Today, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon published research. It showed how they had solved a frustrating problem. It is a problem for people who are using a brain-computer interface (BCI) to control prosthetic devices with their thoughts.
Thus, the research itself is fascinating. Moreover, the researchers created an algorithm. The algorithm is keeping the devices from continually needing to be re-calibrated for handling the human brain’s fluctuating neuronal activity. Here, the real takeaway is how close we are to the universal brain-computer interface.
In one form or another, BCIs have been around for decades. Nevertheless, they are challenging to keep working correctly for costly maintenance. Currently, they make sense only for narrow usage. Especially it is for those who have lost limbs. They are already used to using their brain to control an appendage. Thus, it is easier for researchers and scientists to harness those brainwaves for controlling prosthetic devices.
Nevertheless, a universal brain-computer interface would not be so scarce. Theoretically, it would work just like Google Assistant, Alexa, or Siri. However, the exception would be to cut out the middle-man and think directly to devices directly instead of shouting at your smart or phone speakers.
The artificial intelligence is the most critical technology nowadays. Moreover, it has been compared to the discovery of humankind of the invention of electricity and fire. Nevertheless, most of us just do not see it. Of course, chatbots and virtual assistants are very useful. However, most of us would instead just tap on our screens to use the remote and then bark orders to a disembodied digital secretary.
Brain-Computer Interface
Moreover, artificial intelligence is vital for the entire field of data science, businesses, and medical research. Nevertheless, as far as in-your-face technology goes, electricity may seem far more impressive, and the fire is still cooler. But BCIs, which heavily relies on artificial intelligence, will change that. The BCI has already changed everything.
It seems like that any minute now some weird dark horse like Uber, Neuralink, or Facebook is going to announce a BCI interface for the general public. It will most probably be a narrow-use device that gets things going. Of course, it won’t be controlling an entire laptop computer with our minds.
Nevertheless, we must expect that the brain-computer interface will come packaged with gadgets at first. It might be that we will see thermostats and light switches. Assuming how the technology works, it won’t take long before a simple combination of real-time user authentication and brain wave analysis makes brain-computer interface become the internet of things that are controlled by your brain.
The company that will figure out how to make a reliable, secure BCI that can integrate with the devices that are already in our lives can very well become the next big thing in technology.
In a matter of years, the first wave of products can be here after all the sky is the limit. We might one day use chips and artificial intelligence for securing mental connections with cloud computers. That will make machines such ATMs, that merely exist to authenticate a transaction, obsolete.
