Nanobots in our brain

The idea of ​​a permanent, round-the-clock connection of people to the Internet is not new. Scientists and futurologists agree that this will be possible at a certain level of development of neural interfaces. We have already managed to achieve the first modest success in obtaining information from the brain, but how to translate it into it? Tiny nanobots that fill the surface of the brain and are capable of transmitting information, both visual and auditory, can become one of the ways.


Post singular future
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Imagine the world of the future, in which people do not disconnect from the Internet. In general, they are not physically capable of this. And we will make one more assumption: the computing power of the network infrastructure is such that each individual person can be “placed” in the virtual reality of such a level of detailing that it will seem like a real world. And one in which you will have access to the consciousness, knowledge and experience of all people. But how to achieve such informational unity? Perhaps with the help of billions of special nanorobots filling our brain.



With such a statement, a picture of a swarming mass in the head immediately arises in the thoughts. However, the key word here is nano. Man can not feel such small objects in his body, nanorobots are obtained in size less than bacteria. By the way, no one is embarrassed by the fact that our body is inhabited by a myriad of all kinds of bacteria. It is believed that their number is about 10 times the number of cells in the whole human body. And the worse the robots? With their presence, you just have to accept, if you want to have access to the enormous resources of the network, including the "hyper-virtual" reality. As today we put up with the fact that we are constantly exposed to microwave radiation from home routers for the sake of convenient Wi-Fi access to the network. And most do not even reduce the transmitter power, although for apartments 100% by default is more than redundant.

But back to the topic of the post. So, in our hypothetical future, the presence of myriads of nanorobots in the brain will become a prerequisite for being online. And given the assumption of access to the consciousness of each "member of the network," you will have to accept the fact that any person on the planet can connect to you and see, hear, know everything the same as you. Such a spooky world is described in the book Postsingular , written by American science fiction writer Rudi Rücker . The parallels with the “Matrix” are more than obvious: if there was a giant machine driving the minds of connected people, here virtual reality is formed by means of individual robotic “clouds”. Computational power, according to the book, is provided by a planetary network of quantum computers Orphid.

Many will ask why discuss such a bizarre technology from a fantastic book? Some nanorobots in my head, access to thoughts and knowledge, all this is too divorced from reality. But is it really impossible and far-fetched?

Nowadays

Neural interfaces have been developed over the past 40 years, and some results have been achieved. If it is extremely generalized, then modern developments are a software and hardware complex consisting of head-on sensors that record brain activity and software that interprets the information received. The main efforts of the developers are now aimed at creating all sorts of neuroimplants that would help paralyzed people, people with disabilities, and people with some serious illnesses. And we are talking not only about implants that control movement, but also about devices that allow to gain hearing and sight.



More recently, bionic limbs, controlled by the power of thought , were exclusively an attribute of fantastic books. And today, scientists are already actively experimenting with the visualization of human thoughts . Of particular interest is the development of neural interfaces from the point of view of application in video games, here it captures the spirit from the prospects. In the free market there are already available devices that allow you to recognize some basic human emotions . They are already quite widely used in marketing and case studies. Perhaps, in the future, such “emoregistrars” will allow you to immediately switch on a non-liked music track, or to adjust the game environment depending on the emotional reaction of users. Now the gaming industry generally pays a lot of attention to the technologies of registering emotions and managing with their help. Actually, a realistic virtual reality is most interesting for igrodels.

However, to create such a technology, it is necessary first to solve one major problem, which so far cannot be given. For virtual reality, bi-directional neurointerface is necessary. That is, it is necessary not only to read information from the brain, but also to transmit it to it. Returning to Rücker's book, to see on the network what another person sees, the “video stream” needs to be transmitted to the brain bypassing the optic tract. And here can help nanobots that are also interested in modern medicine. They see a number of uses for nanorobots, including targeted drug delivery and the creation of an artificial blood cell, several hundred times more efficient from the point of view of oxygen transfer. If such robots replace a person with 10% of red blood cells, then he will be able to run in the race with Olympic champions, even without killing his breath. Or spend hours under water without breathing equipment.



In the future, nanorobots can be used to maintain our circulatory system, removing cholesterol and fat from the vessel walls. But can we hope that someday we will “teach” nanorobots to interact with the neurons of our brain? According to Raymond Kurzweil, this is only a matter of time . Based on his analysis of the pace of development of bio- and nanotechnologies, Kurzweil claims that by 2020, it will be possible to introduce nanorobots into the human nervous system. And it will be a revolutionary breakthrough that will pave the way for the creation of virtual reality technology, broadcast directly to the brain. And there it is already within reach of the information network, in which it will be possible to exchange thoughts .

Neuronet: evil or good?

If Kurzweil turns out to be more or less right in his predictions, then in the course of a single generation’s life we ​​will get a massive network connection technology using a neural interface, similar to the one described in Rücker’s book. How can we assess the intersection of this technological frontier from our current positions?

Ecology will only benefit from this. And not at all because of the reduction of energy consumption. Accessible ultra-realistic virtual reality will become a kind of mental and emotional haven for hundreds of millions of people. And this will almost certainly lead to a drop in the consumption of everything and everyone. In other words, the foundations of a modern economy, rooted in a constant increase in sales, will falter. And low sales mean a drop in production. Accordingly, humanity will generate less garbage and consume less of all kinds of resources.

The same nanotechnology can lead to a breakthrough in the field of renewable power sources. For example, there is hope for the imminent emergence of nano-sized fuel cells . Probably, it will be possible to drastically improve the efficiency of solar panels .

As for the shortcomings, then we enter the slippery horror track. It cannot be excluded that with the advent of the world-wide neural network, scientists still manage to create artificial intelligence. Indeed, at their disposal will be the brains of millions, if not billions of people. And if today the idea of ​​an uprising against people of “silicon brains” seems unlikely precisely because of the limitations and difficulties that we know, then the bio-nano-technologies of the future can generate AI with very different properties and capabilities. And here it is time to recall the fears of Stephen Hawking, Elon Mask and Bill Gates, which the whole world chuckles at.



Yet the threat of malicious artificial intelligence is still quite ephemeral. But hacking with a neural interface is not. And this problem, which will definitely arise, will have to be prepared in advance . It is possible to dream up and imagine how nanorobots involved in the extraction of iron, zinc and copper from human bodies can come out of military laboratories. Artificial virus.

But the greatest fear is our own human nature. The attractiveness of virtual reality can be so irresistible that we quickly wallow in hedonism. Having connected, people will lie on the couch with vegetables, move a little, sleep and eat, not to mention hygiene. Hello Matrix.