Supercharging the nervous system with biological, ion-transistor computer chips

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/130111-supercharging-the-nervous-system-with-biological-ion-transistor-computer-chips

by ukdm • 14 years ago

36 43 14 years ago

extremetech.com

Morg8• 14 years ago

I find it quite humorous that humans will end up plugging chips in their brains to make them "better" before even trying to do it without - once again the path of least effort is the way.

moistgorilla• 14 years ago

What do you mean trying to do it without? We have been living without chips in our brain for as long as we have existed.

nnq10• 14 years ago

...tel that to you grand-children someday and watch them have a good laugh at it

Morg8• 14 years ago

What I mean is trying to do without training their brains.

I know I'm far below the potential I had when I was 10 in terms of raw intelligence, and I believe many people could've been a few thousand times smarter if we had only tried making them smart.

Going to chips when we haven't even learned to train our brains looks ridiculous to me.

gouranga• 14 years ago

I'll probably get downvoted for this, but the Nazis had the right idea: eugenics.

This is not something I am opposed to from a scientific point of view.

We do it with livestock, so why not us?

(Before I accidentally invoke Godwin's law, I'm not saying I agree with the other things the Nazis did or that I agree with eliminating non-eugenic friendly individuals).

EDIT: I actually disagree entirely with eugenics - this was an experiment ot see what happens if you apply plain logic and no ethics to the problem. The number of upvotes was slightly worrying!!! For reference, my daughter is disabled and would fall foul of any appropriate eugenics principles which is not right.

dawson2• 14 years ago

Interesting, what kind of family policy would you propose, if not that of eliminating non-eugenic individuals? I mean, is there a way eugenics can work without removing human rights? (serious question, no judgement made) I haven't read Francis Galton's original doctrine so apologies if this is obvious to those who have.

Lambdanaut• 14 years ago

We do it with livestock, so why not us?

That's my Human Shearing Prison Camp's slogan! We're also big in the soylent green business.

Retric• 14 years ago

We also practiced eugenics in the US on a small scale though forced sterilizations.

Unfortunately, the problem with tests is it's vary hard to measure the right things. And vary easy to end up with a Japanese style system where meaningless information becomes important simply by being on the test.

So, in the US we sterilized some people who had genuine genetic issues, but others because they where slightly below average and came from a poor background, or and others for being gay.

aqme28• 14 years ago

I see where you're coming from, but I strongly disagree with you in practice.

What are we even testing? What values are we trying to breed into or out of humanity? How do we form the selection criteria?

Most importantly, do we have any evidence that genetics has a strong effect on these values? I'm going to guess no on that.

wtetzner• 14 years ago

What is your alternative way? And why would it be the better way?

If we can use this to help paralysed people move again, it seems to me that it would be a win.

Morg8• 14 years ago

My alternative way is to learn to develop our brains first. I know I'm several orders of magnitude less smart than I could be, and that could've been very different with better nurture - although I was born in a University, both my parents are physicists, speak several languages etc. etc.

IMO there is a LOT of untapped potential in the human brain yet and going to chips for speed upgrades looks ridiculous.

nnq10• 14 years ago

Isn't "path of least effort" == optimal_path ??

Morg8• 14 years ago

Not really. It's about short term vs long term - mostly the path of least effort is a short term view, long term is more about the path of maximum potential imo.

Symmetry2• 14 years ago

Do you lament the fact that having books means people no longer have to memorize everything?

Morg8• 14 years ago

I have no clue as to how life was before books.

I can tell you I have incredibly good and fresh memory but it's much worse when it comes to web-accessible stuff, like what's PHP's function for this or that, while at the same time I can recall conversations from south park episodes I haven't seen in years.

I have googled the same function at least a dozen times while at the same time I could recall every detail of the Silmarillion after having read it only once (that was a while ago and I had much better memory but still).

It is highly likely that accessibility lowers the ability to retain knowledge in its raw form, as increasingly the brain relies on pointers to base a google search on instead of keeping track of the whole thing.

crusso• 14 years ago

I find it quite humorous that you're participating in an online conversation through use of a computer when you could go talk to someone instead.

Morg8• 14 years ago

Not really, if I bug my colleagues anymore, they'll realize I'm not working that much.

Morg8• 14 years ago

Just to clarify my cryptic statement: We're all incredibly less intelligent than we could have been.

Trying to supplement the brain with technology while we haven't even started trying to develop our intelligence, is a stupid idea imho.

vadman3• 14 years ago

The last paragraph of the article (about the chip in one's brain) is quite scary. Force brain chip implants that keep the serotonin levels artificially high to keep the unwashed masses content; some kid at school is too active - put a chip in his brain to keep the hormonal level down; etc. etc. The possibilities are endless.

EDIT: typo

ricree• 14 years ago

This article was fairly low on details and high on futurism hype.

Has anyone found a better one that isn't behind a paywall?

Supercharging the nervous system with biological, ion-transistor computer chips

Related Stories