We’ve been neglectful Geeks.  We promised you a couple of web follow-ups in Episode #111 and never delivered.  We’re going to rectify that this week, and toss up a few additional items that expand on Epiosde #111.

Here is the video that Ogre mentioned showing Honda’s demonstration of its Brain Machine Interface technology (courtesy of YouTube user worldcarfans):

I find the examples of future uses for this technology to be particularly uninspired. If you think about your house being too warm, that thought will turn on your air conditioner without the use of a remote control? Seriously? This is one of the three best uses for this technology? I’m imagining a future infomercial with a grainy, black-and-white shot of a frustrated mom having to get up and go over to the A/C to hit the switch while stumbling over a child’s toy… “Turning on the air conditioner is SO HARD! From the maker of the Snuggie…”

By the way, the thought “it’s too warm” is far too vague to be a command. Ultimately, you would need to put on your mind reading headset and think, “Turn on the Air Conditioner at 74 degrees.” So much easier than pushing a button on your remote control! As I asked on the show, why isn’t a voice command simpler? Furthermore, why not set a timer and automatic temperature sensor… like most central air systems have today?

We should also view this video with a salt packet nearby. This technology was already demonstrated a couple years ago by a separate group of researchers. Furthermore, the fact that Honda released a video, instead of hosting a live demonstration is probably a sign that this technology is far from reliable (not to say that it won’t improve after some more development time). Of course, Honda’s demonstration utilized Asimo, a robot that resembles a person, which is good for PR since it most likely led to a lot more media attention.

In general, I’m in agreement with most of the points made in this NeuroLogica Blog post by Dr. Steven Novella.

News articles speculate about using this technology to one day drive a car with mental commands. There is nothing wrong with this speculation – but this is certainly not going to be an early application.

One thing to consider is that there is a certain neurological buffer between our intentions and our actions.  We have to physically move our arms to move the steering wheel. There is a threshold of intention that needs to be overcome. By operating the steering wheel directly with the mind (depending on the sophistication of the reading device and software) this buffer may be lost. Operation of the car may be at the whim of every stray thought or distraction.

For this reason operating equipment like a car will probably be a late application, only after the the technology is fairly mature. In fact, there may never be an advantage to bypassing the arms and controlling a vehicle with the mind. Unless there is a physical impairment, the arms work quite well. I file this under “cooking with a microwave” – just because we can do something in a new fancy way, does not make it better.

Of course, the medical-related possiblities are positively mind-blowing. The future potential of replacing most any non-functional body part with a prosthetic that responds like the original could have a huge and immediate impact on quality-of-life for a great many people.

As for the war-game type application that Tuck and Ogre were talking about, I fall back to my original point. If this technology were used in a command-and-control style, where remote units are programmed with AI and receive tatical commands from a human commander, I don’t see how a mind-reading interface could be more efficient that a computer console that is physically manipulated. We may never be able to issue the complex commands that would be required through mental recognition, and even if we could, the commander would just be manipulating the console he’s sitting in front of with his mind instead of his hands. Again, just because we could do it, doesn’t make it better.