email exchange about the iPlant etc

[psique]

provoked by a recent blogpost of mine (or maybe something else, i'm
not sure), mitchell wrote to me and we started an email discussion on
implants in general, the iPlant, implications for society and such. i
thought it might be interesting for you to read, and mitchell kindly
permitted posting our thought exchange here.

contribution to the discussion would be very appreciated, i'm sure you
have your own takes on these things and i would like to read them.

"last but not least, the speakers go into ethics a bit (not as much as
i would have liked though), and they make valid clear observations,
for example regarding informed consent, sham surgery and economical
access issues. not quite comparable to the issues recently raised by
some intellectually challenged technophobes such as: "enhancement is
wrong because we ought to have suffering in the world!!" (someone's
been to catholic school) or "mind control!!!" (yes, please) or "i'm
against animal testing!!" (let's hear that again next time you need
some meds) or "this is bad!!" (look, logical reasoning never hurt
nobody) regarding the iPlan thought experiment (i won't link to them
because apparently i'm a good person deep down...)."
(http://psiqueii.blogspot.com/2008/04/deep-brain-stimulation-
technoevolution.html)

------------------------------------------------------------------
mitchell's first email (M1):

""mind control (yes, please)"

Please tell me that's not a fetish statement. :-)

But then if it's not, I'm not sure *what* you mean. What would be good
about real-life mind control - keeping identified psychopaths from
acting out? Or is the idea to subtly apply it to yourself, and thereby
bring you closer to your personal ideal, whatever that may be?"

----------------------------------------------------------------
my first email (L1):

in all honesty "mind control (yes please)" is just from a msn convo i
had with a friend. but behind it lies the idea to apply it to oneself,
yes. i'm one of those people who absolutely fail to live up to their
potential. not talking about wanting to become super human, but it'd
be nice to have a bit more 'self'-discipline. and i think people
should have the right to enhance themselves if they so wish.
the idea of (mind) control of other people is sth i strongly dislike,
and i hope that dbs/bci technologies won't go down that route.
what's your take?

[psique]

M2:

That they will go down that route. Perhaps not in the crude violent
form of, say, people being kidnapped and implanted with control
devices, though one should never underestimate the extent to which
brutal extremes do get realized. It could start in a subtler form, as
with therapeutic implants which are in the control of socially
approved agencies, rather than solely under the control of the
patients. Go far enough, and you'll have cults who *willingly* subject
themselves to an external control, whether that be a guru or just some
automatic homeostasis (perhaps a mood server).

Neural implants will be outright banned in some jurisdictions, and
severely regulated in others (e.g. only allowed for restoration of
function), but there are too many wild-west failed states in the world
to completely avoid outlaw medical research, whether it's done by a
sinister cult or an optimistic group of self-enhancers. It's all too
easy to see the military interventions of the future as being aimed at
suppressing this sort of thing: 'We must overthrow the Cognitive
Republic of Tumbolia before it infiltrates its sleeper agents into our
own society!'

[psique]

L2:

i can't see how socially approved agencies could control dbs decives,
leaving aside the possibility of this happening in a totalitarian
regime. no one's pouring drugs into the water either. actually, i can
rather envisage the cult scenario you mention, but cults usually fail
to affect overall society (i know there's exceptions) and if a
relatively small group of people chooses to be remote controlled,
that's not directly any of my concern.

all these speculations aside, what needs to be kept in mind is that
dbs is still relatively new. okay, so the FDA approved of dbs
treatment of parkinson's disease in 1997, but since then not that much
has happened. the number of people actually having such an implant is
still quite low (60000? worldwide), probably at least partially due a)
the risks associated with surgery and b) the fact that the implant
only treats the symptoms ie isn't perfect. clinical trials with dbs
for the treatment of depression are on its way and i think medtronic
is trying to get approval of dbs for ocd. but these things take time.
and we're talking pretty debilitating diseases here. it's going to be
a long way until implants will be approved for cognitive/attention/
mood enhancement and as you say it may not even be allowed in more
jurisdictions, at least not for a while. last point, rather than
military intervening, i could see the military rejoicing at the
thought of dbs technology in warfare, and if the technology can
actually be used to substantially control a person's behaviour, i
would be very surprised if DARPA isn't already in on the case.

