Facebook is building brain-computer interfaces for typing and skin-hearing | Hacker News Reader

Facebook is building brain-computer interfaces for typing and skin-hearing

techcrunch.com

63 pointspearlsteinj65 comments

An advertising company wants mainline access to my brain and vital signs. What could go wrong?

(Note: You know you're getting old when you start to get concerned about the privacy of these things. If you'd told me when I started in tech that people would be voluntarily buying always-on microphones sold by advertising companies and putting them in their houses, I would've called you insane. Who knows, maybe this will work).

I look forward to the day when we start having to develop the Ghostery for preventing ads that track our identity via facial/gait recognition, and the brain and skin.

Why Ghostery? There are addons now that provide better functionality without the awful redesigned interface.

What could go wrong? One word: Blipverts

Nothing could go wrong, don't worry about. While you enjoy your sleep, make sure you enjoy it while wearing Lightspeed Briefs! For today's active lifestyle, whether you're on the job, or having fun!

Lightspeed Briefs!

What is unclear (at least to me) is how much of this tech actually exists, and how much FB is simply stating their aspirations.

There is such optimism in tech that we take claims like being able to "type at 100 words per minute" without invasive surgery at face value. And there is such cynicism that we are (or at least I am) terrified of the sort of society this would create. But can anyone actively researching this field comment on how feasible this is with invasive surgery, never mind without?

With a public announcement and a team of 60, seems like FB is at least convinced it's feasible.

100 words perminute seems aspirational to me. You as a consumer, could with ~100$ in off the shelf tech make a system that, given user practice, could do 30 though.

Not with subvocalization though; just with basic T9 style typing, just with your thoughts instead of fingers.

IMO best I can tell subvocalization is a holy grail of BCI and thus far even DARPA hasn't made much headway. I don't see FB doing better; especially given they have next to no expertise in hardware.

It won't take long, it will probably happen within our lifetime. But I fully believe our grandchildren will take this technology for granted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jroQCyWwEgE

I just got done writing a post that also directly quotes a television series without direct acknowledgement. Actually you linked to the exact scene, so that's better than what I did.

Are we pulling down the benchmark for what qualifies as a worthwhile comment on Hacker News?

...Actually, yeah, probably.

I worked on similar technologies from 2007 to 2015. With tactile stimulations, using the regular alphabet, a user could read a 5 letters word under 15s after few hours of training. After 20h It was taking me <5s. The learning curve with Braille will be stiffer, I would be surprised if they can reach 100 words per second. They may start with basic common words, such as "ok" or "lol". What happens in the brain is quite interesting, you start to "see" what you feel and associate pattern with words. You don't have to recognize all the letters to get the word.

The technologie is called sensory substitution, I think it started in the 80s. Skin-reading is a funny terminology.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Guy_Boy/publication/266...

Is there a link to what you describe and some way of training the brain to produce synesthesia? That is an interesting trait I'd LOVE to experience. I've always envied the idea that one could look at numbers and just instantly and innately visualize some characteristic about them, or be able to see if music were "right" or "wrong" with some aspect of it.

Well, there is a technology called FNIRS, which uses infrared light to detect blood flow in the brain kind of like fMRI, but without the giant expensive equipment. It's pretty new, and the signal is quite noisy. I'm skeptical of how good the quality of the interface could be when there is an unavoidable 2-4 second latency due to blood flow.

In the keynote it is asserted that the optical technology will not use blood flow but some other (more direct) measure of neural activity. It sounds to me like a near infrared form of intrinsic imaging. Very intriguing if it works.

Were there any details on what they use if not blood flow?

I fear where we are headed with AR and BCI funded by corporations.

Check out the future portrayed by Keiichi Matsuda in HYPER-REALITY: https://vimeo.com/166807261

I have been working in BCI for 6 years and to me this is a total moonshot (the writing part). There is currently no affordable technology that can scan the brain at the necessary temporal and spatial resolution to even approach the precision of implants. The main problem is that bones and cerebrospinal fluid dilute the currents a lot. I suppose they want to make something like wearable IRM but that is impossible with our current tech. State of the art typing BCIs have speeds in letters per minute. What we need is a breakthrough in sensor technology, if Facebook can manage that then the field will be able to make a huge leap.

