Controlling a computer or a robot with the help of thought is an idea that many scientists have been trying to realize for many years. This is a difficult task, so there are no reliable “thought interfaces” yet.
Now the Pentagon is trying to create its own technology of thought control of devices - we are talking about drones. Six research teams are working on this complex task. And it is more complicated than it might seem, because in the final the Pentagon plans to get "a technology that allows you to control drones and swarms of aircraft, operating them at the speed of thought, rather than mechanical controllers."
To implement the technology, a non-invasive neurointerface is being developed under the Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology program. Its creators plan to learn how to control devices with the help of thought without the need to connect something to the human brain through surgery.
Six different teams received contracts from the Pentagon to develop the technology in question, and go to their goal in different ways. So, a team from Carnegie Mellon University is trying to create a drone control platform based on electrical and ultrasonic signals from a non-invasive neurointerface. Johns Hopkins University is exploring the use of infrared radiation.
The creation of such systems raises a number of questions. For example, what happens if a soldier thinks and manages a drone and gives an erroneous mental command that will already be used? Or what if the enemy captures the neural interface and begins to control the drones from its side?
In this situation, there is a lot of “what if?”, But there are practically no answers. The military, if they want to create a reliable neural interface, will have to solve many problems that arise, and not only of a technological nature.
This photo shows a paralyzed man who received an implant in 2014. Now scientists are trying to learn how to correctly read brain signals in order to do without implants in the future.
Operations of this kind are extremely complex, in addition, they are also very expensive. So if the military wants to create a super-soldier, and not just one, but an entire army, they will have to look for an opportunity to do without surgical intervention.
The difficulty is that for some human actions very weak electrical signals in the brain are responsible. So weak that in the recent past they would not even be able to count. But now technology is advancing, so it’s possible to record the brain electroencephalogram much more accurately than before.
The teams of scientists in question record signals generated by nerve cells, the duration of which is 10 microseconds.
The task to develop a non-invasive interface was formulated by the Pentagon in 2016. The project has been handled from the outset by the Advanced Defense Research and Development Agency (DARPA). The Office has allocated a multi-million grant to several scientific institutions. All of them work in different directions, as mentioned above.
As for the invasive interface, the company Ilona Mask Neuralink has achieved impressive success in this area. At a presentation in San Francisco, the company showed flexible “strands,” each 4-6 microns thick — about 16 times thinner than a human hair. The “bundle” of six neurons contains 192 electrodes that are implanted into the brain using a robot surgeon. During the operation, the surgeon tries to avoid interaction with blood vessels, which minimizes inflammatory processes.
Representatives of Neuralink conducted several dozen successful tests, 19 of them in rats. In 87% of the operations on the brain of rats were successful. The presentation showed a rat with a USB-C port on its head. As far as one can judge, the Mask company received much more money than the Pentagon allocated for research.
Be that as it may, the development of neural interfaces is gradually moving forward, progress is noticeable. It may well be that in a few years one of the companies or research organizations will present more advanced developments than we saw before. And then the singularity will come much closer to us. In the meantime, she is still somewhere out there.