Last Updated on: 6th May 2019, 09:06 am
Is this really something worth celebrating? Human brains could be connected to the internet in ‘next few decades,’ scientists predict
I like thinking. I like not knowing everything and having to figure things out for myself, even if sometimes all that means is Googling a few pages deep. I like discovering things by accident. I like having an imagination. I like entertaining myself. I like having creative, original thoughts. I like having thoughts that belong only to me. I don’t want those thoughts being the subject of the next data breach. I don’t want to have to install firewall and anti-virus in my skull to prevent the compromised brain cloud from harming me. I don’t want to get some kind of wasting disease from the implant they thought was safe. I don’t need technology solving every problem. That doesn’t mean don’t solve any, it just means I’ve been around long enough to understand that for every problem it solves, it creates plenty of new ones. I don’t want us all to be perfect, because what even is that? I don’t want people to no longer have different perspectives, because conversation and debate are healthy, necessary things. To me, being a human of the future means being a little smarter than I was yesterday. If it’s supposed to mean being connected to a 24/7 real-time network and gradually losing my sense of self, you can count me out.
A new research study suggests that human brains could be merged with technology significantly sooner than many expect, perhaps “within decades.”
Known as the “Human Brain/Cloud Interface” (B/CI), researchers at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing in California have suggested that nanorobots could be implanted into the human body and connect to a network in real-time.
“These devices would navigate the human vasculature, cross the blood-brain barrier, and precisely autoposition themselves among, or even within brain cells,” the study’s senior author, Robert Freitas, Jr., said in a statement. “They would then wirelessly transmit encoded information to and from a cloud-based supercomputer network for real-time brain-state monitoring and data extraction.The research was published in the scientific journal, Frontiers in Neuroscience.
First proposed by futurist Ray Kurzweil – who has also suggested that computers will be as smart as humans within a decade – the concept of B/CI would potentially allow people to simply think of a question and be answered instantly, as opposed to looking for it in a search engine, similar to how information is received in the popular sci-fi “The Matrix” movie series.
“A human B/CI system mediated by neuralnanorobotics could empower individuals with instantaneous access to all cumulative human knowledge available in the cloud, while significantly improving human learning capacities and intelligence,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Nuno Martins, added in the statement.
Aside from obtaining “direct, instantaneous access to virtually any facet of cumulative human knowledge,” there are other potential applications, the researchers wrote in the study. These include the ability to improve education, intelligence, entertainment, traveling, as well as “other interactive experiences.”