A future "human brain / cloud interface" will give people instant access to vast knowledge via thought alone

Imagine a future technology that would provide instant access to global knowledge and artificial intelligence simply by thinking about a specific topic or issue. Communications, education, work and the world as we know it would be transformed.

Write in Frontiers in NeuroscienceAn international collaboration led by UC Berkeley researchers and the American Institute of Molecular Manufacturing predicts that exponential advances in nanotechnology, nanomedicine, AI, and computation will drive this century to the development of new technologies. a "human brain / cloud interface" (B / CI), which connects brain cells to vast real-time cloud computing networks.

Nanobots on the brain

The concept B / CI was originally proposed by future-author-inventor-inventor Ray Kurzweil, who suggested that neural nanobots – an original idea of ​​Robert Freitas, Jr., lead author of the research – could be used to link the neocortex of the human brain to "synthetic neocortex" in the cloud. Our crumpled neocortex is the newest, smartest and most conscious part of the brain.

Neuronal nanobots offered by Freitas would provide direct, real-time monitoring and control of signals to and from brain cells.

"These devices would navigate the human vascular system, cross the blood-brain barrier and position themselves precisely among or even in brain cells," says Freitas. "They would then wirelessly transmit the coded information to and from a network of cloud supercomputers for real-time monitoring of the brain's state and data extraction."

Internet of thought

This cortex in the cloud would allow the download of "Matrix" type information into the brain, says the group.

"A human B / CI system managed by neuralnanorobotics could give individuals instant access to all accumulated human knowledge available in the cloud, while significantly enhancing learning capabilities and human intelligence," explains Dr. Nuno Martins, lead author.

B / CI technology could also enable us to create a future "global superbrain" that would link individual human brain networks and AI to allow for collective thinking.

"Although it is not yet particularly sophisticated, an experimental system" BrainNet "has already been tested, enabling a cloud-based exchange of information between individual and motivated minds, says Martins. "He used electrical signals recorded through the skull of the" transmitters "and a magnetic stimulation through the skull of the" receivers ", thus allowing to perform cooperative tasks.

"With the advancement of neuralnanorobotics, we envision the future creation of" supergroups "capable of harnessing in real time the thoughts and thinking power of many humans and machines in a truly global society."

When can we connect?

According to the group's estimates, even existing supercomputers have processing speeds capable of handling the necessary volumes of neural data for B / CI – and they are getting faster and faster.

The transfer of neural data to and from supercomputers in the cloud is probably the ultimate bottleneck of B / CI development.

"The challenge is not only to find the bandwidth needed for global data transmission," warns Martins, "but also to allow the exchange of data with neurons via tiny devices embedded in the brain."

One solution proposed by the authors is to use "magnetoelectric nanoparticles" to effectively amplify the communication between the neurons and the cloud.

"These nanoparticles have already been used in living mice to couple external magnetic fields to neuronal electric fields, ie to detect and amplify these magnetic signals locally and thus allow them to modify the magnetic fields. electrical activity of neurons ", explains Martins. "It could also work in the opposite direction: the electrical signals produced by neurons and nanobots could be amplified via magnetoelectric nanoparticles, to allow their detection outside the skull."

Getting these nanoparticles – and nanobots – safely into the brain through the bloodstream would be perhaps the biggest challenge of all in B / CI.

"A detailed analysis of the biodistribution and biocompatibility of nanoparticles is needed before they can be considered for human development, a reality before the turn of the century," concludes Martins.