Interfaces that allow direct connection between an organic brain and a computer have long been a common theme in science fiction. At the same time, everyone sees this interface in different ways, starting with AI, which becomes a complete copy of a particular person, as, for example, in the movie “Total Recall”, or the AI itself becomes an independent person and takes over the world like “Matrices.
However, such things already exist in one form or another in the real world. And in the plans of scientists to master in practice the entire layer of science fiction. At the moment, they choose projects that, in their opinion, will be short-term and practical, solving one or another task assigned to the project. Nevertheless, these simple projects are amazingly impressive.
The US Department of Defense (DoD) has approved a new project with the government, which is reported to have invested $ 65 million. The project will have 6 sub-projects, each dedicated to the development of high-resolution work systems and neural interfaces that could assist in sensory recovery for people with visual, hearing or speech impairments.
DoD is contracted by five research organizations and one private company. Together, they will work under the Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) project, which will be managed internally by DARPA (US Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) within the DoD.
The NESD project was officially launched in 2016 with the goal of creating an implantable neural interface capable of providing a high level of communication between brain systems and electronics.
The first results of NESD's work will be the ability to restore lost vision through the prosthetic retina. As an option, a “holographic light field” is also being considered, which will receive spectral data from outside television cameras and modulate at least a million neurons in the visual cortex of the brain.
Systems that control an artificial limb or restore the possibility of lost speech will work in a similar way. The latter direction was assigned to two research groups from Paradromics and Brown University.
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Phillip Alvelda, NESD Program Manager, puts it this way:
“NESD awaits a future in which modern neural devices will offer a touch interface of the highest precision and previously unimaginable resolution. At the moment, the most advanced neural interfaces can interact with no more than 1 million neurons in parallel. But NESD aims to provide a much deeper, two-way communication between the brain and the computer. At the same time, we hope to get a parallel effect - a deeper understanding of the biology and function of the brain as an organ."
Since DoD is still not a teaching organization, but more of a military one, the Ministry of Defense is primarily interested in the application of new technology on the battlefield. A deeper connection between a soldier and a computer will allow the military to take a completely new look at the very essence of modern combat and force them to rewrite all outdated military doctrines.
In turn, other firms, like DARPA, are doing much the same. In the private sector, Elon Musk, for example, is supporting a nascent venture called Neuralink, which is reportedly developing implants that will allow human thought and software to merge. Facebook is also working on a similar project.
In theory, Elon Musk sees the brain-expanding interface as an opportunity to protect people from the assault on dominance by artificial intelligence. However, in practice, Neuralink is still dealing with medical problems. In this aspect, DARPA has much better prospects for a breakthrough.
