctly the claim is not passive mind reading. The claim is that the user has some training to issue the sorts of thought commands that can be reliably picked up. If I think "call mom" it doesn't do anything. But if I think "Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right" maybe it can interpret that correctly as my preassigned shorthand for "call mom".
figital 15y ago
"Neurofeedback" already exists it's just still under the radar (it's like teaching yourself to roll your tongue). I've been trying to pull some demos together to demonstrate that the web browser is the place this will take off: http://vimeo.com/32059038 http://vimeo.com/32059038 (sorry I haven't pushed more of this extra-rough demo code yet). Consider using something like the wireless PendantEEG if you're going to be doing your own development OR be prepared to pay excessive licensing fees required from a few of the vendors mentioned here. If you are interested in helping develop this stuff mentioned in that video (and don't mind springing for some reasonbly cheap hardware) please ping me. I'd also like to plan a MindHead hackathon/mini-conference this spring in Boston (my personal interests are improving attention and relaxation, peak perfomance, and BCI).
lurchpop 15y ago
Massively unsettling coming from the company who helped the nazis streamline their attempts at genocide.
ratsbane 15y ago
I'm guessing that when mind reading comes it will be more more of a machine learning exercise based on analysis of speech, vocal inflections, visible features, and previous actions than a portable EKG machine with wires on the scalp. See Poe's detective Auguste Dupin, in, for example, "Murders in the Rue Morgue."
mw63214 15y ago
Slightly off-topic, but I've always thought that the first wave of HCI to hit the market and gain traction would be the integration of Affective sensing tech. products and API's into popular areas like music, social networks, and health care. I've always thought this would bring down the cost, increase investment in the HCI/BCI space, and speed up the adoption rates and lead to a much faster improvement of HCI technologies.
bgalbraith 15y ago
When talking about EEG-based "mind reading", there are three primary methods currently under study (when looking at locked-in patients at least): 1) P300 - This refers to a predictable change in the EEG signal that happens around 300 milliseconds after something you were expecting happens. For example, if I am looking for a particular letter to flash amongst a grid of letters all randomly flashing, a P300 will be triggered when the letter I want flashes. 2) SSVEP - This stands for steady state visually evoked potential. This approach uses EEG signals recorded from over the visual cortex, which responds to constantly flickering stimuli. Given a few seconds, the power of the frequency of the attended stimulus increases in the EEG, which can then be detected and used to make a decision. 3) SMR - This stands for sensorimotor rhythms, and is an approach that looks for changes in EEG activity over the motor cortex. Successful approaches have been able to identify when you imagine clenching your left or right fists, or pushing down on your foot. Unlike the other two, this does not require external stimuli. SMR is the most like what we consider mind reading, as the user is initiating the signal while the other two infer what a person is looking at. It is limited to only 2-3 degrees of freedom at the moment, however, and is the hardest signal to work with. It is susceptible to external factors such as the current environment and mental state, and not everyone seems to be able to generate the needed signals. SSVEP, while lacking the wow factor of SMR, is much easier to work with and is a much more stable signal. Disclosure: I work in this area. Here's a flashy NSF video highlighting our lab: http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/brainmachine.jsp http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/brain...
brianwillis 15y ago
Previous "five in five" predictions from IBM can be found here: http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibm_predictions_for_future/examples/index.html http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibm_predictions_for_f...
- colton36 15y ago
  So their 5 year prediction from 2006 fell completely on its face.
  - cbr 15y ago
    Including: "Our mobile phones will start to read our minds"
eykanal 15y ago
lars's comment (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3371968 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3371968) is right on target. I recently finished my PhD in biomedical engineering, and the hot field that everyone wants to go into is what we're calling BMI - Brain-Machine Interfaces. The trick is, there are very few types of signals than can be reliably determined from these brain-signal reading devices. Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of tasks that can be easily accomplished; anything involving moving limbs, or simple, low degree of freedom tasks (like moving a computer cursor). After months and months of training, a person can be trained to manipulate numerous degrees with pretty good reliability (i.e., move a robotic arm, AND control the mechanical pincer at the end), but this type of work doesn't generalize to other types of thought. We're nowhere near being able to extract sentences or words or being able to determine what complex scene is being viewed simply using brain activity patterns.
technology 15y ago
George orwell's vision from the book 1984 vision is becoming true
mkramlich 15y ago
The only one who can tell me something is N years away is someone who just stepped out of a time machine. I see no time machine, I pipe to dev null.
- unwind 15y ago
  You cannot pipe to dev null, since it's a device, not a process. So, to summarize in shell-like syntax, you can redirect your output to /dev/null, as in $ me > /dev/null but you can't sensibly use a pipe like so: $ me | /dev/null This has been a message from your friendly neighborhood Unix fundamentalism/literalism chapter.
  - mkramlich 15y ago
    but you had no problem with the time machine. only on HN.
  - cbr 15y ago
    $ sudo cp /bin/cat /dev/null $ echo test | /dev/null test (this doesn't actually work)
benaston 15y ago
IBM constantly seems to release press releases about technology it hasn't yet developed to production quality. Said technology always vanishes without trace (as far as I can recall.) I'm not holding my breath on this one.
overgard 15y ago
The great thing about bold predictions is nobody ever remembers them if you're wrong, but you look like a genius if you're right.
itmag 15y ago
Does anyone ever feel that neuroscience is getting more and more lovecraftian and challenging basic assumptions of what it means to be human? It sometimes feels like we're at a point in history where all the basic tenets of existence are being torn down by science and replaced with... nothing. Am I the only one who gets existential crisises from this kind of stuff? :p It doesn't help, of course, that I'm currently reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Against-Human-Race-Contrivance/dp/098242969X http://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Against-Human-Race-Contriva... The luddite in me wishes that science will never be able to fully pick apart the human psyche. Here's to having an inscrutable ghost in the machine to keep us from being mere deterministic flesh-bots...
- wladimir 15y ago
  I wonder too... There have been other times in history that scientists had the idea that science was almost complete, that there were just a few things left to sort out and we'd understand it all (such as around 1900 with mathematics). We may think we are very near and then discover something new and then find out a lot of new questions around the mind and consciousness. I don't think we're quite there yet. However I'm sure "shallow AI" (and maybe "shallow mindreading") will become more and more important in the near future. Which is what IBM is focusing on. BTW: Thanks for the pointer. That book looks very interesting.
  - itmag 15y ago
    BTW: Thanks for the pointer. That book looks very interesting. I'm actually not so happy about posting that link. For me, it states things that I had already mostly figured out on my own previously. For others, it might zap a lot of Sanity Points. I would say Ligotti is a very unique writer, in that he's deeply immersed in existentialist philosophy, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, AND lovecraftian horror. It makes for a very... disturbing cocktail. Of course, everyone on HN is seemingly a Nietzschean overman who can take these kinds of things in stride. Me, not so much :p
- JoachimSchipper 15y ago
  I'm not sure who is right, but note that transhumanists have a very different view on such developments. Also, if the "basic tenets of existence" (whatever you consider those to be) can be torn down by looking at them critically, shouldn't they be? (Perhaps.)
silon3 15y ago
How soon will it reach the quantum level of "you can't measure without changing"?
mjwalshe 15y ago
Seeing as at least 2 of the 5 are to be blunt crap why are we even discussing this - this is as relistic as the fusion "to cheap to meter" stories they ran in the 50's FFS
bdg 15y ago
Thanks for the awesome example of putting one of paul graham's essays into action. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
roundsquare 15y ago
I was under the impression that we were very close to being able to move sensors with our minds. http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_brainwaves.html http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_br...

