There
is growing interest and investments being made by industry in
Telepathy or Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technologies. These
emerging technologies currently include a variety of wearable and
implantable solutions that are already being pilot tested.
Telepathy
has long been considered an aspect of psychic phenomena or a super
power. Telepathy has also commonly been defined as a sort of
information transmission from one person to another without using any
of our known sensory channels or physical interaction.
However,
as a growing number of artificial intelligence and implantable
technologies have started to become a reality, the idea of using
emerging technologies to begin telling machines to do what we want
simply by telepathically thinking about it – a form of synthetic
telepathy – has suddenly begun to be plausible.
Such
technology is starting to be being developed, tested, and marketed as
a new way to control video games, for battlefield communications,
interactions with medical prosthetic limbs, and interfaces to many
other computerized devices as we move into the future.
-
Telepathy
involves the purported transmission of information from one
person to another without the appearance of using any of our
known physical sensory channels.
-
Brain
Computer
Interface
(BCI), mind-machine interface (MMI), or brain–machine
interface (BMI), involves the
direct
communication between an augmented
or
'wired' brain
and
some sort of
external
computer-driven
device.
|
Selected
Articles & Findings
The
following are a selection of recently published articles on telepathy
or brain computer interface (BCI) technologies that you might find
interesting:
Issues
Researchers
and critics of telepathy or brain computer interface (BCI)
technologies have raised several key issues that need to be addressed
well before we go to far down the road with this technology. For
example:
- Several
individuals have warned that public sale of artificial telepathy
technology would inevitably result in the theft of bank account
numbers, PIN numbers, passwords, trade secrets, and other sensitive
information that could then be used for a variety of nefarious
purposes.
- Much
like we're seeing as use of drone technology has proliferated, new
legislation and controls need to be developed and put into place well
before this emerging technology ever rolls out across the public and
private sector.
Conclusions
& Recommendations
Some
form of digital or synthetic telepathy solution will emerge in the
next decade or so and begin to be commercialized. Obviously Mark
Zuckerberg hopes his company, Facebook, will lead the way. The pilot
testing of alternative technical solutions are already underway. How
it will finally be packaged and used when the 1st generation of
solutions emerge will be interesting to watch.
Fortunately,
we still have
some
time to consider the implications and address the key issues of
privacy, security, and legislative restrictions on its use – or
abuse. But take note, just like drones, teleportation, internet of
things (IoT), unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAV), commercialized
space exploration, regenerative medicine, the technical singularity…
it will become a reality of life over the next few decades.
Share
any additional information you might have or any constructive
insights about synthetic or digital telepathy with our readers.