i don't think that anyone can halt the advances being made in this
field, if they should indeed prove to be successful ways of treating
disease and enhancing healthy people. i am actually quite sceptical of
dbs implants becoming mainstream, too many people have reservations
when it comes to brain surgery, let alone cognitive enhancement via
implants. maybe that's a good thing, i don't know. i'm just thinking:
let the people themselves decide. i'd much rather have above mentioned
cult scenario going on than implant-driven soldiers. saying that it's
'bad' or 'dangerous' won't help anyone, and i think that as with all
emerging (bio/nano/whatever)technologies education and informed
discussion is needed. if people decide that dbs implants are too
dangerous for whatever reason, but they do so after learning about
what it actually is, what it can and can't do and after discussing the
pro and cons, well then that's fine. i just couldn't stand to see dbs
tech go down the same route as - say - embryonic stem cell research or
animal/human hybrid studies where people tend to cry out that it's
wrong or unethical without (in most cases i presume) actually knowing
what the research is really about.

so all in all, i guess i'm a bit less pessimistic than you regarding
the future of implants. but on the other hand i'm not saying that
"mind control. yes, please" was 100% serious. i find my opinion on
this topic fluctuating and i'm not saying: yes, this is a perfect
idea! and dismissing all risks. i just think it's an important issue
to talk about and maybe that's why i like to play devil's advocate
when it comes to dbs-mediated enhancement, just to draw attention to
it if you so will.

[psique]

M3:

I have serious doubts that that list is going to achieve anything. I
count myself a transhumanist, but that list brings out my inner Dale
Carrico. In artificial intelligence there are numerous fanatics who
believe that cognition is nothing but (favorite idea from computer
science), and the smarter ones can even write programs that embody
their belief. I see that neurohacking offers similar opportunity for
the instrumental realization of an oversimplified theory ("ascending
monoamine systems!") which starts out with a virtual existence as
rhetorically constituted vaporware ("the iPlant does" stuff, present
tense, as if it actually exists already). I shouldn't be surprised,
the same thing has happened a zillion times in life extension: you may
not actually be able to cheat death by drinking sour milk every
morning, but you can certainly act on your belief, and thereby get to
experience the genuine consequences of sour-milk overdose, whatever
they may be.

I also find it endearing that you're even on the iPlant list. Despite
your protestations ("singularity bullcrap"), there's something there
which fits into *your* "Singularity-shaped hole". It must be the
knowledge that neurotech *does* have huge potential, but only the
overconfident radicals are bold enough to write detailed manifestos
about it for now, and so you can't resist tagging along, trying to
straighten them out when they become manifestly wrong. At least that's
how it looks to me. I may not quite have grasped the sensibility
behind iPlant. The fake ads look like the sort of thing that *critics*
of corporate high-tech produce, as parody, but in this case the
proponents seem to be serious utopians. I don't see any plans to drop
their personas and announce "It was all an art project! We just wanted
to make you think!" It seems like Chris wants to make us think, yes,
but he also wants to *do* it; otherwise he wouldn't be writing open
letters to Hu and Obama about "enforced sublimination".

With respect to your reply, my own expectations may seem one-sidedly
'pessimistic' because that's all I wrote about. I certainly wasn't
saying that brain implants would lead to cults and military
interventions *instead of* cognitive medicine and benign
experimentation. There will be both, and there may even be implant
cultures or societies which are unequivocally better than anything we
have now. But there is just no way that such a technological capacity
can exist without it being abused somewhere and without it becoming a
political football, whether for good or for bad. The human condition
produces boredom, agony, and desperation in millions of people, and
they will reach for this out of blind hope and dark desires, as well
as for blander utilitarian reasons, and even harmless wacky ones too.
Even the zany harmless side will seem horrifyingly alien to many older
people, to the point that they want it destroyed. And then you'll have
the neophiles who love the prospect uncritically.

I find it very easy to imagine a coming neurotech century which
involves, say, a genuine war between the old and the new (over whether
the technology will even be allowed to exist), one disaster after the
victory of the new (in which something goes really wrong in the brave
new neuro order), and finally an equilibrium in which the technology
is there, has been absorbed, and painful lessons which might have been
avoided if the world was run by wise and detached beings were instead
learnt the hard way, by world-historic error, because that is not how
the world is. (You should imagine the foregoing as a process which
takes many decades.)