124 points by azazo 15y ago

"you can control the cursor on a computer screen just by thinking about where you want to move it." Imagine writing code by thinking only?

JoeAltmaier 15y ago

A little fanciful I think. The stuff about generating your own energy through captured kinetic energy is silly. My house has a 20KW feed - thats about 27 horsepower. On my bike I produce a tiny fraction of a horsepower. Its many orders of magnitude off.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
cullenking 15y ago
You definitely produce more than a tiny fraction of a horsepower :) I have a watt meter on my bicycle, and I can easily average 250 watts for an hour ride. Well, easily meaning sweating profusely and worked at the end of it, but still, that's 1/3rd of a horsepower for an hour. I can put out 1 horsepower for a few seconds, and I am not a great cyclist...
- JoeAltmaier 15y ago
  Ok, YOU produce more than a tiny fraction. I'm 52 and out of shape. I can ride 50 miles if you give me all day, but no way am I putting out more than 1/10 of a horsepower. And NO WAY am I putting a generator on my bike while I'm riding it!
  - zifot 15y ago
    Yeah, but isn't it that the premise of the article is that you would combine energy from various multiple sources like, I don't know, 10-30 per house? Water flowing in pipes, generated heat, gathered kinetic energy? It would be interesting to see some calculations how much could be gained that way.
  - cullenking 15y ago
    I think you'd surprise yourself :) you could easily peak 250 without much issue, and could sustain 125 without too much of a problem.
dholowiski 15y ago
Plus, much of the 'waste heat' produced in my house (computer, bike, cooking) is released into my house, not lost... the only one really is the heat lost from water down the drain.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
tjmc 15y ago
Indeed - it's just weird that they're focusing on capturing low grade kinetic energy right when photovoltaic solar is at the tipping point of beating grid power with under a 5 year payback period. Expect (in sunny climates) to see a switch to solar panels on the level that we saw from CRTs to flat panels a few years back. But the really interesting thing in energy in the next 5 years is going to be price drops in storage. We could conceivably see the first lithium-air batteries for cars, which will finally get costs down to within striking distance of petrol. I also suspect we'll start seeing widespread grid storage installations - possibly using sodium-sulphur batteries to absorb and redistribute inputs from distributed renewable sources. The 2-way grid is the next big story in energy.

