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Comment by jonnycomputer | Hacker News Reader

I connect my brain to computers everyday using a keyboard and monitor. The entire loop consists with photons emitted from monitor hitting my eye-balls, being processed by my visual system, etc. you know "brain stuff", and then my responding to that by using my fingers to press "keys" on a keyboard and to move around an optical "mouse" to send signals to the computer. It actually works quite well, and is quite affordable (unless its an Apple Studio Display, those are ridiculously expensive).

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Well you jest but the benefit of a direct interface is how much faster it can be. Typing is slow. Chemical based signals from eyes to brain to muscle are slow. Moving the mouse and keyboard are slow. All those middlemen can be removed and we can speed things up at least 3-4 times.

have you tried these EEG-based tools? They're difficult to pick up.

> Chemical based signals from eyes to brain to muscle are slow

Uh, these are the same types of signals that are happening inside the brain ...

Yes, but I am talking about the parts outside the brain. Eye to brain. Brain to muscle. You can cut those out and since the brain is about 15cm in diameter while there are around 50cm of nerves between your fingers and brain, I think around 3-4x faster by replacing those nerves with near lightspeed communication is not too ambitious.

The way I use the mouse and keyboard makes this already too fast and I find myself in need to slow down how fast I take information in anyway.

What makes you think people can handle it being 4 times faster? The bottleneck will eventually be your neurotransmitters no?

I really doubt that. Do you type as fast as you can think? As in the moment a line of code formed in your brain it got typed out immediately into the computer? Maybe you can but I don't think the majority of people can do that.

It's usually only those short bursts, usually you spend more time thinking than typing, but maybe for some languages where you write a lot of boilerplate all the time it's different.

Exactly, plus all 3 comments assumed I talked about my input into the computer, while I talked about how much info I can take into my brain from the computer being already too fast, who cares if it takes me 2 seconds to write a sentence I thought about for a minute or instantly, the thinking will always be slower and the reading is fast enough as is.

The issue facing us is on a genetic level, most people are too dumb to even profit from the current input/output speed, let alone making x4 faster.

We need to have this conversation every few years because developers fancy themselves as efficient code monkeys.

The downside is that many develop RSI from a keyboard and mouse.

https://www.slideserve.com/carrington/repetitive-strain-inju...

It’s discussed on HN from time to time:

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=rsi

When playing a musical instrument, humans usually transmit an order of magnitude more information through the instrument than they do when they type on the keyboard. This involves not only a higher tempo, but also the meaningful timing, key velocity / wind instrument blowing intensity, etc. Same applies to e.g. a plane pilot doing a complex maneuver, or even a player of a fast-paced game, computer or not.

Humans definitely can output more than the keyboard currently allows, and likely this can be used somehow beneficially. The output need not be all verbal though.

Where did you get 3-4 times?

Just a rough guess from the diameter of the brain and the nerve distance between the brain and your finger muscles.

Have you used any BCI text input methods? I can assure you that typing with a keyboard is much faster and accurate than a "direct interface."

Optimistic take: this might drive innovation and bring down price of access for people with disabilities.

Flagged. Knew I should have left out the Apple bit.

It wasn't flagged because of the Apple bit. I flagged and collapsed it because it was an offtopic distraction. I'm sure your intent was good but it's extremely easy for something like this to take over a thread, and indeed that was just what was happening.

Thanks for the explanation dang.

What's a computer?

For RaspberryPi

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