I guess they want to use NIR, similar to this-

http://www.opnwatr.io

If you read through the article they don't seem to be talking about BCIs at all, just a camera that reads subvocalisations. I'm surprised they can be detected visually, but once you do that it's functionally audio processing.

Not to underplay the significance if it works, it'd be an enormous achievement if they could get it working outside of lab conditions, but a BCI it is not.

In article they mention to use brain imaging to detect the speech patterns in the brain. I have limited knowledge of subvocalisation but would not that be detected on the throat? There were experiments with implants using phoneme detection and they worked but that gives you only vowels. I will post the article if I can find it.

“This isn’t about decoding random thoughts. This is about decoding the words you’ve already decided to share by sending them to the speech center of your brain.”

Somehow this still doesn't make me feel at ease.

A future skill may be not thinking verbally.

When I was younger I used to try not to subvocalise (?) my computer passwords, thinking that might stop someone reading my mind. Might start that again

Nasa had an article[0] back in 2004 where they could detect what you were saying with sub vocalization on the skin and were already working on technology to read it through cloths back then, so not to get too tinfoil hat but that might not be all that bad of an idea.

[0]https://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/mar/HQ_04093_subvocal_...

Or vice versa, thinking verbally with intent for external apparatus to receive the thought.

How, how many faux pas and freudian slips would occur while people get used to the system! I suspect they will be looked upon similarly as typos are today. After all, you don't have to press send until you're happy with what will be delivered (and if any service doesn't, then they'll quickly be abandoned by their customers).

Yeah, I had the same feeling. Just because it doesn't output my innermost thoughts to text doesn't mean it is not keeping track of said thoughts. As if FaceBook didn't already have enough data about me that could be used unethically.

I deal with OCD of the intrusive thought variety. Sometimes my brain gets stuck in a loop of my deepest fears coming true. In fact, sometimes just a single "trigger" word will get stuck repeating itself over and over in my head.

The idea of having a brain-computer interface recording this activity is an absolute non-starter for me.

But then again, maybe this would all normalize some of my own mental activity, if it was more public how strange everyone's minds can act at times.

Here's s technique I've found helpful for intrusive thoughts. It's like stack overflowing your imagination with a vivid internal ritual, which overwrites all the frames containing unpleasant thoughts.

I imagine writing the details of the unpleasant thought or image down in vim. This converts the thought to "something I am observing" vs "something i and xperiencing."

Then the ritual plays out, where inmagine the same sequence of events: saving the file in vim to disk. Copying the file to a USB memory stic. Putting that stick into a ziploc back. Putting that bag into a specific pocket in my backpack. Getting my backpack and getting on my bike. Biking from my old apartment (where I lived when I developed this technique) and bike down 101 to moffet Air Force base, where I throw the backpack into a conveyor chute to a rock, which launches the backpack into space.

Sometimes I had to repeat the ritual a few times, but afterward, the image or thought recedes in intensity.

You should consider using emacs instead of vim, because it can easily handle saving the file to disk, copying it to a USB memory stick, putting it into a ziploc bag, biking it down 101 to Moffet, throwing it onto a conveyer belt into a rocket, and launching it into space, all automatically, in one single keystroke!

I could conceive of a high-fallutin' fidget cube for your mind constructed from this technology.

I could also see it used for both a lie detector and a biofeedback tool to defeat its use as such.

But what really comes to mind is the final scene in Firefox wherein Mitchell Gant has to subvocalize in Russian to fire the rearward missile on the fancy Russian jet he's stolen.

If there's one company I won't let into my brain, it's Facebook.

But they're changing* the world!

* for some negative value of "change"

I had the idea of using skin as input for sound and light a long time ago as a kid. I've since seen something using the tongue but not much else. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of it. How many nerve endings are connected to the brain through eyes and ears vs skin (and what the heck is 2 m2 supposed to mean)?

As for the brain interface, outside of helping people with severe disabilities, no thank you.