kingkawn 15y ago

i am setting an alert in my calender 5 years from now with the text of this article and the author's email address.

brendn 15y ago

Can someone change this to link to the actual IBM blog entry [1] instead of the CNET fluff piece? [1] http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2011/12/the-next-5-in-5-our-forecast-of-five-innovations-that-will-alter-the-landscape-within-five-years.html http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2011/12/the-next-5-in-5-our-f...

catshirt 15y ago

probably depends on your definition of "mind reading", but sounds like it warrants a longbet.

blhack 15y ago

Linkbaity headline, there. "Mind reading" already exists kindof sortof maybe good enough to cnet to write an article about. This is at the top of my Christmas list: http://emotiv.com/ http://emotiv.com/ In fact, here is a comparison of consumer Brain Computer Interfaces: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_consumer_brain%E2%80%93computer_interfaces http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_consumer_brain%E2...

dkersten 15y ago
One of my best friends just finished his phd in brain computer interfaces and "mind reading" totally already exists (for certain very specific definitions of "mind reading").
- cjfont 15y ago
  Most likely not same definitions that come to someone's mind when they read it within a sensational headline such as this one.
  - dkersten 15y ago
    Agreed, definitely a much stricter definition.
bchjam 15y ago
definitely a sensationalist headline but still a very interesting bit of tech to watch evolve. the first thing I ever saw along these lines: recreating a cat's vision from brain sensors (1999) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/471786.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/471786.stm
bgalbraith 15y ago
As a current PhD student working in this area, I caution you about getting too excited about the Emotiv EPOC. We've got one in the lab we've started to work with as a potential low-cost EEG system. The out-of-the-box software is kinda hokey, so you may end up with an expensive novelty you use once or twice. On the technical side, it does seem to be the best current option for consumer EEG, though most of these devices are actually strongly influenced by, if not heavily reliant on, facial muscle movements.

tree_of_item 15y ago

"ATM machine" in an IBM video? I'm slightly disappointed.

spodek 15y ago
I prefer to say "automatic ATM machine" myself so nobody misunderstands me.
derekp7 15y ago
Would you rather them call it an AT machine? I guess it could be "@machine" in that case. Point being -- if you can't choose which to leave out, then you have only half redundancy -- which is acceptable, if not optimal.
- tree_of_item 15y ago
  What's wrong with "ATM"?
  - rimantas 15y ago
    It does not work without PIN number :(

zyb09 15y ago

Well I guess you could link brain patterns to thoughts, but how do you gonna read them without a 5 ton MRI machine?

dholowiski 15y ago
Who's to say a MRI machine has to weigh 5 tons 5 years from now? I imagine people once said "Sure it's great to store your recipes in a computer, but who wants to do that on a room sized computer?"
- aheilbut 15y ago
  Gauss and Maxwell say.
  - jacquesm 15y ago
    They do and they don't. Yes, it is true that MRI machines weigh 5 tons because of the magnetic fields generated and the amount of hardware required to constrain those fields. But you could imagine an MRI machine that works with lower strength fields and better sensor technology. Imagining one is a far cry from being able to build one though and I don't see this happening in the near future (if at all). I think this prediction (like most of IBM's predictions about the future) is strong on marketing and very weak on science.

narrator 15y ago

The "No Passwords" prediction is overlooking a big stumbling block: biometric data is not that secret and cannot be changed once intercepted. You might as well just walk up to an ATM, and speak your social security number. So the ATM is secure, but it's just another trusted client with all its associated problems. The only thing biometric data is really good for is keeping track of people when they don't want to be tracked or want to hide their identity. For example, it would be a useful means of tracking and identifiying people in a prison or a border checkpoint.

