Brain Implants Boost Memory for First Time Ever

Are we living in the Matrix or in a futuristic RoboCop world with cybernetic people?

Neurologists and high-tech engineers have joined forces to create what we thought was only science fiction: the BRAIN-BOOSTING IMPLANT. Specifically, this chip works on memory and can boost short-term memory by 15% and working memory by 25%.

Now students around the world can study less and spend more time on Facebook... Actually, scientists intend to use this technology to help people with memory problems like Alzheimer's and other degenerative brain diseases. 

The University of Southern California (USC) seems to believe this is a step towards a bright cybernetic future. Professor Dong Song presented this “memory prosthesis” at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington D.C. as the first of its kind to improve human memory.

20 volunteers allowed Song's team to implant electrodes into their brains to treat epilepsy and he collected their brain activity data during memory exercises. The research team found the pattern for best memory function and stimulated the electrodes with it during future tests. These showed 15% and 25% memory improvements over no stimulation and even more so over random stimulation. 

Song said “We are writing the neural code to enhance memory function. This has never been done before.”

 

Worth It?

The cost to deal with memory disabilities in the US cost $236 billion in 2016, plus the emotional stress of family members helping their loved ones. Financially, it seems totally worth implanting a small device to prevent or reduce the debilitating effects of memory loss. 

However, what about the slippery slope of cybernetic enhancements and technological control over our lives? Would it be wise to implant something in your brain that can monitor and even control your thoughts? Can such devices really stay offline for privacy? 

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are talking about cybernetic brain enhancements and mind reading A.I. but the potential dangers are quite obvious to those with even the same level of imagination as those that dreamt up these technologies in the first place. So why be tempted to stray away from natural solutions rather than towards new shiny double-edged artificial swords? Do you really want to live under an artificially intelligent supercomputer than governs your daily life and that can punish you wirelessly instantly? 

It's ironic that in trying to improve our memory rushing towards technology, we may have actually forgotten who we are and what we are truly capable of. 

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Sources:

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/brain-implant-boosts-memory-first-time-ever-ncna821016

New AlphaGo Zero A.I. Becomes Unbeatable After 3 Days, Crushes Predecessor 100-0

Google DeepMind's AlphaGo Zero A.I. program just ascended to the next level.

AlphaGo Zero is their latest upgrade and it mastered the uber-complex ancient Chinese board game Go all by itself. That's right, unlike its predecessor, AlphaGo Lee, that studied millions of expert human moves before practicing against itself, AlphaGo Zero had no human inputs at all. Instead, Zero went solo, battling against itself!

It started with random moves and used a function AlphaGo Lee didn't: review its past experience to predict the rest of the gameplay to judge each scenario's winner before making its next move. Similar training took AlphaGo Lee months. 

After just 3 days and 4.9 million battles, AlphaGo Zero beat AlphaGo Lee 100 times in a row! 

“The results are stunning. We’re talking about a revolutionary change.”
-Jonathan Schaeffer, a computer scientist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada

What's Next for A.I.?

Scientists and techno-enthusiasts are excited to imagine all the possibilities of leveraging such computational capabilities. Have it solve poverty, hunger, energy, transportation, communication, construction, agriculture, diseases, longevity, space travel, and on and on.

“To AlphaGo Zero, the world human champion is a novice,” Schaeffer says.

But with no spirit or moral code to guide it and prevent it from harming living beings and the ability to far outpace humans, such "superhuman abilities" may be as great a threat as an unstoppable virus... or worse. 

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Sources:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/newest-alphago-mastered-game-no-human-input?tgt=more

https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v550/n7676/full/nature24270.html

Facebook's Wants to Hack Your Brain!

No, this is not some new futuristic sci-fi movie plot ― although it reminds me of a few ― during the 2017 F8 convention, Facebook announced it's been working with 60 engineers to monitor your brain waves to transcribe your thoughts into text... Can you tell what I'm thinking? "No thank you! Get out of my head Facebook!"

Digital Mind Reading (/Writing)

Got read/write permissions for your brain?

Communication is a two-way street with an exchange of ideas or messages. So, if you're wearing a Facebook device that can read your mind, then wouldn't it follow that it can send you messages as well. Those little app notifications can get annoying sometimes but imagine if they were pinging in your brain and even influencing your thoughts and decisions. Google already boasts it can predict the future based on past actions and trending behaviors but, if Abraham Lincoln was right saying "the best way to predict the future is to create it," then they probably will by sending signals to trigger behaviors. So, be careful who you permit access your mind ― there are many warnings throughout our past.

Trade Privacy for Convenience?

Facebook Research & Development head, Regina Dugan, promotes this invasion of privacy as helping people type 5x faster than by hand, while CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, tempts us with being able to control virtual reality with our minds. An interesting fact to note is that Dugan was former lead of Google’s Advanced Technology & Products division and a former head of U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). This may not raise some peoples' eyebrows but it does make one question what military related agendas Google and Facebook are involved with as the world's most popular digital social interfaces. Maybe a "mind reading world wide web military artificially intelligent supercomputer that already knows everything about you... and all your so-called friends?" 

Hiding in Plain Sight

Facebook’s "Area 404" (like error 404: page not found) hardware lab in Menlo Park, California is where their secret projects are hidden in plain sight as exciting advancements in entertainment and medical industries. Facebook R&D team is developing various machine learning non-invasive neural prosthetic prototypes that, according to them, "is about decoding the words you’ve already decided to share by sending them to the speech center of your brain.” So maybe we don't have to worry about them data mining all our thoughts...

Facebook is getting help from UC San Francisco, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They're also hiring a Brain-Computer Interface Engineer and a Neural Imaging Engineer to push such projects forward. 

Facebook VR Matrix?

Facebook recently announced it's new mission statement. Zuckerberg said "Instead of making the world 'more open and connected,' Facebook's goal now is to 'bring the world closer together.' To prove this, Facebook has been launching lots of projects: Terragraph Wi-Fi nodes, Project ARIES antenna, Aquila solar-powered drone, Wedge, Open Vault, Surround 360 camera, and even mobile virtual reality headsets.

He added, "I used to think that if we just gave people a voice and helped people connect, that would make the world a better place by itself. Now I believe we have a responsibility to do even more."

With megalithic companies like Google, Facebook, DARPA, and others developing technologies that are getting more and more personal, it's wise to take a precautionary stance and decide for yourself the path towards a bright and moral future for humankind.