In the world of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) the upload of commands to a computer has made great strides as of late. There are research centers that have developed brain implants that test subjects have used to control cursors on a computer screen. And soon we may have less invasive methods with similar control utilizing brain waves.
As far as download is concerned, there are currently only 2 ways to download information from a computer into our brains: sight and sound. Given this, wouldn’t it be great to repeat the history of the computer? That is, utilizing an earpiece (perhaps a lot like a hearing aid) we may eventually have a brainwave receiver that allows the user to control a simple computer; a lot like the first popular computers, the calculator or perhaps a scientific calculator. We could train our brains to use a mental calculator keypad controlled by brainwaves, the results of the calculation fed back to us audibly.
So imagine if you will a near future in which the common calculator becomes the first broadly used BCI device. Kids everywhere with these things stuck in their ears, calculating Pi to the 100th decimal as they walk to school, cheating on their final exams, or engineers figuring out product structural problems as they ride the train in to work. If such a device were popular amongst students, mathematicians, and others do you think it would be good or bad?
On one hand, there’s an assumed threat of laziness; through widespread use of the BCI Calculator the rigor of mathematics might be lightened, thereby dulling the wit of our future mathematicians. On the other, mathematicians and others might be able to explore deeper mysteries within their field by their increased calculating speed and the convenience of having this fast calculating access available at any time.
So do you think such a device would be a good thing or a bad thing? And would you use such a device if it were available?
If your assumption is that hardwiring people to calculators will be cheaper, easier, and faster than carrying a $10 calculator around, taking it out and using it when needed, then yes, this is a good thing. This seems unlikely to work out like that, though.
If it leads to other research which makes other things cheaper, easier and faster than the real-world equivalent, then it’s a good thing (for example, if this allows people to have internet or data access equivalent to a desktop PC cheaper, easier, faster and maybe better than carrying a Blackberry around). This also seems unlikely.
If it leads to something we can’t currently do (say, allow the blind to see or the deaf to hear), then it’s a great thing.
Otherwise, no thanks.
Not hard-wired. That is, no surgery to implant something directly on or in to the brain, but rather a device sensitive to brainwaves and able to use those waves to enact commands. This can be done now, but since the sensors need to be really close to the brain to work, it requires a funky looking hat that doesn’t go well with today’s fashions. With further advances however, such a device (greatly miniaturized) positioned around the ear (or in the ear canal as I am suggesting) we might soon be able to provide such functionality. It might even look like the typical phone earpiece, perhaps even integrated with the mobile phone to allow BCI dialing. It’s this avenue of advancement and consumer demand that makes such a device IMO highly likely.
Really, I think it’s not so much a question of “wouldn’t it be cool if we had this?”, it’s more a question of “when”.
Beyond the simple calculator, we run into the difficulty of download. If we consider BCI internet access, the download would require audio or some kind of visual feed to work unless we find some way to “pipe” the information directly into our brains like in The Matrix. But that, if at all possible, is a long ways away. So we’d have to have a mini screen to read the download, or have an audio feed of the internet, which would be…unweidly, I think. ('cept maybe movie listings…)
If we take the historical course and follow the advent of the handheld calculator, the next step that technology took (IIRC) was the handheld language translator. So now we’re looking at an ear mounted device that could allow BCI calculator, BCI phone dialing, and now language translation.
Sounds kind of cool to me. And perhaps even inevitable.
Well, my answer stands. If it ends up better than what we’ve got, it’ll happen. If not, it still might, but it might take a long time. Watching TV on your computer, for example. It didn’t happen for a long time because monitors were too small and too low-quality compared to TV sets. People wanted quality TV. Now that your basic home computer has a pretty smokin’ monitor, it’s doable, but still not common. Ten years from now, who knows?
My opinion on calculators is that you should never (or almost never) use a calculator to do something you couldn’t do yourself. Hence, you shouldn’t use the calculator to multiply until you’ve learned how to do it yourself. You shouldn’t use a graphing calculator unless you know how to plot points on graph paper by hand. You shouldn’t use a calculator to solve quadratics unless you’ve learned and understood the quadratic formula.
I’m sure I’ve broken this rule before, and others may have variations on it, but in general, I think math teachers should teach kids to follow this rule (or, again, one like it). And the same rules apply whether we’re talking about an abacus, or a BCI calculator.
When was the last time you calculated the sine of a random angle by hand? Took the sube root of something by hand did logs by hand etc.
Since we’re looking for opinions here, let’s move this from GQ to IMHO.
samclem GQ moderator
Last week, arising out of a GQ thread, using the binomial theorem. 
You don’t need to implant electrodes to get translation devices, at least not spoken translation.
Link
This thing detects movements of your mouth and translates what you’re saying. Amazing.
Virtually every math test I’ve ever taken has had a non-calculator section and a calculator section, and the non-calculator part had to be done first; sometimes I couldn’t get the calculator section until I had handed in the non-calculator portion.
Most chapters in a math textbook teach you how do something using your brain and scratchwork; for example, trig values for several angles are required memorization of trigonometry, and from then on, you’ve got to know them instead of relying on the calculator to do your work for you.
The bottom line is that in education some things have to be done without access to a calculator.
I really don’t understand how a direct brain to computer interface with an ear download could improve upon an interface that uses the hands and/or voice and the eyes. After all hand-eye coordination is how we’ve evolved to interact with the world, and we can do remarkably quick, subtle and complex interactions with what we’ve got. I think it will be a very long time before our technology can exceed what our brains have already evolved very elaborate circuitry to perform. Do you know how much of our cortex is devoted to coordinating hand motion? I don’t either, but I know it’s a lot.
The physically handicapped might be champing at the bit for BCI technology, so I’m very happy to see the field progressing, but otherwise I would think that the hands provide greater flexibility, accuracy and complexity than you could possibly get from wiring the brain directly.