Before we come up with some kind of Evil Hollywood Science Fiction Artificial Intelligence that for some reason utilizes the horribly inefficient human body as a power source, we are stuck with brains. We are already doing with brains what the machines do with humans in the classic film “The Matrix”.
Animal brains, that is. Scientists at University of Reading have removed the neural cortex of a fetal rat, put it in a nutrient and neuron rich broth surrounding a circuit board, and waited. Over 300,000 rat neurons eventually forged their own new and unique connections with the cortex and circuit board:
“After about five days, patterns of electrical activity can be detected as the neurons transmit signals around what has become a very dense mesh of axons and dendrites. The neurons seem to be randomly firing, producing pulses of voltage known as action potentials. Often, though, many or all of them will fire in unison, a phenomenon known as “bursting”.”
Upon sufficient maturity of this bio-computer, they then equipped it with wheels and sensors. Interestingly, it automatically moved and avoided walls in a rat-like fashion. Don’t expect your mechanical Roomba to become obsolete anytime soon, but better teach your cat some self-control while you wait. Video of rat brain robot in action:
And check out the entire article here – www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926696.100
There are also test flights of moths remote controlled very precisely by human hands due to insect chip-brain interfaces. Using a specific species of moth that’s flying trigger is a mere on/off signal, rather than requiring a signal for every beat of its wings, has been a big leap. Scientists can now control these insects with much less battery power, more accuracy (even controlling their place and speed in mid-flight), and better video feedback systems. Cockroaches are old news when it comes to this sort of insect domination, they can be considered perfected to the level of remote controlled vehicles.
Obviously everyone is going to be concerned about privacy. Forward Thinking: Invest in the Fumigation and Extermination Industry while it is still cheap.
Concerning human brains, we’re a bit more complicated than insects, so we fortunately have a few decades remaining before total domination by the evil elite illuminati sponsored machine overlords. But there are quite amazing studies being conducted right now that will surely fuel the flames of conspiracy theorists world wide.
Robot controlled entirely by human thoughts. No physical controls:
www.popularmechanics.com/science/robotics/4215924.html
Brown University (Shameless Plug: My Uni, Go Bruno!), leading research on brain control of robotic prosthetics for disabled people:
today.brown.edu/articles/2008/11/braingate
Where is this all leading? Renown futurist and engineer Ray Kurzweil predicts that many of us will choose to add computing power and knowledge to our biological brains (just like the rest of our body), enhancing our mental health, capabilities, and intelligence while retaining our core personality, individuality, and humanity. Some say we will lose our unique individualism as we merge with machines, I predict the opposite. Just as an uneducated, starved brain from the medieval dark ages or poverty-stricken Africa is limited in comparison to an educated healthy brain, in the future our minds will expand and become more varied in psychology, ideas, creativity, and perception as we voluntarily tinker with our intelligence, speed of thought, memory, and even how the basic components of our brains are organized. Similar to how a prosthetic leg helps one walk again or a pacemaker allows one to live additional years brain-computer interfaces will be just another step.
Evolution, fortuitous as it is, is quite inefficient. Evolution has brought us to great places, but also to great suffering. As Kurzweil says, we will transcend the limitations of our biology.
Just another natural step in the evolution of the universe, I believe.
