Darpa creates prosthetic arm that “feels” | Hacker News Reader

Darpa creates prosthetic arm that “feels”

qz.com

69 pointsgloober18 comments

This [1] top of "Restoring Active Memory (RAM) - The end goal of RAM is to develop and test a wireless, fully implantable neural-interface medical device for human clinical use.." [2] and the Sci-fi future will be here.

[1] http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2015-09-11

[2] http://www.darpa.mil/program/restoring-active-memory

Can I use this to have 6 arms?

Which combination of right and left?

Well...my mind's blown. Astounding technology advancement.

Maybe a bit more likely to arrive on the consumer market are EEG devices (non invasive) that can do more than detect that you've blinked or squinted your face...

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/136446-darpa-combines-hum...

There is a broad scope of work surrounding the use of such signals like the P300(& related ERPs) combining in mobile contexts, eye tracking, etc.

In effect, all this potentially could make it very difficult to hide certain things like recognition processes (I know the photo of that place/person) or anything connected with attentional orientation (e.g. that XXX rated advertisement in the corner of the screen captured my attention).

A google scholar for search for "rsvp eeg p300" or a look at work from some previous/currently darpa funded labs like LIINC show some of this early work under way... [http://liinc.bme.columbia.edu/mainTemplate.htm?liinc_project...]

If one can get the gist of what various neural signals can index here from browsing through the literature, it's not too difficult to see Orwellian type applications that could be built. I'm thinking along the lines of airport security screening your brain to see if you recognize certain types of information such as recognizing a bit of a weapon somebody should not recognize or an instrument that might be used in a drug lab.

Putting issues like signal-to-noise and other confounds\limitations aside some scary applications can already be built and deployed with the most basic of available signals.

tACS, tDCS and similar techniques ("putting stuff in") are development and have been shown when used with careful timing and electrode selection that certain ongoing processes in the brain can be tweaked. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24998643]

Before we go worrying about having probes shoving into our brains, I would begin to worry about the more practical implications and privacy concerns surrounding many of those cheap EEG platforms that everybody - could potentially - wear. E.g. Sam wears an EEG for attention monitoring in the workplace but with some basic eye tracking (via EOG) and coregistration with eye fixations/movements we can begin to figure out everytime he looks at Michelle's chest he and the 20 other people he works with have a 'P300' response. You get where I am going with this....

Example patent: http://www.google.com/patents/US7376459

Big Boss

Is the top picture actually the DARPA arm without it's `skin` or is it a render of Big Boss' arm from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain? It looks very similar.

Edit: Ah, the caption says DARPA, sorry :)

Next up, stun arms and active sonar add-ons.

Rarely have I felt so conflicted. The path towards relieving human suffering also leads inexorably to erasing human autonomy. Every increase in human control of neural-interface medical devices risks a corollary magnification of medical-device control of human neurons. Yet the relevant companies make no attempt to screen for this risk, guaranteeing that, if present trends continue, it is only a matter of time until artificial cerebrates penetrate the boundary! I repeat - PENETRATION INEVITABLE!

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted because what you say is true. If medical devices provide a two way path of communication between the brain, then it is certainly true that there is a risk of manipulating the human brain directly with not-so-friendly intentions.

Downvoting should be used to indicate relevancy. The comment is obviously relevant.

They downvote because most are still little boys and girls just exerting their right to downvote, not intending to use it for it's real use.

Yep, that's how one downvotes irrelevant comments.

FYI the founder of this website has said that downvoting a comment to show disagreement is perfectly fine by him, not just for irrelevant/spammy comments.

Personally I've downvoted you for the tone of your comment not for the fact that you expressed disagreement with people downvoting the parent comment.

Yep, it's perfectly fine by me too. Not that downvotes or upvotes mean anything. My comment was not serious at all, just a little bit of provocative commentary.

It will be interesting to see how direct neural drugs are going to be regulated. Or maybe I've just been reading too much scifi.

This is doubly true of "smart devices" and IoT in general. It's a two way road, as demonstrated by the "hacking" of the latest Jeep Grand Cherokee[0] model.

[0] http://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-high...

What I find interesting (fears aside) is that we are already capable of interfacing our brain with machines, just not in a way that bypasses the conscious/sensorial part of it. In that sense, directly interfacing with the brain seems like just the obvious evolution.

>leads inexorably to erasing human autonomy

Not really - it can work the other way where people who are handicapped and need carers will be able to regain independence.

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