by Jeff Stibel
I
It is daunting to imagine a time when we will not be the brains we once were, but there is no need to fear. Another influence has evolved over the past 20,000 years that is making us smarter even as our brains are shrinking: technology. Technology has allowed us to leapfrog evolution, enabling our brains and bodies to do things that were otherwise impossible biologically. We weren’t born with wings, but we’ve enabled flight by creating airplanes, helicopters, hot air balloons, and hang gliders. We don’t have sufficient natural strength or speed to bring down big game, but we’ve created spears, rifles, and livestock farms.
We are not only extending our natural abilities, we are doing so with increasing speed and efficiency as technology gets better, faster, and cheaper. We’ve improved our world in revolutionary stages. Our first major coup, back in the cradle of civilization, was climbing down from the trees. This simple act changed us permanently and placed our species on a trajectory of rapid growth. By moving to a biped world, we were able to do all kinds of things that were previously out of reach. In short order we created things like the wheel and fire.
Next came the agricultural revolution. This transformation enabled us to spread out geographically and lay deep roots. We learned to plant and cultivate crops; we centered our lives on farming. Perhaps the single most important human innovation—culture—formed as a result.
Fast-forward to the advent of the printing press and its accompanying print revolution. For the first time in history, we were able to spread ideas far and wide through books. No longer bound by the geography of storytellers, books enabled us to ship ideas off on a boat to the other side of the world. And the ideas were perfectly recorded; they didn’t change with each iteration as in a game of telephone. As a result of printing, we also became able to transport our ideas across time. Our books preserve our stories and ideas generation after generation.
The industrial revolution brought us a mechanized world. With this leap forward, humanity experienced a fourfold increase in population and a twofold increase in quality of life and wealth. Never before or since has something like this happened. The mechanized world transformed us, increasing our efficiency and carrying capacity in one fell swoop.
The digital revolution came not long after. While prior innovations extended our bodies, the advent of computers expanded our minds. Where we are limited in logical thinking, computers can calculate perfectly. Where we are limited in memory, computers can store infinite information.
The innovations that fascinate me most come from the internet revolution. We are seeing here not merely an extension of mind but a unity of mind and machine, two networks coming together as one. We have learned about the brain and are now using that knowledge to create new technology. Our smaller, more efficient brains are in a quest to bypass nature’s intent and grow larger by proxy.
II
In the late 1800s, German astronomer Hans Berger fell off a horse and was nearly trampled by a cavalry. He narrowly escaped injury but was forever changed by the incident owing to the reaction of his sister. Though she was miles away at the time, Berger’s sister became instantly overcome with a feeling that Hans was in trouble. Berger took this as evidence of the mind’s psychic ability and dedicated the rest of his life to finding certain proof.
Berger abandoned his study of astronomy and enrolled in medical school to gain an understanding of the brain that would allow him to prove a “correlation between objective activity in the brain and subjective psychic phenomena.” He later joined the University of Jena in Germany as professor of neurology to pursue his quest.
At the time, psychic interest was relatively high. There were numerous academics devoted to the field, studying at prestigious institutions such as Stanford and Duke in the US and Oxford and Cambridge in the UK. Still, it was largely considered bunk science, with most credible academics focused on dispelling, rather than proving, myths of psychic ability. But one of those psychic beliefs happened to be true.
That belief is the now understood notion that our brains communicate electrically. This was a radical idea at the time; after all, the electromagnetic field had only been discovered in 1865. But Berger found proof. He invented a device called the electroencephalogram (you probably know it as an EEG) that recorded brain waves. Using his new EEG, Berger was the first to demonstrate that our neurons actually talk to one another, and they do so with electrical pulses. He published his results in 1929.
As often happens with revolutionary ideas, Berger’s EEG results were either ignored or lambasted as trickery. This was, after all, preternatural activity. But over the course of the next decade, enough independent scholars verified the results that they became widely accepted. Berger saw his findings as evidence of the mind’s potential for psychic activity, and he continued searching for more evidence until the day he hanged himself in frustration. The rest of the scientific community went back to what it had always been doing, “good science,” and largely forgot about the electric neuron.
That was the case until biophysicist Dr. Eberhard Fetz came along in 1969 and wondered whether what Berger had found could be used more broadly. Dr. Fetz, in an extrapolation of Berger’s discovery, reasoned that if brains were controlled by electricity, then perhaps we could use our brains to control electrical devices. Granted, this line of thinking was closer to psychics than physics, but Dr. Fetz proceeded anyway.
In a small primate lab at the University of Washington in Seattle, Fetz connected the brain of a rhesus monkey to an electrical meter and then watched in amazement as the monkey learned how to control the level of the meter. Here was something truly astounding: animals controlling devices with nothing but their thoughts.