2 m2 probably means two square meters

I worked on vibrotactile and electrotactile technologies (Mostly on the tongue, belly or chest...) for years. The most sensitive part of your body is the tongue, that's where you would get the best resolution. You could turn a b/w images, process it and lower the resolution, then turn the white into levels of stimulation. Unfortunately, the resolution on the tongue display is 20x20. It has its limitation, in a controlled environment we trained people to read 4-5 letter words in few seconds or distinguish shapes. For spatial orientation, it's better to use systems similar to a lidar and use a tactile vest to inform the user how close is the collision.

The best use of these systems were for training formula 1 drivers (clue for shifting, braking, timing...), force feedbacks for telesurgery or restauring proprioception for exoskeleton users.

https://www.ihmc.us/research/multi-sensory-multi-modal-neura...

https://www.sages.org/meetings/annual-meeting/abstracts-arch...

http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/jr/2011/284352.pdf

I checked the date, but nope, it's not April Fool's today.

So apparently, yes, FaceBook is working on devices that will allow you to type with your brain.

In return, FaceBook will need from you only access to your thoughts, and maybe your moods and emotions too?

Rest assured, advertisers will happily pay for them.

The ability to use BCI != ability to access your thoughts. The technology doesn't, and probably won't for a long while yet, for the latter to start with. Facebook already has access to active user's thoughts, moods, and emotions anyway; they share them willingly and in a much more machine friendly fashion than brain waves.

Brain enabled typing is going to be the future of hands free devices, and you're better off trying to beat them to market than lamenting the "evil facebook boogieman".

Ah yes, except that (1) people who use such an interface will meld with it, and (2) we're talking about brain sensors on you.

Most input sensors are "brain sensors" in the most reductive sense.

There's nothing spooky about brain sensors. You can buy them today, as meditation tools. I have a long running personal project thread to to use mine as a typing interface. It's 100% possible with current technology and not in the least bit dystopian. Interested parties can read your thoughts much more reliably by just parsing these public posts than trying to build a model to get something more specific than "discrete input A" out of brain waves.

I agree this does look like a very good technology for hands free communication. I'm still worried about the possible cons. So, do you think it would likely take more than a software update for it's ability to access your thoughts? Because, even if the technology isn't quite there yet if they can just somewhere down the road update these things over the air with these capabilities it seems a little frightening.

Brb, investing in tinfoil hat stocks....

On a serious note though, what's to stop Facebook from collecting more information than it claims? It may claim to only be scanning for verbal locomotion, but how can we be guaranteed that they aren't discretely monitoring our reactions to advertisements or whatnot?

When the time comes, it will be written there in the Terms & Conditions that they can record your reactions to advertisements and more, and billions will be clicking "I Agree."

Well if they're like Bose, you'll be fine as long as you don't install their helpful app.

Time for occlumency training...

The next great frontier for hacking could be hacking brainwaves to get data as you think it--that's pretty scary.

I fear where we are headed with AR and BCI funded by corporations.

Check out the future portrayed by Keiichi Matsuda in HYPER-REALITY: https://vimeo.com/166807261

If this works it would make torture useless right? Force implant this on someone's head. Ask a question, usually people answer it in their own head, realize they shouldn't say it and say that they don't know.

With Facebook's and Google's track record of privacy this seems like a weapon NSA will have a dancing field day. The ability to hear everyone's thoughts, it's the super power every dictator wants.

What next: ability to implant new thoughts and memory. An ad so fucking powerful you can't resist.

I think for this to work, the service would need to train for a long time on each individual person, because our brain waves are different. In other words, my brain waves when I mentally think of the word "cat" are totally different from yours when you think of the word "cat."

Rather than "unsettling" (the word the article's author used), I think this would be awesome. I hate being bounded by the speed of my clumsy, ham-handed typing.

This would be very interesting to see from a security stand point of view. We are introducing another attack vector. ex. Imagine if you could phish someone's brain.

You'd have to train yourself to "think privately" now... Most people don't even know how to text privately. This may truly be a dystopian nightmare.

This is already a dystopian nightmare ...

Technology is pervasive

Smartphones are the most used technological objects (everywhere, always, repeatedly, compulsively, in the subway, on a bus, in a queue, by car, in a restaurant, in a break). VR is massive, augmented reality is not (think about Google Glass): it seems that this sector has picked up the witness by reaching in no time extraordinary results and a public success that increased reality has completely missed. It will be that we are tired of the often difficult and oppressive reality, and instead of increasing it, we want to forget it, evade it and slip completely into an increasingly credible and perfect virtual reality. If this is not a dystopian nightmare ... Drones, artificial intelligence, biotechnology prostheses, wearable computing, automation, sex-bots.

