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Comment by saulrh | Hacker News Reader

One simple example where a good BCI could beat hands and voice every time: window switching. No more task bar, no more start menu, no more alt-tab or window previews or virtual desktops. Just think "firefox" and you get firefox.

If you want an even more hyperbolic what-if, to give you an idea of what we hope is so much as possible, a really could BCI could do away with the concept of windows entirely. Your eyes can only see one thing at a time and the computer can move information to your eyes faster than your eyes can move information to the computer, so just present the user with information as they think about wanting to observe it.

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I'm highly skeptical. I don't think "I am going to move my fingers around to press and hold the command button and press the tab button one or more times until I get to firefox". My brain already autopilots desires into physical output.

EEG is a joke, and it's never explained how exactly BCI is going to work. If I switch to Firefox when I think it, then I would have annoyingly switched over multiple times when writing this comment. If it's something more complicated then that, then what is the generic metaphor my mind learns to app-switch that's simpler than the current one my brain performs using my fingers?

I believe BCI absolutely can and will be the future of computing interfaces, but there's no way that simply "mapping" the brain is going to let us turn desires into actions more efficiently via digital telepathy than our existing high-res interfaces with our bodies - there's a lot of groundwork that still needs to be covered.

To put it another way, if you could build software to accurately describe "what information a user wants to observe", you'd likely win a combo Nobel prize in neuroscience, philosophy and AI.

I'm not disagreeing with that. As I said, "even more hyperbolic what-if". Call it the same kind of science fiction that people were writing about smartphones in the 60's: a kind of general direction that far overshoots reality in many ways but which is hopefully not entirely wrong.

As for intentionality, your brain already handles that for you. I mean, I'm almost certain that you can imagine walking out the front door of your home without actually doing it. Same thing applies.

I don't know the exact details of the mechanisms, but I have an overview. One technique is to have the user associate some rare signal, like thinking the word "chair" repeatedly, with an action, and let the user learn to use that signal quickly in the same way that you've learned to use command-tab. This is mostly done by tracking changes in blood oxygenation using infrared sensors or fMRI. Another technique is to tap into the user's motor cortex completely blindly, show the user the output, and let neuroplasticity[1] take care of the rest; this works astonishingly well, with monkeys being able to "quickly learn to voluntarily control the firing rates of individual and multiple neurons" and directly control robotic arms [2].

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain–computer_interface#Early_...

In the academic field 'how exactly' a BCI is going to work is very well defined and there are only a limited number of basic types.

It's the representation of BCI in the media which is a joke. The actual science behind EEG based BCI is not that complex that the average person couldn't understand them. The disconnect between reality and peoples conception is similar to the way AI is represented, compared to what it is.

> Just think "firefox" and you get firefox.

My dabblings with BCI were nothing like that. It was more like spend 10 minutes ensuring you're properly grounded, then try really really hard to relax, and then discover that the slight movement of your leg muscle is swamping the signal.

It was very hit and miss. I'm sure that given enough time and effort I could learn to control it more or less reliably, but it's a far cry from 'think firefox and get firefox'.

In fact, what I found interesting was that more physical measures, like blinking, or even the x coordinate of your eye gaze were picked up fairly well. I could imagine using those as triggers for something with the same equipment, but I doubt I would get as quick with a BCI as am I with a keyboard until they improve markedly.

When that day comes it's going to be awesome. I'm going to walk up to various people in the office and say something like "Hey, I was at the mall yesterday and midget donkey porn I thought I saw you".

Do you really want your computer carrying out your every impulse thought?

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