
“Social network” of brains lets people transmit thoughts to each other’s heads - rbanffy
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612212/the-first-social-network-of-brains-lets-three-people-transmit-thoughts-to-each-others-heads/
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vinayms
> “A cloud-based brain-to-brain interface server could direct information
> transmission between any set of devices on the brain-to-brain interface
> network and make it globally operable through the Internet, thereby allowing
> cloud-based interactions between brains on a global scale,” Stocco and his
> colleagues say.

I bet they struggled to keep a straight face saying that.

~~~
invalidusernam3
Disappointed they didn't fit blockchain in there somewhere

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PostOnce
MIT student: reinvents wheel

MIT press office: "MIT researchers develop matter transporter"

~~~
chicob
Reading further: The motion of the mechanism has been described as an
"harmonious coordination of trochoid trajectories".

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nusq
This reminds me of a cool thought that I've read some place else: "imagine a
technology so advanced that can transmit thoughts wirelessly between humans
and even change the actual layout of the neruons in our brains". We already do
that with our voices....

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qubax
> We already do that with our voices....

But that requires one side speaking. If they refuse to speak, then we can't
know their thoughts. And people can also tell lies with their voices. Now if
we could somehow interface directly with the brain...

Voice is like an API the person provides to others. Like twitter's API for
users access data. But twitter can shut down the API or manipulate their API
to show us what they want us to see. But imagine if you had direct link to
their database?

~~~
carapace
People will just learn to lie with their brains.

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logfromblammo
I would argue that this has already happened, and the evidence that eventually
proves it will be truly horrifying.

Think about a person--someone you may already know well--that actually
believes his own bullshit. Such a person armed with a brain-to-brain interface
is an existential threat to objective reality.

~~~
sizzle
Sociopath brain?

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suprfnk
Reminds me of this Futurama scene:

 _[Fry and Leela after Fry had an advertisement in his dream]_

 _Leela: Didn 't you have ads in the 21st century?"_

 _Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in
magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and
t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree._

If this technology gets refined, this might even be a reality in what, 50
years?

~~~
trukterious
Or from the final episode of _Firefly_ :

Jayne: _Well, I don 't like the idea of someone hearin' what I'm thinkin'._

Inara Serra: _No one likes the idea of hearing what you 're thinking._

~~~
Balgair
Love it!

Seems it works for nearly all SM sites.

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arthurcolle
This is so freaking cool, I literally can't believe this is happening and am
so excited about being involved in technology at a time when such advanced
capabilities are right around the corner. I wonder how tricky this is to
actually build. I wonder if you could use some of the stuff off of OpenBCI and
build one of these BrainNets using available resources. Anyone want to try
with me? I can't believe they were able to accomplish this using only
32-channels, that seems pretty unbelievable.

Probably out of reach but it would be good for this kind of tech to not just
get cobbled up in the regular patent storm and be able to keep some kind of
implementation in the public domain as a result of putting this together. Oh,
to be a CS student at the University of Washington right now... must be a fun
time. I would trade an arm and a leg to be at the forefront of this domain,
its the culmination of so many different fundamental breakthroughs that have
been made over the last 20 years. What a time to be alive.

I can't wait to see where this + AR/VR will take us, but am also quite
concerned about the cavalier attitude that megacorp tech companies take toward
privacy issues and the implications of true telepathy on social interactions
on a broader level

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yoz-y
As much of the research in BCIs this one is more of a feat in engineering
rather than science. What is the ultimate goal of the study? We know that
flashing stimuli cause a response in a brain (this is called Steady State
Visual Evoked Potential or SSVEP and is studied a lot). We know that a TMS
device can cause receiving person to perceive flashes. This game could be fun
and all, but it is a technology demo and ability to say "I did this first".

Another thing, SSVEP has two modes of action, one is based on vision and the
other on attention. That is: if somebody is just looking at a flashing light,
the signal is clearly visible in the occipital region of the scalp but this is
_not_ brain signals, it is a signal from the optical nerve. It is (according
to a paper) possible to consciously control the SSVEP response amplitude (for
example with the two flashing targets in the peripheral vision and an eye-
tracker that ensures that the subject is not actively looking at a target,
merely concentrating on one). This response will be of lower amplitude but
will come from the brain.

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nimbius
Cloud based brain to server? so finally I can spend my whole day swooning over
Justin Bieber while some coffee barista in the city cant stop thinking about
diesel injection timing faults for the Peterbuilt I was working on.

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mavdi
Still in its infancy it seems but frankly I'd hate for this to develop into a
"thing". It's already hard to switch off in this crazy world, next up: Thought
advertisements.

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rayiner
This is scarier than you think. So long as most people are okay with it, you
may not have much of a choice in whether to participate or not. (Just as you
mostly can’t choose to pay for web content instead of watching ads.)

