From: peb@tma1.Eng.Sun.COM (Paul Baclaski)
Subject: Re: Brain/Environment "bottleneck"
Date: 2 Mar 90 02:19:40 GMT



In article <2193@milton.acs.washington.edu> jtm@cs.cornell.edu (Jan Thomas Mikso
vsky) writes:
>If we could directly manipulate the computer with neuron pulses, yeah, 
>sure, we could cruise along at light-speed.  

The human brain does a lot of distributed processing in the eyes and
ears and the "neural protocol" between the brain and these input
devices is unique from person to person.  This is probably also the
case with motor nerves, olfactory bulb and tactile nerves (I've heard
that one of the major problems with heart transplants is that the 
nerve signals from the brain to the foreign heart are not quite right).

Because of this, any system that interfaces directly to nerves is
going to need lots of training and adjustment.  To use standard hardware,
one would need a personal interface machine to transform to and from 
your personal nerves.  The training time on such a interface could be
considerable--I wonder if Hans Moravec has any ideas in this area
(Mind Children does not mention problems of this sort).

A direct nerve interface is probably a very invasive proceedure
like big time brain surgery, so I would expect it to be pretty far out
there on the time scale (e.g., you either need safe brain surgery 
(nanotech to the rescue) or volunteer terminal patients).


In article <2205@milton.acs.washington.edu>, cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris P
hoenix) writes:
> If we could directly manipulate the computer with neuron pulses, and it could
> manipulate our neurons, surely someone would develop a brain-accelerator.  

How about this: we can talk in our heads without moving our mouths.
This means that it would be possible to tap into the inside voice and
use it as an output device.  Then, the coprocessor module (off the
shelf expert systems personified) could listen to the voice and talk 
to you or display information "inside" your head.

This assumes a neural interface, but it keeps the brain intact.
Accelerating thought by improving the brain is tantamount to
downloading your consciousness into a machine.  Are you the same
person after such a transformation?  How could we tell?

OVERALL, I think direct neural interfaces are in the realm of fantasy
and are not worth discussing too much (unless you want to write
Science Fiction).

The above brain augmentation could also be done with other technology
with the exception that "inside voice" could not be used.

> To tie this in with VR:  I recently called up VPL to ask about summer 
> internship opportunities.  I told them I was interested in AI, and the person
> I talked to (sorry, I didn't get the name) told me that they were trying to
> get away from AI, and have it more user-directed.

AI is orthogonal to VR.  I would guess that VPL's strategy is to empower 
people--it sounds like you are suggesting making things automatic,
which is great for making people lazy (e.g., "wouldn't it be nice to have
some AI slaves to order around?...").  This is enticing in a negative way.
In my opinion, the purpose of AI is to understand Intelligence and the
Universe.

Put another way:  Jaron Lanier stated in the Whole Earth Review interview
(Fall 1989) that technology that simply increase the amount of power 
people have is inherently bad (because we have all sorts of social 
problems that just get amplified).  He then stated that a technology
that increases human communication is good--how could anyone say that
the telephone was a bad idea?  He also mentioned that people who watch
TV appear to be uninvolved, but people talking on the telephone are 
very much involved.  Jaron wants to encourage involvement, not uninvolvement.


Paul E. Baclaski
Sun Microsystems
peb@sun.com