moocow01 15y ago

I would say rather the capability may be 5 years away. Whether consumers want it - I'm skeptical. I knew someone who for reasons I won't go into had a computer that they had to control with their eyes (basically has a webcam that tracks the eyes and moves the cursor and then clicks when you wink). It made me realize the further integration of computing control and a human's anatomy/biology can create more problems because there is a lack of a filtering mechanism. When you type on a computer you choose what your computer does by making deliberate actions rather than your computer monitoring you and interpreting your actions. The problem with the latter is there are many things you do that does not involve your computer... pick up the phone, throw a ball for your dog, talk to a coworker, etc. When your computer is monitoring you for input it never knows when the action is for it and when it is not. So in the case of the computers based on eye control, the experience is very problematic when you have to look somewhere else for any reason. Now taking it a step further I can't even imagine how out of control a computer would be based on someone's mind. Our minds randomly fire off thoughts non-stop - its actually incredibly hard to concentrate on one deliberate thing for a long time (if you've ever tried meditation you realize this very quickly). How a computer could filter actions for it and actions that are just the randomness of the brain seems like it would be incredibly difficult in that there really isn't a definitive line there at all.

mikecsh 15y ago
You seem to be describing a problem that needs to be solved rather than a situation meaning that there is anything wrong with the technology. I used to have speech control turned on on my computer - you can set it to listen to everything which is basically the situation you describe with all its problems. Alternatively you can ask for it to listen for a keyword or only to listen when you press a key. I imagine similar solutions will present themselves for brain-computer interfaces.
- moocow01 15y ago
  I think there is some truth to that but I'd say the one difference between speech recognition and brain recognition is that speech is a voluntary action you control, while your thoughts have a largely involuntary component to it. Involuntary meaning when someone says "an idea just popped into my head" - the idea seemingly was not an action deliberately triggered. Think if while you were "mind typing" an email and suddenly the thought "god I hate my boss" popped into your head. If the filtering mechanism of the computer was poor, your computer might, assuming it was being helpful, shoot off an email to your boss saying "god I hate you". I guess what I'm saying is the way by which you could filter your own thoughts to be interpreted by your computer or not seems like an incredibly difficult proposition.

pmuhar 15y ago

I dont see this happening, or being very accurate if it does. I dont know about you guys, but my mind thinks about something new every few seconds, and one tiny piece of a thought will turn into a whole new though. Its all very random and for a computer to be able to understand and filter that seems a little too sci-fi.

cjfont 15y ago

Going down the list of 5, for each one I was thinking to myself, "Yeah right", then going through the explanations I was thinking, "Oh, well if that is what you mean by that, sure why not".

brown9-2 15y ago

I think it says something about this "prediction" that most of the text on the IBM page about it (http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2011/12/the-next-5-in-5-mind-reading-is-no-longer-science-fiction.html http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2011/12/the-next-5-in-5-mind-...) is: Vote for this as the coolest IBM 5 in 5 prediction by clicking the “Like” button below. Join the Twitter conversation at #IBM5in5

6ren 15y ago

In a sense, speech is mind-reading: you can have in your mind what the writer had in their's. This isn't just sophistry, but shows there are two problems, 1. to transmit information into and out of a mind; 2. to transform the information into a form that can be understood by another. A common language if you will. This has analogues in relational databases, where the internal physical storage representation is transformed into a logical representation of relations, from which yet other relations may be transformed; and in integrating heterogeneous web services, where the particular XML or JSON format is the common language and the classes of the programs at the ends are the representation within each mind. There's no reason to think that the internal representation within each of our minds is terribly similar. It will have some common characteristics, but will likely differ as much as different human languages - or as much as other parts of ourselves, such as our fingerprints. Otherwise, everyone would communicate with that, instead of inventing common languages.

eurleif 15y ago
>Otherwise, everyone would communicate with that, instead of inventing common languages. How would we communicate with it? By directly linking our brains together? I don't see why it would have a direct translation into sounds.
- 6ren 15y ago
  You're right, that particular sentence is unnecessary to my argument and weakens it.

