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Comment by hn8788 | Hacker News Reader

Another example is Gabe Newell, who has taken a big interest in AI, VR, and Brain-Computer-Interface technology as he gets older. It's a different approach though, because instead of trying to keep your body healthy, you just control a virtual body that will always have perfect health.

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I love how people go to believe this is in any way possible with current technology. It is exactly like when people thought you could just make an intelligent agent with brass gears and pulleys.

I'm not sure what timeline Gabe believes in but attempting to pour his time and money into something doesn't really matter, does it? It doesn't have to pay off tomorrow for it to be a worthy endeavor.

Also, it's important to understand that our understanding of interfacing with the human nervous system is not as in the gutters as most people think. Right now you can find labs interfacing computers with nerves:

A recent, of many, example: https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/health-tech/its-like-you-have...

Going back slightly further, this is a company interfacing with your retina: https://secondsight.com/discover-argus/#

Going back even further, this is a person interfacing with your visual cortex: http://web.archive.org/web/20050404225434/http://www.artific...

Here are some videos of the original prototypes in one of the first patients: http://web.archive.org/web/20050312143129/http://www.artific...

What's very interesting is there's a breakdown of the costs/components of this system on this page: http://web.archive.org/web/20050312145543/http://www.artific...

    1 miniature camera mounted on eyeglasses
    1 frame grabber
    1 microcomputer
    1 stimulus generation module
    2 implanted electrode arrays with percutaneous pedestals
    3 sets of rechargeable batteries and 1 charger (customer is responsible for replacement batteries as needed)

It's essentially a phone + signal generator connected to 16 spots on the surface of the brain. This is from early 2000s computing so I don't think it's outrageous to say with a mix of FPGAs and modern signal generation chips something like this is more practical.

This is not much more than a fancy EEG. There is nothing to copy anything existing in the brain, just a way to reach intentions without using hands or any mobile part of the body... Don't get me wrong this is awesome, but for people with handicaps not for copying "self".

EEG -> Sampling (output)

Prosthetic optics -> Stimulation (input)

Yes I thought this project was doing both somehow, sorry I totally misread it.

Well, it does not work until it does and it is hard to assess work far away we are from it does work.

>current year

I'm pretty confident these visionaries are asking the bold questions:

What can be?

Why not give it a shot?

Reading your words I can't determine if you are expressing doubt or admiration, but assuming admiration, I think they are planning for a greater vision of the future with future tech.

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