[psique]

L4:

i suppose by list you mean the google group. i still think it's a nice
try to foster some discussion. while the term iPlant has other earlier
uses and DBS is nothing new either, the concept of the iPlant in this
specific form is rather new (e.g. the site associated with it sort of
emerged from a neuroscience discussion at sussex uni, but the 'iPlant'
wasn't coined until late last fall (nevermind the huffington post).
the forum itself is still in its early beginnings. it might never get
big or popular and achieve something.

the AI belief you liken to the iPlant's idea is bullshit imho, i may
not know anything about computer science and AI but i know a little
bit about the brain's complexity to assume that we've got a LOOOONG
way to go to mind uploading and the likes.. the ascending monoamine
systems idea, or rather the theory behind the iPlant is not bullshit
though. as opposed to certain transhumanist ideas the technology
already exists for this one, so does a lot of background knowledge
including animal experimentation that runs along similar lines (see
http://www.iplant.eu/b7.html for references). the next step would be
to see if attention can actually be improved in an animal model of
ADHD, which is exactly what chris wants to do. then obviously one
would have to see if the implant works in other animals, eg primates
including ourselves. (i agree with your dislike of speaking of the
iPlant as if it already existed, although i probably occassionally
fall into that trap myself).

i am part of the group precisely because the iPlant idea is so real
and so do-able, for me it's not about transhumanism or coming closer
to 'the singularity'. i don't think we could transcend anything with
the help of the iPlant, but maybe we could live slightly more
productive and less miserable lives (although in regards to less
misery i personally don't think one can just target the raphe nuclei
and *bahm* depression goes away. the attention/motivation aspect seems
far more likely).

as far as my involvement with the group goes, as you say one reason is
the realization of neurotech's potential, and being able to actually
understand how it could work (not the electronics, but the monoamine
part). but i don't see my membership as a violation of my
"transhumanism is bullcrap"-attitude (which, by the way, is partially
just because bashing creationists gets a bit boring :p). there are
some people who like to dream up stuff and make wild assumptions, i
try not to do so. my 'tagging along' is because i would like to see
the iPlant get developed, i am curious as to what it could or could
not do and which (if any) effects it could have on society. also, i
can't deny personal reasons being partially responsible for getting
into the iPlant idea back in the day, but these shouldn't be clouding
my opinions too much anymore. my attempt at 'straightening out
radicals when they go wrong' as you call it, is just a - possibly
futile - attempt to keep the whole thing scientific, because it would
be a shame if the idea drifted off into sci-fi space and no one would
take it seriously anymore. this also goes for other areas of
innovative research. i hate how so many advances are being blown
completely out of proportion; not that they aren's amazing, i just
wish people wouldn't extrapolate so goddamn much.

as to your observations about the fake ads or maybe also some of the
slogans (program yourself etc), the whole appearance... these are
partially indeed meant as a parody, despite the serious background.
yes, the iPlant idea is 'real' and there's no art project disclaimer,
nor will there be. but the iPlant was also supposed to be fun, and
that's how the ads etc came about. and yes, chris wants to make us
think and wants to actually do it too. i don't think however that the
open letter to hu and obama (which obviously made me want to puke) is
a good indicator of this. rather his extensive research regarding
dopamine, DBS etc as well as his attempts to find a PhD position where
he could do try it on ADHD rats are.

now that you've extended your view of the future implications of such
a technology, i actually agree with you. personally (i know this reply
has been way too personal already...) i would just like to see what
happens (minus the horror scenario of new tech going horribly wrong if
possible...) the war between old and new is already there in a way,
there's ethical concerns on one hand, or security concerns or just
technophobia - on the other you get advocates of technological
advances ranging from scientists/engineers to people who'll embrace
everything futuristic. to be honest, i'm not too good at speculating
about how the world is going to be like in X years, with or without
neurotechnology of any kind. it just seems to me that at present
there's not much to loose.

> ...
>
> read more »

[mitchell porter]

Hello, iPlant pioneers and interested parties. I thought I should join
the list if I continued this discussion. A special hello to Chris
Harris. I don't normally charge into a place saying 'your theory is
oversimplified'; I'm here a little by accident. But I certainly don't
believe that the cognitive neuroscience of monoamines constitutes
anything like a global model of the mind. As Laura says, monoamines
are just one subsystem.

I want to place my own views in context. I believe, or hypothesize,
two things which remove me from mainstream scientific discourse, but
not from rational discourse, I would hope. One is a version of the
Singularity idea. There are criteria by which intelligence can be
ranked; humans rank differently according to different criteria; but
there will eventually be intelligences which outrank all human beings
by all such criteria. The path there will be much shorter than
expected, because it will be a product of accelerating self-
enhancement. The values of the first such comprehensively superhuman
intelligences will decide what happens to the world after that point,
because in the clash of goals which makes up history and evolution,
superior intelligence implies superior ability to realize one's
goals.