lars 15y ago

I've recently completed a masters thesis on EEG based mind reading, and I think I have a fairly good grasp on the state of the art in this field. I also have a copy of Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near by my bed, and I'm usually strongly optimistic about technology. But if IBM are talking about EEG based technology here, I would have to bet that they are flat out wrong on this one. I'll explain why. Something like moving a cursor around by thinking about it, or thinking about making a call and having it happened requires a hell of a lot of bits of information to be produced by the brain computer interface. With the current state of the art we can distinguish between something like 2-6 classes of thoughts sort-of reliably, and even then it's typically about thinking of particular movements, not "call mom". Importantly, what most people look for in the signal (the feature in machine learning terms) are changes in signal variance. And there are methods to detect these changes that are in some sense mathematically optimal (which is to say they can be still be improved a little bit, but there won't be any revolutionary new discoveries.) There may be other features to look for, but we wont be getting much better at detecting changes in signal variance. Some methods can report results like a 94% accuracy over a binary classification problem. Such a result may seem "close to perfect", but it is averaged over several subjects, and likely varies between for example 100% and 70%. For the people with 70% accuracy, the distinguishing features of their signals are hidden for various reasons. And this is for getting one bit of information out of the device. Seems like such a device would need to work for everyone to be commercially successful. In computer vision we have our own brains to prove that the problems can be solved. For EEG based brain computer interfaces, such proofs don't exist. There are certain things you probably can't detect from an EEG signal, meaning the distinguishing information probably isn't there at all. I'm easily willing to bet IBM money that who I would like to call can not be inferred from the electrical activity on my scalp. (Seriously IBM, let's go on longbets.org and do this.)

Steko 15y ago
"who I would like to call can not be inferred from the electrical activity on my scalp" If I read the blog post correctly the claim is not passive mind reading. The claim is that the user has some training to issue the sorts of thought commands that can be reliably picked up. If I think "call mom" it doesn't do anything. But if I think "Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right" maybe it can interpret that correctly as my preassigned shorthand for "call mom".

figital 15y ago

"Neurofeedback" already exists it's just still under the radar (it's like teaching yourself to roll your tongue). I've been trying to pull some demos together to demonstrate that the web browser is the place this will take off: http://vimeo.com/32059038 http://vimeo.com/32059038 (sorry I haven't pushed more of this extra-rough demo code yet). Consider using something like the wireless PendantEEG if you're going to be doing your own development OR be prepared to pay excessive licensing fees required from a few of the vendors mentioned here. If you are interested in helping develop this stuff mentioned in that video (and don't mind springing for some reasonbly cheap hardware) please ping me. I'd also like to plan a MindHead hackathon/mini-conference this spring in Boston (my personal interests are improving attention and relaxation, peak perfomance, and BCI).

lurchpop 15y ago

Massively unsettling coming from the company who helped the nazis streamline their attempts at genocide.

ratsbane 15y ago

I'm guessing that when mind reading comes it will be more more of a machine learning exercise based on analysis of speech, vocal inflections, visible features, and previous actions than a portable EKG machine with wires on the scalp. See Poe's detective Auguste Dupin, in, for example, "Murders in the Rue Morgue."

mw63214 15y ago

Slightly off-topic, but I've always thought that the first wave of HCI to hit the market and gain traction would be the integration of Affective sensing tech. products and API's into popular areas like music, social networks, and health care. I've always thought this would bring down the cost, increase investment in the HCI/BCI space, and speed up the adoption rates and lead to a much faster improvement of HCI technologies.

bgalbraith 15y ago

When talking about EEG-based "mind reading", there are three primary methods currently under study (when looking at locked-in patients at least): 1) P300 - This refers to a predictable change in the EEG signal that happens around 300 milliseconds after something you were expecting happens. For example, if I am looking for a particular letter to flash amongst a grid of letters all randomly flashing, a P300 will be triggered when the letter I want flashes. 2) SSVEP - This stands for steady state visually evoked potential. This approach uses EEG signals recorded from over the visual cortex, which responds to constantly flickering stimuli. Given a few seconds, the power of the frequency of the attended stimulus increases in the EEG, which can then be detected and used to make a decision. 3) SMR - This stands for sensorimotor rhythms, and is an approach that looks for changes in EEG activity over the motor cortex. Successful approaches have been able to identify when you imagine clenching your left or right fists, or pushing down on your foot. Unlike the other two, this does not require external stimuli. SMR is the most like what we consider mind reading, as the user is initiating the signal while the other two infer what a person is looking at. It is limited to only 2-3 degrees of freedom at the moment, however, and is the hardest signal to work with. It is susceptible to external factors such as the current environment and mental state, and not everyone seems to be able to generate the needed signals. SSVEP, while lacking the wow factor of SMR, is much easier to work with and is a much more stable signal. Disclosure: I work in this area. Here's a flashy NSF video highlighting our lab: http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/brainmachine.jsp http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/brain...

