Just a few years ago, it still looked like something out of a science fiction movie. But brain-computer interfaces (often abbreviated BCI) are the way of the future. It’s not just that we’ve been able to harness EEG and similar technologies to reveal what brain waves are doing, going along with thought input.
It’s also that artificial intelligence has been able to help us decode the brain’s movement to a very granular level.
A lot of modern work on this has been done by the Fluid Interfaces group at MIT. This lab is run by eminent scientist Patty Maes, who is also an award-winning author on the subject.
“The question that we ask in our research group,” she explains in a video on the Fluid Interfaces web page “is whether our digital devices can help us with becoming the person we want to be.”
Investigating Approaches to BCI
Researching items like biofeedback glasses and headsets, the group is hoping to implement solutions that really do enhance our lives.
And they’re getting closer.
Nataliya Kosmyna works in the Fluid Interfaces group.
Right now, she says in a recent TED talk, these kinds of brain computer interface are generally limited to serving people with motor difficulty or other disabilities. However, they may soon become as abundant as, say, biometric fingerprint technologies, because every person‘s thought is unique.
Deciphering Behavioral Input
Kosmyna describes some of the behaviors that AI-related neuroscience can measure with EEG waves as training data.
That includes a person‘s reaction when faced with a confusing statement, or their brain activity as they answer multiple science questions on a test.
All of this, she suggests, can generate the kinds of training data sets that allow the technology to learn more about how we think. Then that gets applied to other personal data, and the result is a pretty good understanding of human brain activity.
“We are getting more dimensions of data,” she says. “We are getting better and better.”
Wearables for the Future
As Kosmyna points out, part of our notion of cybernetic capabilities involves implants.
We’ve often thought that when this technology comes online, powerful interests will want it embedded inside of our brains, or at least under the skin.
However, the types of solutions being pioneered now are non-invasive, and some hope to keep it that way.
“You can take it off,” Kosmyna explains of the headsets that are a less permanent way to test human brain activity.
Governments, she says, are exploring creative uses for this.
And then there’s a new means of controlling vehicles…
“You can take it off anytime you want – you can control it, “she says of a device for driving drones. “No implant needed. You can even control a spacecraft if you want.”
This sort of tech, she says, is being researched by NASA as simulators for flight launch.
“Here on earth, it’s fight or flight response for each of us, every single day,” she adds, “and it takes this level of detail and the devices we build to understand the brain better.”
How do we harness this technology for good? Keep an eye on what researchers at MIT and others are doing around the ability of digital tools to, in effect, read our minds.