So that's one idea. The other idea is a variation on the popular yet
disreputable idea of a connection between quantum theory and the mind.
I reject most variations on that hypothesis. The one that interests me
is the idea that "quantum holism" (entanglement) has a relationship to
the subjective unity of consciousness. The idea is that there is a
quantum-coherent subsystem in the brain which acts as what Dennett
calls the "Cartesian theater". The argument is very apriori and
philosophical; I simply think that most proposed theories of the
relationship between mind and matter are completely untenable. They
either outright deny facts about consciousness, or they propose
psychophysical identities which have severe technical problems, but
which might be overcome in quantum ontology. From a physical
perspective, the microtubules, which are the best-known candidate for
locus of quantum effects in the brain, do strike me as the most
interesting place to look. A sharper question would be how the
*functional relevance* of these alleged quantum states is implemented;
how do they interact with the classical processing being done by
neurons? I will spare you the speculations, but the important
implications of this second idea are (i) there's a huge scientific
revolution still to come with respect to neuroscience, physics, and
consciousness (ii) an entity which solves problems through classical
computation alone will not be conscious, no matter how pragmatically
competent it is (and I would think that unconscious yet
comprehensively superhuman 'intelligence' is a real possibility).

From the perspective defined by those two ideas, the iPlant looks like
(a) an exercise in neurohacking being carried out before real
understanding of the mind has arrived (b) a pre-Singularity
manifestation of the rise of technologies of mind which does not
directly lead into the Singularity, because it is not about
intelligence increase. With respect to (a), that doesn't mean it won't
work; with respect to (b), that doesn't mean it won't matter; but it
means that I cannot view it as either a knowing implementation of a
final theory of mind or as the immediate precursor of something
unknowable.

And I think that sums up my views on the device. I gather that this
group exists in part to collect responses to the idea; there's mine.

[Christopher Harris]

wow, that's a lot.

hi mitchell, please criticize as much as you feel this thing requires: i purposely take an optimistic, pro-active stance to show that it's possible, but i know it's a volatile item we're playing with and that there are a lot of unanswered questions. that's what the Obama/Hu letter was about - a statement that 1) this technology is sufficiently important/imminent to warrant the attention of the supposed leaders of the world and 2) that we REALLY need an open, informed discussion about how we should do this. so any technical or ethical issue you bring up here that we can't solve will be discussed on the website and at the iPlant seminar in May, put on YouTube etc etc. hopefully we'll be able to get to the essence of this thing before it gets here.

the cognitive neuroscience of dopamine is not a 'final theory of mind' but a working theory of attention and motivation and i don't think we need a quantum model of consciousness to construct this implant anymore than we need supercomputers to get to the moon. i'm very curious how both of you would like to see this technology emerge (if we assume an international ban isn't gonna happen) and how best to avoid or attenuate mitchell's war scenario.

one scenario: Hamani et al (2008) who recently tried and failed to suppress an obese man's hunger by inactivating parts of his hypothalamus (by deep brain stimulation) decide to try a different approach: motivating his desire for physical exercise by stimulating a different part of the hypothalamus, a procedure developed over 25 years ago in rats. the procedure works and clinical trials to tackle the obesity epidemic are approved and begun (in Canada). what happens next is what really interests me: how do people react when the news hit the papers? how do they talk about it and conceptualize it? how does the media react? what attitudes and groups are formed? how well can the intricacies of the technology be explained to laypeople? what are the limits of the technology? what applications do people come up with? i've been thinking about this for a while now and damn it's a tricky one, hence my throwing the singularity concept around from time to time, but please don't take it so seriously, what i really mean to say is: "wow, this thing is endless"

[mitchell porter]

Hi Chris. Perhaps it would constitute progress if we were habitually a
little clearer about what technology we're talking about. The most
dismissive, minimizing approach to the iPlant would be to view it as
an appetite suppressant and nothing more. Then there's a broader
spectrum of uses, along the lines of mood control and motivation
control. And finally, there's the overall universe of possible
neuroprostheses, which I think is where the feeling of endless
possibilities and consequences sets in.

One general principle is that if you go to a politician with
something, they will try to fit it into their existing political
philosophy, because they have to have a line on it. The line can be
revised, but agnosticism in politics means irrelevance. If you want to
know how Hu or Obama would respond to the gaping vista of
neurotechnological possibility, it's probably simplest just to
understand their existing principles and do the extrapolation
yourself. Obama is a centrist American liberal who wants to renew
American leadership. Hu is a Chinese one-party technocrat who wants
China to be a world power. Most of their ideas will pertain to
relations between state and society. If you go to the state, you are
asking the state to get involved. Of course it will anyway, but it
won't hurt to be a bit of a politician yourself and try to impose a
little more order on your own imagination first.