While incredible, this insight didn’t have much application in 1969. But with the advent of silicon chips, computers, and the internet, the possibilities became unbounded. Imagine what could happen if we traded the meter for a computer chip, the monkey for a person, and enabled humans to connect their brains to the internet. This technology now exists.
A new breed of intelligence is rapidly emerging. The next set of innovations on the horizon will not just come from the brain; it will be part of the brain. Scientists in labs across the globe are busy perfecting computer chips that can be implanted into the human brain. In many ways, the results, if successful, fit squarely in the realm of psychics. There may be no such thing as paranormal activity, but make no mistake that all of the following are possible and on the horizon: telepathy, no problem; telekinesis, absolutely; clairvoyance, without question; ESP, oh yeah.
III
Jan Scheuermann lifted a chocolate bar to her mouth and took a bite. Still chewing, a grin spread across her face as she declared, “one small nibble for a woman, one giant bite for BCI.”
BCI stands for brain-computer interface, and Jan is one of only a few people on earth using this technology, through two implanted chips attached directly to the neurons in her brain. The first human brain implant was conceived of by Brown University neuroscientist John Donoghue and implanted into a paralyzed man in 2004. These dime-sized computer chips come from a technology called BrainGate. The BrainGate chip is implanted into the brain and attached to connectors outside of the skull, which are connected to computers that, in Jan Scheuermann’s case, were connected to a robotic arm. As a result, Scheuermann can feed herself chocolate by controlling a robotic arm with nothing but her thoughts.
A smart, vibrant woman in her early fifties, Scheuermann has been unable to use her arms and legs since she was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease at the age of 40. “I have not moved things for about ten years . . . This is the ride of my life,” she said. “This is the rollercoaster. This is skydiving. It’s just fabulous, and I’m enjoying every second of it.”
The importance of this research is certainly not lost on Dr. Geoffrey Ling, retired army colonel, neurologist, and manager of the US government agency colla
borating on this project. He became interested in brain-controlled prosthetics after seeing countless soldiers lose limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I’m old enough to have watched Neil Armstrong take that step on the moon, and to watch Jan, I had the same tingles, because I realized that we have now stepped over a great threshold into what is possible.”
Indeed, this revolutionary technology is world-changing. BrainGate was first featured on 60 Minutes in 2008, where they showed a paralyzed woman connecting to the internet with her mind. Host Scott Pelley had this to say when introducing the segment: “Once in a while, we run across a science story that is hard to believe until you see it. That’s how we felt about this story when we first saw human beings operating computers, writing emails, and driving wheelchairs with nothing but their thoughts.” A second piece, featuring Jan Scheuermann, aired in December 2012, and this time Pelley went even further: “We don’t use that word [breakthrough] very often because it’s overused. But when you see how they’ve connected this robotic limb to a human brain, you will understand why we made the exception.”
Brain-controlled implants have catapulted the threshold of “what is possible” into a whole new dimension. The idea of controlling a device with only the mind sounds like science fiction to many, but it’s now an indisputable part of reality. Science, yes; fiction, no. It is no surprise that 60 Minutes finds it “hard to believe” because it’s about as close as science has come to psychic ability. Patients with these implants use their thoughts to communicate, move robotic arms, click icons on a computer screen, and connect to the internet. In the end, Hans Berger was right.
While the BrainGate technology is certainly sophisticated, it’s actually quite simple to understand. BrainGate is merely tapping into the brain’s electrical signals in the same way that Berger’s EEG and Fetz’s electrical meter did. The BrainGate chip, once attached to the motor cortex, reads the brain’s electrical signals and sends them to a computer, which interprets and sends along instructions to other electrical devices like a robotic arm or a wheelchair. In that respect, it’s not much different from using your television remote to change the channel.
The primary goal of doctors and scientists working on this technology is to provide mobility and improved functionality for those with severe disabilities. The potential implications of this research for the disabled cannot be understated. It will enable bionics, restore communication abilities, and give disabled people previously unimaginable access to the world.
While assisting the disabled is the motivation behind BrainGate, the implications for the rest of us are equally astounding. Just imagine the ways in which the world will change when we can connect our minds to computers.
IV
Computers have been creeping closer to our brains since their creation. What started as large mainframes became desktops, then laptops, and now tablets and smartphones that we hold only inches from our faces. Google is betting that the next step will be glasses. Its Google Glass project aims to put the internet right in front of your eyes using an interface that is worn like eyeglasses. The device listens to your voice instructions and projects the contents of the internet or any other information you’d like into your perception.
Back in 2004, Google’s founders told Playboy magazine that one day we’d have direct access to the internet through brain implants, with “the entirety of the world’s information as just one of our thoughts.” Less than a decade later, the roadmap has been laid. From one side come brain interfaces and from the other comes a faster, more efficient, more personalized internet.
The electrodes implanted in Jan Scheuermann and the small handful of other patients are still the exception rather than the rule. BrainGate, of course, requires brain surgery, which is a serious endeavor. It will take years before an implant is safe enough to be commonplace. But there are a host of brainwave sensors in development for use outside of the skull that will be transformational for all of us.
