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The head of the American games company Valve Corporation says a future is fast approaching where video games will use the data of people’s brain signals to adjust the experience they gain – and even a future where the minds of people can be adjusted by computers.
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The head of Valve Corporation talks about BCIs in an extended interview. Source: 1 NEWS
Gabe Newell spoke to 1 NEWS about the future of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) – an area he and other Valve staff have been studying for several years now – and explained how Valve is working to bring BCIs to life. profit in the gaming industry.
Newell admits that some of the ideas may sound incredible, and said some of the discussions he’s had around BCIs are “indistinguishable from science fiction” – but he says game developers would be making a mistake by not reviewing not short-term BCIs. .
To help them do this, Newell said Valve is currently working on an open-source BCI software project, allowing developers to start interpreting signals read in people’s brains using hardware such as VR headsets. modified (virtual reality).
“We are working on an open source project so that everyone can have high resolution [brain signal] read the technologies built into the headsets, in a bunch of different modalities, ”Newell said.
Valve has worked with OpenBCI helmets.
OpenBCI unveiled a headset design in November called Galea, which is designed to work with VR headsets like Valve’s Index.
Open the design of BCI’s Galea BCI helmet. Source: OpenBCI
“If you’re a software developer in 2022 who doesn’t have one in your test lab, you’re making a stupid mistake,” Newell said.
“Software developers for an interactive experience[s] – you will absolutely use one of those modified VR head straps to do it regularly – simply because there is too much payload. “
This data typically consists of readings of the player’s body and brain, which can be used to tell if the player is excited, surprised, sad, bored, amused, and scared, among other emotions.
Mike Ambinder, Senior Experimental Psychologist at Valve Corporation, plays a game while wearing an OpenBCI Ultracortex BCI Array. Source: Mike Ambinder / Valve Corporation
Readings can be used by developers to improve immersion and customize what happens during games – such as increasing the difficulty a bit if the system notices that the player is bored.
In addition to just reading people’s brain signals, Newell also discussed the reality in the near future of being able to write signals into people’s minds – to change the way they feel or provide better-than-real visuals in the world. Games.
He said BCIs would lead to much better gaming experiences than a player could through their “meat devices” – like in their eyes and ears.
“You’re used to seeing the world through your eyes,” said Newell, “but eyes were created by this low-cost bidder who didn’t care about failure rates and RMAs, and s’ it was broken, there was no way to fix anything, indeed, which makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective, but does not reflect consumer preferences at all.
“So the visual experience, the visual fidelity that we can create – the real world will cease to be the metric that we apply to the best visual fidelity possible.
“The real world will seem flat, colorless, hazy compared to the experiences you can create in people’s brains.
“Where it gets weird is when who you are becomes editable through a BCI,” Newell said.
For now, people accept that their feelings are exactly what they feel – but Newell says BCIs will soon allow those feelings to be changed digitally, which could be as easy as using an app.
“One of the first apps that I think we’ll see is improving sleep – sleep will become an app that you run where you say, ‘Oh, I need a lot of sleep, I need a lot. from REM, ‘”he said.
Another benefit could be the reduction or total elimination of unwanted feelings or conditions in the brain, for therapeutic reasons.
Some people who use VR headsets experience vertigo due to the mismatch between what they see and what their body feels – but Newell said that by now, BCIs have advanced to a point where this vertigo could be artificially suppressed, and that “this is more of a certification problem than a scientific problem”.
The configuration of Valve Index VR. Source: Valve Corporation
Despite several feasible applications for BCIs, Newell said he was hesitant to halt Valve’s progress and turn one into a consumer product, when the speed of research was so high.
“The speed at which we learn things is so fast that you don’t want to say prematurely, ‘OK, we’re going to lock everything down and create a product and go through all the approval processes, whereas in six months we J’ will have something that would have enabled a bunch of other features. “
Valve also contributes to synthetic body parts development projects in exchange for expertise.
“It turns out that the game engines are really useful because they simulate a lot of the information you need to create a simulated hand for people,” Newell said.
“You can iterate software faster than you can iterate a prosthesis, so we give them a framework in which they can research and work with patients.”
In case you were wondering, a Valve-branded cybernetic member is probably off the table right now.
“Valve is not about creating virtual prosthetics for people,” Newell said.
“That’s what we’re contributing to this particular research project, and through that, we have access to leaders in the field of neuroscience who teach us a lot about the neuroscience side.”
Regarding prosthetics, Newell said there were some interesting questions to answer regarding the development of artificial limbs.
“As soon as you do that, they say, ‘Oh, can we give people a tentacle?’ Our brains were never designed to have tentacles, but it turns out that brains are really flexible. “
Neuroplasticity is a term that refers to our brain’s ability to relearn how to operate the body when something changes.
Neuroplasticity also occurs when we learn to use tools – an example would be a builder using a hammer for so many years that it feels like a natural extension of their body.
Newell gave a personal example of neuroplasticity. He had two corneal transplants in 2006/07, and after the surgery, a ghost image of some objects was produced in the field of view between his eyes due to the change in color perception.
The condition disappeared within weeks as his brain readjusted to the new input received from his eyes.
So the future of BCI looks interesting, but what about the darker side?
Newell briefly mentioned that BCIs could potentially be used to cause physical pain in people – even pain beyond their physical body.
“You could make people believe that they [are] injured by injuring their tool, which is a complicated subject in itself, ”he said.
Game developers can exploit this feature to make a player feel the pain of the character they are playing when injured – perhaps to a lesser extent.
Like any other form of technology, Newell says there is a certain degree of confidence in its use, and not everyone will feel comfortable connecting their brain to a computer.
He says no one will be forced to do what they don’t want to do and that people will likely follow others if they have good experiences, comparing BCI technology to cell phones.
“People are going to decide for themselves if they want to do it. No one is forcing them to use a phone,” Newell said.
“I’m not saying that everyone is going to like and insist on having a brain-computer interface. I’m just saying that each person is going to decide for themselves whether or not there is an interesting combination of features, features and price. . “
Developers will also be responsible for ensuring that their BCI products are rigorously tested and protected from breaches.
“There is nothing magical about these systems that makes them less vulnerable to viruses or things like that than other computer systems,” Newell said.
“Right now you have to trust all of your financial data, all of your personal information in your technology infrastructure, and if the people who are building these people do a bad job, they will lower consumer acceptance.
“Nobody’s going to say, ‘Oh, do you remember Bob? Do you remember when Bob was hacked by Russian malware? It sucks – is he still running naked through the forests? ‘ or whatever. So yes, people are going to have to be convinced that these are secure systems that do not pose any long term health risks. “
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