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Brain chips to increase intellectual capabilities, control machines using thought alone, or transfer information directly into the brain are quite popular in sci-fi and have been recently adopted as concrete research goals by many science and engineering teams around the world. Currently developed prototypes adopt a "black box" model - they do not allow the user to experience what is going on inside the implant. Our brain, on the contrary, is open to us - it doesn't only process sensory input and calculate appropriate behaviors based on it, but also enables us to experience what is happening. In other words, brain activity is accompanied by consciousness. Potentially, brain chips can also be designed to have consciousness inside them. Inserted into a human brain, such a conscious implant would expand the user's conscious experience with its own contents. For this, however, a new kind of brain-machine interface should be developed that would merge consciousness in two separate systems - the chip and the brain - into single, unified one. Many technologies could be applied in this direction, for example the genetic engineering of special neurons designed to interface between ordinary neurons and electronic devices. Progress in conscious interfaces could eventually allow us to unify consciousness of different human beings, leading to the emergence of special kind of global brain, in which every individual will experience itself being a GB, and won't become just one of the cogs in this huge super-intelligent system. Alexandra Elbakyan is a neurotechnology researcher and advocate, and a software developer. Alexandra holds a BS in CS from Kazakh National Technical University in Almaty, Kazakhstan, specializing in information security. During the last year of her study, she worked on a security system that would recognize individuals by their brainwaves. After obtaining her BS she worked for a while with the Human Media Interaction Group at the University of Twente on the mind-controlled game Bacteria Hunt. Later she joined the Human Higher Nervous Activity Lab dedicated to the study of consciousness. Currently she is working in The Brain Machine Interfacing Initiative at Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg on the development of ECoG-based hand prostheses. She is avidly pursuing the project of creating a brain implant that would expand the consciousness of its bearer. Read more about this in Consciousness in mixed systems: merging artificial and biological minds via Brain-Machine Interface. This is a very multi-disciplinary effort... so if you're interested in neurobiology of consciousness, neurotechnology, neuroengineering, genetic engineering, brain-machine interfaces, machine consciousness and want to contribute — contact Alexandra!
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new technologies to enrich your mind
Expanding consciousness with
Brain-machine interfaces
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound taste
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound taste smell
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound taste painsmell
Consciousness is…experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound taste painsmell
let’s enrich this experience with new technologies!
similarly to neurons, brain implant
represents itself in consciousness
Expanding experience
Synthetic qualia? but is it possible for artificial device
to create consciousness?
artificial neural network modelshave been already developed
which demonstraterudimentary consciousness or some
aspects of consciousness
Edelman brain-based devices
neural networks simulations byDehaene, Gamez
Putting them togetherhow to integrate synthetic qualia
with those produced by brain?
learn from nature!
color
shape
motion
sounds
so how does brain bring them all together?
The miracle of broadcast
Information Integration Theory
Tononi & Edelman
• differentiation consist of many specialized modules• integration each module profoundly affects activity of others• consciousness can be measured mathematically
Global Neuronal Workspace Theory
Dehaene
• many specialized modules• integration/broadcasting via subset of special workspace neurons
what makes the system conscious?
The miracle of broadcast
Information Integration Theory
Tononi & Edelman
• differentiation consist of many specialized modules• integration each module profoundly affects activity of others• consciousness can be measured mathematically
Global Neuronal Workspace Theory
Dehaene
• many specialized modules• integration/broadcasting via subset of special workspace neurons
what makes the system conscious?
(C) Consciousness as Integrated Information: a provisional manifestoTononi, 2008
The miracle of broadcast
Information Integration Theory
Tononi & Edelman
• differentiation consist of many specialized modules• integration each module profoundly affects activity of others• consciousness can be measured mathematically
Global Neuronal Workspace Theory
Dehaene
• many specialized modules• integration/broadcasting via subset of special workspace neurons
what makes the system conscious?
The miracle of broadcast
Information Integration Theory
Tononi & Edelman
• differentiation consist of many specialized modules• integration each module profoundly affects activity of others• consciousness can be measured mathematically
Global Neuronal Workspace Theory
Dehaene
• many specialized modules• integration/broadcasting via subset of special workspace neurons
what makes the system conscious?
(C) Neural mechanisms for access to consciousnessDehaene & Changeux, 2003
The hardwarehow to make the implant broadcast?
today’s brain-machine interfaces
electrode gridX only those neurons close to the surface
DBS electrodeX many
connections are not possible:
• can damage everything• procedure too cumbersome
The hardwarea new hopes
“sprouting” brain-machine interfaces
Harnessing the blood supply network (R. Llinas)
Growing up your own network of neuroagents
neurons are grown on a chip
their axons grow through the brain
intermediate layer between
brain and electronics
communication channel is natural for the brain
The hardwareinterfacing in a brain-friendly way
Applicationsartificial bodies
tactile and proprioceptive
feedbackfor neuroprostheses
Applicationsapproach to “cracking neural code”
conscious neural implants provide a fresh approach to the problem of transferring information into the brain
1. transfer happens when brain-implant system becomes conscious
2. a mathematical tools for analyzing conscious systems are being developed
3. these tools finally allow to calculate optimal design for the implant enabling consciousness = information transfer
Going furtherexploring the minds of Others
would it be possible to join conscious experience
of another being with yours?
the major difficulty is provided by functional
aspects of consciousness
Going furtherthe Consciousness Singularity
all consciousness on the planet, living and artificial,
merged to a single one
the “functional problem” disappears at the global
level
Ω
The end?nop, just the beginning!
Thank you!