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hateful
A very good article on this topic:
[https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html)

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akuji1993
Even though this is obviously not as far down the road as the article makes it
out to be, it's an amazing achievement that it works at all. I'm pretty
surprised that something like this is possible. Considering that for my laymen
mind, this sounds like you are "writing" on the brain, I'm gonna pass using
this myself though. Seems possible to alter something in the human brain that
you really didn't want to tinker with.

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carapace
At risk of sounding like a broken record, I want to point out that you don't
need fancy hardware to experiment with this sort of thing. Simple GSR
(galvanic skin response) sensors and a bit of self-hypnosis are enough to get
some very interesting effects and communication.

(Also, you _have_ fancy hardware: your eyes and face, ears and voice, etc.
It's easy to lose sight of the fact that still today the most sophisticated
hardware in the room is the human nervous system. At least for a few more
years, eh?)

~~~
carapace
I know it's gauche to reply to your own messages, but I wanted to be less coy
about what I'm saying:

Make nine sensors that can detect twitches of your fingers, it doesn't matter
what modality you use: motion, sound/vibration, electrical, but you want to be
able to tunable sensitivity of each channel independently.

Connect the sensors to your eight fingers and one thumb.

Use hypnosis[1] to ask your unconscious mind to output binary digits on the
fingers and a clock/ready signal on the thumb.

Presto. You have an 8-bit parallel port from your mind to your
microcontroller.

With a camera and modern ML you would only need two bits, a yes/no and the
clock/ready signal, to "train" your computer to read information from your
facial expressions. And of course this can be extended to full biometric
sensor suites. In fact, if you're wearing e.g. a Fitbit, you already have
verything you need to set up a pseudo-telepathic UI. You just have to put some
off-the-shelf software together and get your unconscious mind onboard.

Hardware is not the limiting factor.

[1] Self-hypnosis is easy to learn, or you can hire a hypnotist to induce a
trance and give you post-hypnotic suggestion to be able to re-enter trance at
will using a self-trigger (often a "mudra"[2] or brief counting ritual.)

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

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anonytrary
> These tools include electroencephalograms (EEGs) that record electrical
> activity

As soon as I read "EEG", I rolled my eyes -- another clickbait title
showcasing a usage of EEGs that, while interesting, is just a novelty. I don't
think people are interested in communicating over a two-character alphabet.
The "Yo" app, what happened to that again? I don't think the "Yo" app would
have been successful, even if you could do it right from your head.

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scotty79
More like a brain telegraph than brain social network. Also sender doesn't
actually thinks just focuses attention on one of two blinking lights.

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thedevindevops
'Siri, I'm getting pulled over'

 __beep, beep __

' Yes, Dave, remain calm - the thought police will be with you shortly'

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imh
How do they make sure their communicator isn't working through the wrong
mechanism? It could be tricky to verify that they aren't just flipping the
rotate bit when their head gets zapped, or something else noticeable but not
interesting.

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madman2890
We also do this via air pressure and the vocal tract with words.

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goombastic
Am I the only one who doesn't want this? I am spammed enough as it is.

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neuronic
The headline could just as well refer to the practice of talking...

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dschuetz
I don't know what to think of it. The article grossly misinterprets the
experiment as some sort of magical thought interface, but in fact it's just a
utilization of EEG devices and software. But then I read the comment of one of
the engineers and I cringe at "cloud-based brain-to-brain server". This
sensationalism in science and engineering has to stop.

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amingilani
While I understand that it's a bit sensationalized. At the end of the day,
they're transmitting 1 bit of information at a very slow rate. While's that's
only 1 bit more than 0, it's still an infinite percentage increase, and still
leaves me super excited.

Despite my bs-filter having toned it down and given me just the facts that
it's 3 people in a room with wires on their head playing tetris, with 2
looking at lightbulbs to send signals, it's still got me pumped.

I really believe BCIs be game changers in the way we communicate with
electronics (if not other humans), and I for one would love to play a game of
tetris over the internet with an unknown mind.

Edit: even in its current transmission rates, I think this tech could have far
reaching implications in a better form factor. 1 slow bit is all I need to
take a picture, lock/unlock my car, flip the light switch, turn the tap,
open/close the door, Start the washing machine, turn the tv on, start the car,
close the window, etc.

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blotter_paper
The 1 bit limit doesn't look like a technological barrier, but a we-
don't-feel-comfortable-cutting-into-human-brains-for-research barrier. Of mice
and monkeys, the story is more than a bit different:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/srep11869](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep11869)

This is coming. So fast.

~~~
Blinks-
This was a great read thanks, I found a good precursor study on brain-to-brain
interface (BTBI) using intracortical microstimulation (ICMS), if you are not
familiar with this research it's a good place to start:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01319](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01319)

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tmikaeld
That's one over-hyped article if i ever saw one.

TLDR; It allows to send two signals that have two different functions in a
tetris game - move left or rotate - accomplished by looking at different
strobing lights that causes the brain to change slightly.

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JepZ
Yeah, I really like that part:

> A cloud-based brain-to-brain interface server could direct information
> transmission...

They can barely transmit 1 bit per second with no prospect of increasing the
data rate but start talking BS about the cloud.

