Paralysed man moves in mind-reading exoskeleton
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
If we find a way to trigger those sensations, perhaps with separate brain implants, it would be a huge breakthrough and make learning to control the device much faster.
I'm sure that's far from an easy task, though.
I remember when playing the original PS3 my brain was imaging vibrations in the controller when the screen rumbled (back when the original controllers had no haptic feedback)
Obviously it would be better to provide more feedback but I am bullish on humans being able to adapt and the brain finding means of "faking" feedback or finding second order proxies
I couldn't see that happening in the same way as your anecdote. We use touch sensation for more than just an accompaniment to visual clues:
* It's used as a pressure feedback, eg knowing how tightly to grip an object so that we don't crush it nor let it slip from our fingers
* It's used to identify dangers, like sharp objects or extreme temperatures
* Plus we use it an awful lot to for feedback on stuff we're not even looking at (eg touch typing, using in car controls while driving, getting in and out of bed when tired, blowing our nose, etc)
I'm sure some of that last point could be resolved if we learn to rely on muscle memory with the loss of any tactile feedback but the former two points would be harder to workaround without it said feedback.
Also, if you can excuse the nitpick (fellow retro gamer here) but...
> I remember when playing the original PS3...(back when the original controllers had no haptic feedback)
I assume you mean "original Playstation"? The PS3 definitely had a rumble unit built in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixaxis
>The legal battle led to a decision to remove the vibration capabilities from the PS3 controller's initial design, which became known as Sixaxis.
I'm a disabled person myself (I prefer to use crutches as the world isn't built for wheelchairs, that's another topic). I've been injured since 2012 and they now feel like an extension of myself (a little like having really long arms, I use them to push buttons/ switches and grab stuff). Now trying to walk without them feels VERY alien (and I often fall over if I put too much weight on my injured leg). With crutches; I walk faster than most people (they have suspension!), can climb stairs easier than somebody who is obese, even on days I can't even put my foot on the ground let alone weight-bear. The biggest limitation is the lack of hands to carry stuff.
The point I was making is that while aids/ devices may seem primitive and a poor substitute for what they're trying to replace, the difference they can make to an individual can be huge!
Repairing nerve damage is one of the last frontiers of modern medicine, but it is advancing, slowly...
Basically our approach is to use eeg, eye movements and head movements to let patients control an arm with the goal of making them more independent.
Isn't it easier to make something like a centaur where there's a second set of rear legs? That would also lower the center of gravity since the backpack on this one could be the "torso" on the centaur. Balancing something on four legs is also much simpler.
That sort of platform could also trivially turn into a wheeled vehicle by having sets of wheels on each of the four legs that could rotate into place. That would be much more power-efficient than walking in most urban settings.
Even something the size of a horse could get into most human infrastructure, if most horses weren't so petrified of everything.
The man in the article has the equivalent of a big hiking backpack on his back, he couldn't drive most cars either without leaning the seat all the way back. To turn that into a centaur just means angling the same backpack 90 degrees with another set of legs.
Having a support at the back would give the impression that the body is transported by a forklift.
It's irrational, but we know how the irrational deeply affects human relations. Think how accepted are those "telepresence robots" that go around campuses looking like a TV set hooked up to a vacuum cleaner (hint: they're creepy). You don't want to make the same impression.
Externally, your centaur design is more stable and probably easier to design. It would also allow you to do some (highly specific) tasks that a boring, two-legged human could not do. Like Aimee Mullins said in her TED talk[1], this would make you not so much "disabled", but rather "super-abled".
Internally, however, you also want those using the exoskeleton to regain their feeling of belonging. That is, you don't want the to "just" walk - you also want them to walk exactly like everybody else. To quote from this book [2],
"You don’t always feel inferior, mostly just out of place. Sometimes though, you feel a pang in your chest, a bit like a short, sharp stab. You know what it is instantly…
It's there to remind you – you’ll never be quite the same, never on the same level, you’ll never have quite the same opportunities, the same privileges, the experiences and the rites of passages everyone else takes for granted.
(...) Like when you go shopping and people stare. Funny thing is, you get used to this one over time, it affects you far less than it does your friends. They hate it and stare back or make comments – “why are people so rude, you’re not a circus animal?”. You feel like saying “actually, I am” but it wouldn’t help, you just want to shop."
[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetics
[2] https://disabilityhorizons.com/2015/09/the-truth-about-being...
Go to a party and your default is to make eye contact with people's crotches and them literally looking down on you (dumb as it is, this is important to us social primates), a simple set of stairs being an insurmountable obstacle, being excluded from "able-bodied" activities etc.
As compared with being in a centaur suit, now you're a superhero. "Hey Bob, you can lift half a ton, can you help me with this?". Making good fun of your out of shape "able-bodied" buddies on a hike as you carry all their backpacks on your back etc.
Of course much of that could also be said about a bipedal suit, but those are presumably harder to develop, and need to be more compact, so power storage is more of an issue, and can't as naturally transition to wheeled travel without all the issues with a Segway. It would be unfortunate to delay deployment of these systems because of some perceived prejudice against four or eight-legged systems.
People at the supermarket already wear what could be called "unnatural" partial exoskeletons today. They're just called wheelchairs or mobility scooters, I don't see how a working legged contraption that doesn't pass for vanilla human when clothed would make much of a difference.
I'm confident it will be the "next big thing" at some point, maybe 10-30 years.
https://exoskeletonreport.com/2017/03/mw-group-harnesses-the...
Not to poo poo this achievement but the ability to imitate a single, non-specific command with a brain implant has been around for years (decades?) now. Sounds like He is issuing a single command and then “walk” command is controlled by the computer. Not as though he is independently moving each leg. Still cool, if not as groundbreaking as it may seem.
Yes, activities where the goal is the movement itself, rather than getting somewhere, would be hampered. My point is that getting that precise control may be much harder, both technologically and in terms of user training. Maybe a gradual approach could be implemented.
Here are some quotes for you so you don't have to:
"it is a marked advance on similar approaches that allow people to control a single limb with their thoughts."
"And he can control each of the arms, manoeuvring them in three-dimensional space"
"It took a lot longer to learn how to control the arms.
'It was very difficult because it is a combination of multiple muscles and movements. This is the most impressive thing I do with the exoskeleton.'"
"In tasks where Thibault had to touch specific targets by using the exoskeleton to move his upper and lower arms and rotate his wrists, he was successful 71% of the time."
"There are also plans to develop finger control to allow Thibault to pick up and move objects."
Although I can't help but nitpick on this:
> What do experts think?
> Prof Tom Shakespeare, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine [...]
How is a professor in a Hygiene and Tropical Medicine school relevant? I feel like if you're going to get an expert's opinion you should at least find someone in a related field, like a neurosurgeon or neuroscientist...
//edit// He is also currently Professor of Disability Research in the medical faculty at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
I can't think of a good way to present credentials beyond name and position.
Adding extra information can lead to wierdities: "a disabled researcher" or "a white researcher" or "an elderly researcher".
We can place 300 million transistors on a squared millimeter of silicon.
Yet, when interfacing with neurons we can barely achieve dozens of usable contact points over a very large area.
I love seeing the science fiction of my youth starting to become a reality, obviously this is a far cry form Robocop but it's still a very impressive enabling technology.
Some years ago (5~) the Indiana State Museum had a Star Wars exhibit with a display of various prosthetic devices both from the Star Wars franchise and real life with video clips playing at several of them. One of the clips was a man talking about how he invented the prosthetic on display as a direct result of watching Luke get his new hand as a kid and wanting to make it a reality. That kinda stuff is awesome.