Repent for the Singularity is near

[bascule]

Artifical memory-enhancing hippocampus. Computer-like short term memory. That's nuts.

 

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17013218-13762,00.html

 

US military experts are attempting to create an army of super-human soldiers who will be more intelligent and deadly thanks to a microchip implanted in their brains.

Scientists believe the implant will vastly improve the memory of troops so that they can recall every detail of their training and become more effective fighters.

 

Researchers at the University of Southern California's bio-engineering department have created the chip, which acts in exactly the same way as the hippocampus - the part of the brain that deals with memory.

 

In experiments, the team removed that section of the brain of dead rats and inserted the chip in its place. The implant sent exactly the same electronic signals as the real thing.

 

The next stage of the project is to test the implant on live animals. If this work proves to be as successful, experiments could one day be carried out on soldiers.

[CanadaAotS]

Of course the first application they use is military, but thats how most thing start out I guess...

[Royston]

Artifical memory-enhancing hippocampus. Computer-like short term memory. That's nuts.

 

There's more on this and related articles here...

 

http://www.kurzweilai.net/mindx/frame.html

 

I'm sure you're more than familiar with Ray Kurzweil, there's some very interesting articles on this site, not all related to the technological singularity, and well worth a look.

[Glider]

Yeahuh...remembering training is one thing. Understanding it and being able to apply it to different situations appropriately is another.

[gib65]

I don't buy that for a second. Our technology may be advanced, but it's not THAT advanced. We barely even understand how the brain works, much less mimic it with computer chips.

[Royston]

I don't buy that for a second. Our technology may be advanced, but it's not THAT advanced. We barely even understand how the brain works, much less mimic it with computer chips.

 

We're only talking about one part of the brain here...prosthetics / transplants are all accepted, but it's a far cry from creating a modern day Frankensteins monster, just as this is a far cry from an entire brain made of computer chips. So this technology isn't so advanced that it seems inplausible.

 

I guess you've heard of the IBM 'blue brain' project, also 'in development' but if there's anything that's uniting computer technology with neuroscience that's the space to watch. I'm with Bascule, that the rate of technological advancement is accelerating at an alarming rate and I should imagine there will be some crossing of certain fields of technology to look forward to in the next few years.

[ashennell]

This group has been working on the prosthetic HPC for ages. In 2003 there was some noise about the first test on rodents. I've not seen any positive results published yet. The aim was to produce a replacement hippocampus and not a suped up version. We don't know enough to clearly define the function of the HPC let alone produce a better version. That 'better = consolidating more details/memories' sounds like a reporters idea and not a neuroscientists.

 

that any of this would be used to make super soldiers is absurd.

 

I think some of these stories inflate the perception of just how much we know about how the brain works. We have a way to go yet.

[bascule]

I don't buy that for a second. Our technology may be advanced, but it's not THAT advanced. We barely even understand how the brain works, much less mimic it with computer chips.

 

Apparently you didn't hear that they constructed a mathematical model of the hippocampus in 2003 and began work on the first prosthetic replacements

[gib65]

We're only talking about one part of the brain here...prosthetics / transplants are all accepted, but it's a far cry from creating a modern day Frankensteins monster, just as this is a far cry from an entire brain made of computer chips. So this technology isn't so advanced that it seems inplausible.

 

That's debatable. I can't really prove whether or not doing brain/microchip transplants, even if it's on just the hippocampus, is plausible or implausible, but neither can you. The "believability" of something like this is too much of an opinion.

 

I have my doubts because 1) even though computers circuits and neural circuits have a lot in common, there are still a lot of differences, and 2) there is still a lot about neurology that we are in the dark about, and this is not just in regards to the brain as a whole, but to neurons, the fundamental building blocks of the brain.

 

Another reason for my doubts is that a looked at the titles of a few other articles on that site, and here's what they are:

 

House comes with free bride

Carnivorous lizard found in toilet

Evolution in the bible, says Vatican

Red the world's richest cat

Man seeks fat people to fuel his boat

Police seize 24 tonnes of illegal cheese

Pandas wed in Thai zoo

River of cocaine flows through London

Man escapes prison as 'identical twin'

 

I really have to question the authenticity of these.

 

Even if the article is right, I'd be very surprised if this project didn't end disasterously. To me, it just seems like cockamany to think that we can so easily replace the hippocampus with a computer chip and have the results we expect. Not to mention, it also sounds very irresponsible.

[bascule]

gib, check The New Scientist article that I linked. It's from 2003, and the new one seems like a followup, if anything. I bet the same people are involved.

[gib65]

gib, check The New Scientist article that I linked. It's from 2003, and the new one seems like a followup, if anything. I bet the same people are involved.

 

Well, I'll be damned.

 

As I said, though, I can only see impending doom if the militairy gets their hands on this kind of technology. No one will be safe. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I don't trust technology of this caliber in the hands of the government or the militairy. It would give them too much power.

 

I'd take heed in the last few paragraphs of that article:

 

"While trials on monkeys will tell us a lot about the prosthesis's performance, there are some questions that will not be answered. For example, it is unclear whether we have any control over what we remember. If we do, would brain implants of the future force some people to remember things they would rather forget?

 

The ethical consequences of that would be serious. "Forgetting is the most beneficial process we possess," Williams says. It enables us to deal with painful situations without actually reliving them.

 

Another ethical conundrum concerns consent to being given the prosthesis, says Anderson. The people most in need of it will be those with a damaged hippocampus and a reduced ability to form new memories. "If someone can't form new memories, then to what extent can they give consent to have this implant?" "

 

I'd still have to say, though, that although the link you posted, Bascule, sounds a bit more credible, the one about the militairy using it to create a army of super-soldiers still sounds too much like science fiction. I don't doubt that one day it may be possible, but I see that day still being far into the future. I can only hope that, when that day comes, man kind will have learnt to live and govern itself with a lot more responsibility than it does now.

[ashennell]

Hello. Hello.

 

The research is real the original link you posted is bull.

 

I think I tried to explain that already. I've cannot find any more news about the research after the 2003 article. The initial link you gave is just something that somebody has made up based on the original story.

 

There is no garuantee that this replacement HPC will work. It was developed from recordings from rat HPC slices. We still don't know alot about what the HPC is doing.