Facebook is exploring brain control for AR wearables

Facebook is exploring brain control for AR wearables(techcrunch.com)

47 points by AnatMl2 6 years ago | 19 comments

buboard 6 years ago |

This reads like Baghead from silicon valley speaking. The current technologies are still too invasive to suggest anything "promising", and their speculated tech is so far futuristic i m not sure if its to be taken seriously. Making an fMRI portable in one's head is .... no small task to put it mildly, especially if you 're going for the 5-7T that state of the art has. The visions are good to the ear but what puts me off about their article is they seem to be taking credit or for the vision and work that many other labs have been doing in the past 3 decades. In comparison, NeuraLinks presentation was more nuanced in presenting their incremental improvements, and they actually have a product.

I don't like that HN upvotes these articles, falling for FB's PR machine and billionaires circlejerking. I thought they could do better. There are very cool neuronal visualization and recording techniques being developed but you never read about them here.

sidr 6 years ago | |

I partly agree with you that this article is getting buzz because FB, but this is not low quality research by any means (especially given the constraints of obtaining such data). There are, as you point out, a bunch of similar ECoG "brain decoding" papers out there that don't get upvoted to the top of HN.

Also, minor point - I don't think FB is trying to make a portable MRI. The physical limitations alone would make that a completely silly endeavor, even for SV billionaires.

buboard 6 years ago | | |

> this is not low quality research

I was referring to the press release which is only partially (and kinda misleadingly - the paper is ecog recordings) related to the nature paper , which is of course great

> completely silly endeavor

haha true, they re talking about some pulse oximeter/noninvasive device, though that s just as sciencefictiony as anything.

Rainymood 6 years ago |

Yeah giving Facebook even more access to my brain sounds like a fun proposition.

moocowtruck 6 years ago | |

exactly what I was thinking when i saw facebook and brain control in same title

modeless 6 years ago |

Neuralink sounds more ambitious and more interesting to me. I'm very skeptical of the non-invasive brain scanning Facebook is talking about. It seems unlikely to ever work well enough to be useful to anyone except people who are completely paralyzed. But they will be first in line for the invasive brain interface techniques that will work far better, so they won't need the non-invasive stuff either.

defterGoose 6 years ago | |

Oh, infinitely. Neuralink's proposed techniques represent a complete paradigm shift in BCIs. If using cortical activity for data entry were truly feasible, I feel fairly confident in saying that there would already be a well-known product on the market. IME, you don't usually get a lot of dividends throwing more software at a problem, you actually have to plumb the depths of physical reality for that.

etrautmann 6 years ago | |

Yes - as someone who works in the field (on the academic side), Neuralink has an approach that will in theory work once the engineering is all in place.

Facebook's approach of "quasibalistic photon imaging" is attempting to be a higher resolution signal like FNIRs, but struggles from the reality of physics and the challenges of imaging through a LOT of opaque dura / skull / skin / hair. They have a goal of decoding 100 words per minutes of speech, but that's going to be incredibly challenging with a noninvasive approach.

codesushi42 6 years ago | |

Absolutely. And they are building Neuralink to help the disabled first.

Meanwhile, Facebook's ambition is to create a videogame.

Too bad capable minds are even wasting their time there on such a petty cause. Welcome to the tech industry, where PhDs go to die at some ad clicking company.

germinalphrase 6 years ago |

Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen did an intriguing talk at the Long Now Foundation a while back on her work at Open Ocean. She presented a fascinating - if feasible - technology vision to not only ‘read’ what people are thinking for the purpose of controlling digital devices, but also ‘write’ to allow users to - for instance - experience the memories of others. Obvious abuse potential, but interesting.

https://www.openwater.cc/technology

http://longnow.org/seminars/02018/oct/29/toward-practical-te...

ohduran 6 years ago |

Facebook, like a true attention merchant, keeps pushing the envelop. It seems to me that we'll see more on privacy vs connecting the world for years, because that's where the two biggest tech business models, Apple/Netflix's and Google/Facebook's, clash.

I've put together some notes on The Attention Merchants, by Tim Wu, that specifically approaches this reality in a very interesting way. You can find them here: http://alvaroduran.com/attention-merchants

Any feedback is much appreciated!

melling 6 years ago |

FB link: https://tech.fb.com/imagining-a-new-interface-hands-free-com...

darepublic 6 years ago |

I would like a more frictionless interfacing for sending and receiving data between my brain and a computer. I disdain apps like Ritual for the fact that I have to pull out the damn phone and tap on this relatively small screen. I would rather wait an extra 10 in in the take out line at the restaurant.

However even if one of these existed, and I was confident my brain wasn't being monitored by a big corporation, I would become paranoid that I would accidentally think the wrong thing -- what if I accidentally thought-typed something that I wanted to hide from the world?

azinman2 6 years ago |

> "Neuroethical design is one of our program’s key pillars — we want to be transparent about what we’re working on so that people can tell us their concerns about this technology."

And what will they do with said concerns? Ultimately it's not some researcher that will call the shots when everyone cries foul... Zuckerberg will green light and that's it. It's not like FB actually ever pays attention to criticism from an ethics perspective, only MAU and revenue metrics.

Hoasi 6 years ago |

Brain control as in "the user controls the wearables" or possibly the other way around...

Unexplored ads spots are awaiting for the taking.

adamsvystun 6 years ago |

This is to be expected. It would be strange if Facebook DID NOT explore brain control.

King-Aaron 6 years ago |

[ This neural pathway is only available to top fans ]

LinuxBender 6 years ago |

Facebook is exploring brain control

What data will they gather from everyone through this interface?

mtgx 6 years ago |

The Facebook's merger with the U.S. intelligence agencies will be complete -- an entity that knows not only what you're been doing but what you've been thinking.