EdanSafe has developed a product called SmartCap, designed with long-haul trucker safety in mind. A SmartCap is a hat with brain sensors that measure the alertness of drivers. When a driver becomes too fatigued, an alarm is sounded. Clearly, this product has the potential to save lives. Another company, NeuroSky, is working with several major car manufacturers to implant fatigue sensors in car headrests for the non-truckers among us. Your next car could very well include this technology.
Zeo has a wearable EEG headband that measures brain waves. Its first product is an alarm clock that wakes you up in the earliest stage of sleep so that you don’t feel groggy in the morning. The Boston Globe described it this way: “Rather than waking you up at a precise time—say, 6:30 a.m.—the headband would monitor your brain waves using special sensors, and wake you up sometime in the half-hour leading up to 6:30 when you were in a light phase of sleep, which is preferable to being jolted out of deep sleep.” But it is more than that. Zeo also acts as an online sleep coach. It records data, provides you with a sleep score, and compares your sleep patterns to those of others. The New York Times noted that this may be the most significant part of Zeo’s new technology: “it’s truly amazing, if not a little creepy, to see all of this data about a part of your existence that you’ve known nothing about until now.”
The problems of drivers falling asleep and tired sleepers not being able to wake up are far from frivolous. Drowsy driving kills thousands every year, and Zeo’s sleep manager is coveted by the millions of Americans with sleep disorders. But brain-sensing technology is being used for fun as well. A company called Emotiv, with its tagline “you think, therefore, you can,” has a wearable helmet that measures brain waves to interface with online games. Imagine playing a video game with nothing but your thoughts. The excitement of these products is not lost on the company, which posits “for the first time, the fantasy of magic and supernatural power can be experienced.”
Not to be outdone, a company called InteraXon ran an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign in late 2012, raising a couple hundred thousand dollars to develop its newest product. Among other things, InteraXon has created a beer tap that you turn on and off with your thoughts, and they’ll let you use it at your next keg party for a mere $8,500 donation. InteraXon says that its technology will one day allow your mind to control anything with an on/off switch.
Soon you may see people walking around wearing furry cat ears, even when it’s not Halloween. These cat ears feature a sensor that presses against the forehead and another that attaches to the ear lobe. Necomimi, the manufacturer, says that the device reads your brain waves to determine your current state of attention or relaxation. When you’re highly interested, the ears perk straight up. If you’re about to fall asleep, they droop downward. Clearly this isn’t serious business—Necomimi calls this product “a fun, quirky addition to parties”—but the science behind it is real. These devices aren’t exactly intelligent, but they are pretty smart.
You may say these technologies are frivolous, and you would be mostly right. But a whole new industry is developing around wearable sensors, or neurowear as it’s called. The “frivolous” innovations that come from these industries will one day be critical to the least frivolous aspects of our lives. Innovations often spring up in unusual places. Take Tesla, for example. When founder and CEO Elon Musk started the company, his ultimate goal was to mass-produce an electric car, but he couldn’t afford it. So he started with a novelty car—an expensive sports car called the Tesla Roadster—in order to supplement the development cost of mass production. “At Tesla, we did, I think, receive some unfair criticism because we had the Tesla Roadster, and people would say, ‘Well, why are you making this expensive sports car?’ As though we somehow felt that there was a shortage of sports cars for rich people or something. But, in fact, even though I would try to take pains to say, look, our goal from the beginning has been to drive forward the electric car revolution, and we needed time to refine the technology . . . that’s
where it becomes mass market.” Even the very first automobiles were thought of as novelties; much of the world missed the potential impact until after the opportunity to be a first mover had passed.
The same is true for neurowear. Imagine what happens once the bunny ears are perfected and we move on to opening doors or turning on lights. Or instead of operating a beer tap with our thoughts, we start up the fireplace or preheat the oven. Imagine the potential of all the neurogames that are being developed: the underlying technology will one day be used for neurofeedback. This will help untold individuals: it could help those with attention deficits to focus, enable drivers to stay more alert, or aid students in concentration. This is a common cycle of business innovation: businesses leverage in-demand products, no matter how frivolous, to fund new technologies. As a result, technology evolves.
V
Since ancient times, people have been imagining machines that could think. Plato’s works included statues that could move and think. Homer’s Iliad included a god who was accompanied by two golden statues “resembling in all worth, living young damsels, fill’d with minds and wisdom.” Even the Hebrew Talmud talks of Golem, a person constructed of clay that could be made to think. The new world has seen through the eyes of HAL, iRobot, and the countless robotic heroes and villains from Star Wars and Star Trek. We have been attacked by Terminators and loved by Johnny5. We have long had a fascination with—and fear of—what many view as inevitable: that our technological pursuits will one day lead us to thinking machines.