The urban layout has changed

Vertical development with skyscrapers, horizontal developments with the sprawl and the hinterland. Increased air pollution, gap between rich and poor, extreme difference between some neighborhoods. Cities are becoming cyberpunk, and some have been around for some time.

Hacking, surveillance, cyber war

NSA, Snowden, Prism, Anonymous, the US government hacking the network of my last university, the Golden Shield Project, leaks, whistleblowers, the power of the ad tech corporations.

The multinationals

Large business conglomerates closely control the market by often enforcing laws, exploiting the underdeveloped work of innumerable employees by compelling them to work at the limits of slavery. All of this, of course, is aimed at the production of highly prestigious technology objects marketed at prices often overwhelmed by the iconographic presence of the brand, a new divinity created and powered by advertising and fetishically adored by conditioned masses.

"Think privately" is something most people are not able to do right here, right now. The possibility that Facebook might try (in a future) to exploit my brain is only the last drop in a dystopian sea.

It still requires consent. If it's really that bad, one can unplug and the problem goes away. Given you're still here and commenting on HN posts, the whole "we're in a dystopia already" schtick comes off as self-indulgent.

I'm sorry if it looks like a self-indulgence speech, it's not really my intention.

A complete opt-out from ...all that... would probably require moving to one of the Svalbard islands or joining a couple of bedouins in the Sahara desert.

One can sure avoid some of the most uncomfortable things in society, this may also give you the impression that "it still requires consent", an illusion of control.

But I was born and raised in a world made up of people inevitably related to each other. Even if I have personally exercised the ability to choose in what to be involved with or not, I am aware I don't have any ultimate control over the whole complex around me.

This doesn't mean I am fine with x,y,z.

That's why the actual society is dystopian in the first place: because actually the best thing you can do is to speak out in order to raise awareness about the "we hoped for this, but ended up with that instead".

Disillusionment may be a first step, indulgence not. A BCI technology developed in the pubblic interest will be a game changer, but I simply don't see that (any deduction excluded).

Well said. I actually agree with you, apart from the semantics of "dystopia".

And you're totally right that we as members of society don't really have much choice but to either go all-in or off the grid. The all-or-nothing starkness is good for nobody but the monopolists.

> A BCI technology developed in the pubblic interest will be a game changer, but I simply don't see that.

This seems to be the faustian bargain of capitalism. We get technological progress at exponential rates, and then the first purpose ends up to be selling ads.

> You'd have to train yourself to "think privately" now

In other words:

Security through obscurity for your brain.™

A publication from 3 days ago:

"Success in recognizing ddigits and monosyllables with high accurary from brain activity measurement"

[1] https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-04/tuot-sir0414...

I have an openBCI at home, this is like a huge motivation to finally build the helmet and play often :)

It's becoming boring, ladies, we have seen it all before in 1984: The government attempts to control not only the speech and actions, but also the thoughts of its subjects. To entertain unacceptable thoughts is known as crimethink. "Crimestop" is a way to avoid crimethink by immediately purging dangerous thoughts from the mind.

Can anyone share more resources on how BCI works, specially non-invasive (no implants inside brain) BCI ? Papers, blogs etc

A few links from recent years:

http://www.autodidacts.io/neurotech-hardware-roundup-eeg-bci...

http://gizmodo.com/the-best-brain-reader-your-money-cant-buy...

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

http://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-and-xerox-predict-brain-con...

https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.01338

https://sccn.ucsd.edu/wiki/Introduction_To_Modern_Brain-Comp...

I'm curious about the skin-hearing technology, in the article it mentions 'a system of actuators tuned to 16 frequency bands', does that mean say you'd have 16 actuators each using producing different frequencies? And would the actuators be used on any part of the body?

https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2008/07/02/emot...

Not clear how they will make a non invasive optical brain interface...

Aluminum foil headgear will soon be in fashion.

The king of creepy wants another vector to harvest information?

What can possibly go wrong here?

Good device to start a reality show, Brain Honesty.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com