brianwillis 15y ago

Previous "five in five" predictions from IBM can be found here: http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibm_predictions_for_future/examples/index.html http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibm_predictions_for_f...

colton36 15y ago
So their 5 year prediction from 2006 fell completely on its face.
- cbr 15y ago
  Including: "Our mobile phones will start to read our minds"

eykanal 15y ago

lars's comment (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3371968 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3371968) is right on target. I recently finished my PhD in biomedical engineering, and the hot field that everyone wants to go into is what we're calling BMI - Brain-Machine Interfaces. The trick is, there are very few types of signals than can be reliably determined from these brain-signal reading devices. Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of tasks that can be easily accomplished; anything involving moving limbs, or simple, low degree of freedom tasks (like moving a computer cursor). After months and months of training, a person can be trained to manipulate numerous degrees with pretty good reliability (i.e., move a robotic arm, AND control the mechanical pincer at the end), but this type of work doesn't generalize to other types of thought. We're nowhere near being able to extract sentences or words or being able to determine what complex scene is being viewed simply using brain activity patterns.

technology 15y ago

George orwell's vision from the book 1984 vision is becoming true

mkramlich 15y ago

The only one who can tell me something is N years away is someone who just stepped out of a time machine. I see no time machine, I pipe to dev null.

unwind 15y ago
You cannot pipe to dev null, since it's a device, not a process. So, to summarize in shell-like syntax, you can redirect your output to /dev/null, as in $ me > /dev/null but you can't sensibly use a pipe like so: $ me | /dev/null This has been a message from your friendly neighborhood Unix fundamentalism/literalism chapter.
- mkramlich 15y ago
  but you had no problem with the time machine. only on HN.
- cbr 15y ago
  $ sudo cp /bin/cat /dev/null $ echo test | /dev/null test (this doesn't actually work)

benaston 15y ago

IBM constantly seems to release press releases about technology it hasn't yet developed to production quality. Said technology always vanishes without trace (as far as I can recall.) I'm not holding my breath on this one.

overgard 15y ago

The great thing about bold predictions is nobody ever remembers them if you're wrong, but you look like a genius if you're right.

itmag 15y ago

Does anyone ever feel that neuroscience is getting more and more lovecraftian and challenging basic assumptions of what it means to be human? It sometimes feels like we're at a point in history where all the basic tenets of existence are being torn down by science and replaced with... nothing. Am I the only one who gets existential crisises from this kind of stuff? :p It doesn't help, of course, that I'm currently reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Against-Human-Race-Contrivance/dp/098242969X http://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Against-Human-Race-Contriva... The luddite in me wishes that science will never be able to fully pick apart the human psyche. Here's to having an inscrutable ghost in the machine to keep us from being mere deterministic flesh-bots...

wladimir 15y ago
I wonder too... There have been other times in history that scientists had the idea that science was almost complete, that there were just a few things left to sort out and we'd understand it all (such as around 1900 with mathematics). We may think we are very near and then discover something new and then find out a lot of new questions around the mind and consciousness. I don't think we're quite there yet. However I'm sure "shallow AI" (and maybe "shallow mindreading") will become more and more important in the near future. Which is what IBM is focusing on. BTW: Thanks for the pointer. That book looks very interesting.
- itmag 15y ago
  BTW: Thanks for the pointer. That book looks very interesting. I'm actually not so happy about posting that link. For me, it states things that I had already mostly figured out on my own previously. For others, it might zap a lot of Sanity Points. I would say Ligotti is a very unique writer, in that he's deeply immersed in existentialist philosophy, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, AND lovecraftian horror. It makes for a very... disturbing cocktail. Of course, everyone on HN is seemingly a Nietzschean overman who can take these kinds of things in stride. Me, not so much :p
JoachimSchipper 15y ago
I'm not sure who is right, but note that transhumanists have a very different view on such developments. Also, if the "basic tenets of existence" (whatever you consider those to be) can be torn down by looking at them critically, shouldn't they be? (Perhaps.)

silon3 15y ago

How soon will it reach the quantum level of "you can't measure without changing"?

mjwalshe 15y ago

Seeing as at least 2 of the 5 are to be blunt crap why are we even discussing this - this is as relistic as the fusion "to cheap to meter" stories they ran in the 50's FFS

bdg 15y ago

Thanks for the awesome example of putting one of paul graham's essays into action. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

roundsquare 15y ago

I was under the impression that we were very close to being able to move sensors with our minds. http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_brainwaves.html http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_br...