Comment by lsc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lsc | Hacker News Reader

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How do you define 'useful'?

My keyboard and monitor are brain-computer interfaces. I'd argue that they are pretty useful.

I can imagine a way to consume information that is dramatically faster than the 500 or some odd words per minute I get reading.

But for input to the computer? I mean, I'm not saying that a keyboard can't be improved upon, but I think there are some hard limits to how quickly I can compose my thoughts; I think that it's fairly rare that the fingers are the limit. (Of course, making it so I think less about the fingers would be great)

What I'm saying is that there might be human processing speed issues that limit how much value we can get out of faster I/O.

On the other hand, maybe it's like reading was for me; before I could read at a certain speed and certain ease, I couldn't enjoy books, because I'd forget the beginning of the paragraph before I got to the end. Like I needed to load enough words at once to see the picture. It's totally possible that output would be the same way; if I could somehow output the equivalent of five hundred plus words per minute, maybe that would change my writing the same way passing that speed changed my reading?

I think most of the bandwidth would be computer -> brain, not the other way around, assuming it can teach your brain to retain knowledge and show it images/movies. The only exception would be if we could significantly alter the perception of time, but I'm not really betting on that despite how useful it'd be.

Even if I could only accurately sample 1-8 bits/second from the brain, that would be world-changing. There are a lot of clever people who could stuff a lot of utility through 8 bits/second given you are paired with a powerful smartphone and a proper "UX". Clever encoding schemes and signals could be developed. Especially if you go for sequences/chords that are executed over 1-4 seconds.

Plus the brain would likely just act as an index to fetch info that is then replayed to you. I really don't need a terabyte in the form of neuron connections when storage and computing would be ubiquitous.

can't you sample way more than 8 bits a second from my brain through the keyboard? I mean, I don't think it'd take much work to get to 8 bits a second using a twiddler or something with one hand.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't understand what a brain computer interface gets you if it's not faster than hands and monitors. (I mean, I guess there's portability, but that doesn't seem super life changing to me; phones are pretty portable already, and I can do 8 bits a second on those, too.)

Hands are wonderful for decoding thought into action, that's true, but for example, the brain can imagine images way faster than hands can paint them. A lot of people can be limited by their hands in gaming too. This is exchanged for learning some kind of encoding scheme that translates thought into bits. It's also really difficult, for example, to create 3D models on your phone just using your hands.

By sending bits, the interface changes and you aren't really burdened with UI navigation or UI mechanics like touch, drag, etc. Something like a phone would take on more roles that are currently filled by desktops and laptops right now.

But again, output isn't interesting. The low bitrate is just to illustrate that it isn't that interesting compared to the other direction (but I still think there could be useful products if the device is discreet and convenient enough -- I'm definitely not wearing a full EEG headset every day).

A product like that would be a good checkpoint in scientific developments of decoding the brain too. I think it's going to be a necessary step to develop before we get the other direction though.

>By sending bits, the interface changes and you aren't really burdened with UI navigation or UI mechanics like touch, drag, etc. Something like a phone would take on more roles that are currently filled by desktops and laptops right now.

You still need some kind of interface; like if I'm visualizing a picture and the computer can read it? even if you can do it, that's gonna require a lot of bits.

My point here is that having a direct brain interface still requires some sort of... interface, and you probably need a lot of bandwidth before the interface becomes better than... hands, at least for people who still have control over their hands. A low bit-rate direct brain output would be super useful for paralyzed people.

As an example for data in the other direction, cochlear hearing aids are absolutely amazing. But from what I understand? they are quite a bit worse than the ears most of us were born with. They are a long way from being an augment that people with already functional ears are likely to want.

I do think it's worthwhile to come up with new input/output methods; personally, I'd be super happy to shave my head and wear an EEG headset almost all the time, if it gave me output that was significantly faster and with less thought than typing. Heck, you might even get me on portability, if it's just better than a cellphone keyboard.

I'm just saying that there's no reason that a low bit-rate direct brain interface would be any more intuitive than fingers... I've been using my fingers for an awful long time, and to get me to switch to something else, I'm gonna need a better bit rate.

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