neuroscientist has wired the human brain to a computer.... frightening!!!

[ElsewheresDaughter]

... the results are fascinating and very very frightening

http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2003-01-22/cover.html

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So far, three of Kennedy's six implantees have learned to move a cursor across a computer screen and spell words just by thinking about it.

If Kennedy's technology reaches its full potential, something more amazing will have occurred. The people implanted will no longer be human as we know humans. Their existence will depend on machines, and their brains will have adapted accordingly. They will think differently. They will use their minds to control computers, with more stunning results than any human to date.

That introduces the ethical dilemma of a more manipulative use of what's called brain-computer interfacing (BCI), a way of warping the technology to turn an average brain into a superpower.

If BCI can unlock those caged by their bodies, imagine what it could do for those in perfect health. Think of it this way: With the same patience practiced by those paralyzed by injury or disease, you could do new things with your brainwaves, too. With the ability to marry the brain to a computer, you would become capable of intellectual and, possibly, physical feats unknown to man. You could be a superhero. You could be a supervillain.

"The brain-machine interface has been done, and I'm glad to have done it," Kennedy says. "But a responsibility has evolved there. I don't know how to make it not get out of hand."

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The council's chairman, Leon Kass, has spoken against cloning -- but his remarks regarding ethics are indistinguishable from concerns over BCI. "I remain enthusiastic about biomedical research and its promise to cure disease and relieve suffering," Kass told the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Health in 2001. "Yet, as has been obvious for some time, new biotechnologies are also providing powers to intervene in human bodies and minds in ways that go beyond the traditional goals of healing the sick, to threaten fundamental changes in human nature and the meaning of our humanity."

BCI's ability to make a smarter brain is one "fundamental change" that may alarm Kass. The U.S. Department of Defense, which is now funding some BCI research, appears less concerned. In the same way that Einstein's breakthrough research advanced science that benefits mankind and contributed to the creation of nuclear weapons that threaten mankind, BCIs could give birth to an uneasy tension between technology for the sake of medicine and technology for domination.

"In 20 or 30 or 50 years down the road," Kennedy says, "you're going to give power to people who really shouldn't have it."

One thing's for sure. The brain of the future is on the way, and it could arrive more quickly than neuroscience imagined.

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