
Quadriplegic woman flies F-35 simulator with nothing but her thoughts - smacktoward
http://defensetech.org/2015/03/02/this-woman-flew-an-f-35-simulator-with-her-mind/
======
spiritplumber
Very cool - did she have to think in Russian?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f55QFVx470](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f55QFVx470)

I've been messing with something like this for wheelchairs for about a year,
but nothing to report.

~~~
Toenex
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky-
uzsw0kqw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky-uzsw0kqw)

More appropriate I think

------
stcredzero
A human "brain in a jar" (as in Motoko Kusanagi) may well be the ultimate
fighter control system for a short window of time. (They would have higher G
tolerance, lacking a long body to produce pressure gradients.) It would only
be a matter of time before G tolerance and processing power were surpassed by
electronics based AI.

(Not saying militaries would adopt this as standard. But for a brief time,
such pilots would be the smartest, most G tolerant flying sentients.)

~~~
Vadoff
Why can't we just have the pilot in a pods/simulators in base and have him/her
control the plane remotely? Too much latency?

Seems much safer for the pilot, makes the plane smaller, and there's no
worries of G's on the pilot.

~~~
sitkack
The remote pilots will be circling near the battle zone in a 747-400.

~~~
stcredzero
A long distance hypervelocity missile, using the same rockets that now can
threaten aircraft carriers from many hundreds of miles away, would then be
able to take out many squadrons of fighting craft with a single warhead.

There will be a massive replacement of pilots by AI and remote control. At the
same time, pilots will persist for longer than some of us technologists think,
because it will take us a very long time to surpass or even match the
flexibility of a human being on the scene.

------
just_observing
It does not say what she actually did though. Some more specifics should have
been included as to what she was able to control and the actions of the plane.

~~~
thret
Here's the youtube of her flying:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9aMVB7_Mic](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9aMVB7_Mic)

She's pretty shaky, I don't think they'll let her fly a real one any time
soon! I imagine it gives her an euphoric sense of freedom though.

------
tjradcliffe
Weird, the headline says "nothing but her thoughts" but the article describes
all kinds of intermediate gear. I know this without even reading the article
because the ritual headline tells me its precise content: for some reason
every single article on the complex and expensive gear used to replace body
parts like arms and legs in this kind of research is referred to as "nothing."

If I ran a startup in this space I'd call it "Nothing Inc" and sell it with
the line "Control your world with Nothing!" because apparently most people
find that catchy and clever rather than inaccurate and annoying. The life of a
pendant is a hard one, I tell you.

It's not that I don't think this tech is cool. I just wish we'd stop referring
to complex and expensive equipment as "nothing".

------
aethertap
This stuff is amazing.

I think I'm going to add a clause to my living will asking to be hooked up to
an EEG and a "see with tongue"[1,2] kind of feedback device if I ever end up
in a vegetative or paralyzed state. I don't know if it would work or not, but
the results here seem suggestive that it might be possible to learn a whole
new set of senses given the time and appropriate gear.

1\. [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/device-lets-
blind-...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/device-lets-blind-see-
with-tongues/)

2\. [http://www.seewithtongue.info/](http://www.seewithtongue.info/)

------
badocr
I'm more surprised that there's a conference named "Future of War".

------
Shivetya
If it leads to better artificial limbs this would be great, though I am
curious how small of movements can be detected and acted upon, say to
manipulate a pill or syringe. Flying an airplane while neat likely only was
changing pitch, direction, and such. If they expand the control where she
could by thought manipulate more of the planes cockpit controls it would be
very impressive.

~~~
bayesianhorse
Because it takes sophisticated surgery and machine learning to get quality
control input from the brain, there is no point in implementing a control
fine/responsive enough to handle a syringe. You'd build a robot with enough AI
to do the job and just control the general parameters like which syringe to
stick to whom.

------
viraptor
So that's how the navigators worked in Dune! Now she just needs to think very
very fast... Spice must flow.

------
bayesianhorse
Key points here are that this brain to computer interface is using electrodes
implanted under the skull, for the express purpose of interacting with the
outer world, and that the F-35 simulator probably took control input like
"left, right, level" etc.

~~~
vinceguidry
If you'd have read the article a little more carefully and examined the
picture, you wouldn't have needed the 'probably' and would have seen that she
was controlling her prosthetic limbs, and those are what operated the
simulator.

Very impressive.

------
nthcolumn
The lobby will love this. Defense spending with civilian application. I'm
thinking small telepresence drones.

~~~
prawn
Helicopter-parenting via small follow-mode drones.

~~~
gknoy
I don't think I value helicopter parenting enough to spend that much Essence
on rigger gear. ;)

------
bitwize
Macross Plus!

~~~
ihsw
Haha! One of my most favorite anime from the 90s.

Really glad to see that mentioned on here.

Video of the related neural interface (for the YF-21 "Omega One" fighter
aircraft): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSkhkX-
MmmE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSkhkX-MmmE)

The highlight of such an interface is increased reaction time and finer-
grained control over the vehicle's activities.

However, it pales in comparison to the unmanned fighter, the X-9 "Ghost." This
UAV is driven by an AI rather than a human.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hJepWBUqZk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hJepWBUqZk)

(The X-9 is the red one.)

This seems prescient to current debates regarding UAV and their military
capabilities.

------
doug1001
nice one, but Clint Eastwood pulled this off way back in 1982 in Firefox
([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/))

------
ashmud
At first glance, the chocolate bar in the title image seems out of place.
Pseudo-edit: Upon further reading, it looks like it is part of demonstrating
the dexterity of the robotic limb.

P.S. Obligatory Macross Plus reference.

------
keeran
Firefox, not the browser.

------
skimmas
a new era for drone strikes,

~~~
agumonkey
Wouldn't that be amazing, not only can she be quadriplegic but also depressed

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-
to-g...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-to-get-
stress-disorders-much-as-those-in-combat-do.html?_r=0)

------
dang
Url changed from [http://sploid.gizmodo.com/mind-control-breakthrough-
quadripl...](http://sploid.gizmodo.com/mind-control-breakthrough-quadriplegic-
woman-flies-f-3-1689274525), which points to this.

------
RyanMcGreal
If that is the case, how have you solved the problem of increased signal
degradation inherent to organo-synthetic transmission?

