
It’s Now Possible to Telepathically Communicate with a Drone Swarm - prostoalex
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/09/its-now-possible-telepathically-communicate-drone-swarm/151068/?oref=d-channeltop
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stupidcar
Never mind a swarm, what about controlling just a single drone? There are
people in persistent vegetative states who can be communicated with via MRI
scanners and appear to be essentially conscious but locked into their body.
What if, with consent gained via MRI, you implanted this chip into them, and
trained them to remotely control an always-on drone, which had visual and
audio sensors streaming to a VR HUD and headphones on the vegetative person?

Could this let these people continue their lives in a new, drone body? How
would society deal with that? Over time, it would be difficult to deny these
drone avatars the same kinds of rights we award to physical citizens, e.g. to
travel freely and not to be unduly harmed. Could the same be done with people
suffering full-body paralysis? Or by people in wheelchairs to go to places
otherwise inaccessible?

Once society became accustomed to drone avatars interacting with physical
humans, might rich-enough, able-bodied people start to also use them in some
circumstances. After all, there are advantages, not least the safety factory
of not putting your physical body and mind at risk. Eventually, could this
lead to a class of citizens who interact only via drone avatars?

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technotony
We can do better than MRI and VR HUD's. There's already active research based
on this which is working[1]. That's the basis for Neurolink's R&D too[2]
[1][https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wireless-brain-
im...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wireless-brain-implant-
allows-ldquo-locked-in-rdquo-woman-to-communicate/)
[2][https://www.neuralink.com/](https://www.neuralink.com/)

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leggomylibro
I think it's important to note the, "A person with a brain chip" part of the
article.

Don't get me wrong, if I had a condition that required brain surgery I'd jump
at the chance to get an electrode mat placed on my brain. But it's a very
invasive procedure, similar to deep-brain stimulation; it sounds like we're
still a ways from high-quality transcranial BCI despite the article's header
image.

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nanna
More info here on brain computer interfaces here in the linked article:

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016502701...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165027014002702)

Interesting to read that its history goes back to Grey Walter, the British
cyberneticist most known for inventing the robot turtles.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Grey_Walter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Grey_Walter)

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entwife
Perhaps the only advantage of being paralyzed is that these a surgically
implanted direct brain interface is ethical. It's an invasive and risky
surgery, but with rewards if the individual can then operate a prosthetic
hand.

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sitkack
Epilepsy patients with in brain electrodes are a hot commodity. Maybe try
being a postdoc or grad student in China?

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brennebeck
Even as an epileptic I am not aware how common this is? Though, it also seems
primarily related to EEG capabilities rather than seizure-control.

Edit: minor grammar/tense

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a-dub
At the very least it is part of the standard treatment protocol for those who
have surgical resection. (implant electrodes, remove drugs, wait for seizure,
use recording to guide resection).

Although it seems that the typical grids, strips and laminar electrodes that
are good for research are disappearing in favor of stereo-eeg which is much
less invasive.

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jcelerier
why the hell are we still searching for aliens when we are clearly the freakin
aliens of every SF book

~~~
serversystem
Don't forget, all our books are written in our image

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rebuilder
No mention of what type of operation this enables, what kind of input the user
is able to experience etc. In other words, I wouldn't take this article very
seriously.

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foobarbecue
How's the TX link back into the brain supposed to work then?

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FLUX-YOU
Probably a raw feeling in the brain instead of something intuitive like having
a HUD with green numbers representing pitch/yaw/roll/velocity/etc. suddenly
painted over your field of vision.

There's likely an encoding step that you have to teach the person before you
can interpret the signals from the aircraft. I bet the process is similar to
learning Morse code, but with tingling feelings instead of beeps.

Even the idea of transmitting strings to a person's brain is a massive step
forward. We're likely dealing with "is this a 1 or 0?" and it takes seconds to
decide that. Bandwidth is likely really low still.

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childintime
One might say the device only does "signal inference", as opposed to
telepathy. But interestingly, maybe a telepath does the same thing (thus
requiring ability), but at a distance, and via a different (as yet
unqualified) medium.

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anta40
Imagine controlling weaponized drone swarm with this. Probably something like
Magneto would do.

Scary? :D

~~~
A2017U1
Given the state of computing, no. I'd be more worried about my brain chip
having poorly implemented crypto with legally mandated backdoors from 7
different countries and security updates requiring surgery.

A simple radio transceiver will probably hold it's own for the near future.

Weaponised drones wielded by violent individuals scares the shit out of me.

~~~
freshhawk
Never mind that I can perform fast and accurate manipulations with my hands
better than anyone will be able to learn to manipulate their brain chip any
time soon.

Hell, I'd put money on someone using their feet to operate a radio transmitter
over the brain chip given equal amounts of time to practice. And I think I
would win that bet for the rest of my life at least.

Of course, we all agree there is definitely a coolness factor at play. It is
undeniably cool.

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jpalomaki
Interesting if you could feed information from drones and various other
sensors directly into soldiers brain. Maybe this information, with enough
practise, could merge in brains with data from your own senses.

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cx_in_the_chat_
Avatar from 2009 anyone? Seems like James Cameron keeps getting things right
again and again. Events from the Terminator are also right behind the corner
from taking place.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Before humans actually set foot on the moon, we first wrote stories about
traveling to the moon. We did this for a couple hundred years or more before
making it a reality.

We dream the future into existence. Solution: We need better dreams, because
these outcomes aren't inevitable.

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peter_d_sherman
Cerebro 1.0!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebro)

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xrayzerone
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they
didn't stop to think if they should." \- Ian Malcolm

~~~
TomMarius
They definitely should, though. There are many uses for this technology, and
research is necessary.

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tempodox
I'm curious to see how long it will take us to go full _Deus Ex_ from here.

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3chelon
I reckon quite a while.

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bitwize
The Microbots from _Big Hero 6_ sprang immediately to mind.

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mullikine
I got my EEG to run emacs commands a couple years ago. Long story short, the
company I worked for was full of people with no faith or imagination --
automatons. Imagining the future and acting in faith is not easy. You'll be
ostracised by your friends and collegues. It is the most frustrating feeling
seeing someone else invent the thing you imagined a couple years ago. Too many
time-burgelars and traffic lights in this world

~~~
mullikine
Damn. So many hates. Well, very few people will be able to relate to this post
I made. I hope I garnered some respect from those clone-humans for people who
actually provide entropy to the world though. New information is important

~~~
titzer
I'm exaggerating; don't take this personally, but you're likely being
downvoted because one reading of your comment is that is simultaneously
content-free, self-aggrandizing, and disparaging of others. If you want to
contribute positively to the discussion, "been there, done that, everybody
hates me, but you're all idiots" comments aren't the way.