You ask how we might avert a war between pro and anti neurotech
powers. The scenario is so underspecified as to make useful advice
impossible - although the pro-neuro people might offer neurotech,
properly used, as a generic solution to war. ;-) This scenario
belongs to the third, maximal realm of discussion, the impacts of
neurotechnology in general. This is where you need to make some
choices about how best to use your own time, really. Do you wish to
engage in nebulous extrapolation and policy discussion regarding the
social impact of the full, presently unimaginable spectrum of
neurotech applications? Or do you want to focus on the particular
class of technologies you are most concerned with? How would you
define that narrower range, exactly - DBS? Consumer DBS? Self-directed
DBS?

You ask how the media would react to successful DBS treatment of
eating disorders. I think for most people - those not directly
affected - it would be a fifteen-minute wonder which would then go
into deep memory storage along with the green glowing mice, robot
probes on Mars, cyber attack on Estonia, and other odd phenomena which
are part of the media wallpaper in a global information society, and
which form a sort of odd gestalt suggesting the shape of the future.
Part of your thought experiment, in effect, is to say 'but what if the
iPlant became as common as the iPod?' I think the answer is, business
as usual, in the sense that Internet society has proved to be business
as usual. A world with Internet is full of stuff that the world
without never had, but there is enormous continuity, and there is
neither utopia nor dystopia. Neurotechnology, like biotechnology and
information technology, is the sort of technology which becomes part
of the fabric of life, rather than actually bringing about an
existential transformation. (In combination, and taken to their
extremes, I think those technologies *do* issue in a Singularity, but
I am trying to eschew that angle for the moment.) They all mean new
ways to live and new ways to die, so they can enter into the
existential transformations of an individual, but at a sufficiently
high level of abstraction, they change nothing.

So again, I think you need to make some executive decisions about
focus. Do you want to seriously be a broad-spectrum neurofuturist,
trying to itemize the many novel dimensions of life in a neurosociety,
or do you want to focus on one particular neurotechnology? It's not
really an absolute thing, especially at this stage of the game, but
you might want to set the tone. Like it or not, you're Mr iPlant for
now, and you decide where on the vaporware vs specified-but-not-
implemented axis you want the technology to lie. I think that the more
you move in the second direction, the further you move away from the
transformation-of-society angle.

On Apr 30, 10:04 pm, "Christopher Harris"

[Christopher]

What I'm interested in right now is the possibility of using DBS
technology 
to regulate dopamine and serotonin concentrations in the
human brain (see
the second part of chapter one of the short-story for
more long-term
interests:). The most interesting and experimentally
well-developed result of this would be *motivational programming*:
the 
possibility of selectively boosting the sense of reward you
experience when 
engaging in certain pre-specified behaviors such as
physical exercise and 
learning. There are several other avenues, such
as mimicking stimulants or 
antidepressants by regulating monoamine
tone, and linguistic programming: 
the possibility of receiving morse
code through the DBS implant, but these are speculation at this point
so let's focus on motivational programming, 
which is well developed
in rats and therefore more than likely to work in
humans.

Imagine that, in 2015, after large-scale clinical trials on people
suffering from
obesity and learning difficulties, the people of the
world - or Canada or 
the US or Europe or China or Brazil or wherever
the procedure is first made 
as publicly available as cosmetic surgery
- are presented with the 
possibility of effortless exercise and
learning at the current cost of a DBS 
implant - $50.000. The result
would not be 'business as usual': there would 
be an army of people
craving a degree of autonomy they feel they
have always been denied.
Personally I think the untapped potential of this class of 
people is
enormously underestimated. I also think there are large quantities of
untapped potential of this sort in most people.

What would people do? How would societal institutions and structures
rearrange? What scenarios need to be avoided (e.g. forced labour
camps, dystopian industrialization of human cognition)? 
Which
scenarios should be encouraged (e.g. iPlant-driven research)?

By effortless learning I mean associating a reward feedback loop with
a computer tutorial (obviously with some sort of upper time 
limit). I
wonder how long it would take an adult to develop a working 
knowledge
of Chinese or Python... 8hrs/day for 3 months? No effort? Beats
falling asleep in lectures if you ask me.

[Tommi]

I think it is optimistic to think that iPlant for motivation would be
available to all by 2015. Considering how many years it has taken to
come up with some kind of depression treatment (which admittedly
possibly is harder to implement) I would say that by 2010 it would be
cleared for obesity by FDA. By 2015 the exercise protocol would be
available to everyone, and then by 2020 the motivational implants.

[Christopher]

yea 2015 is more like the date i can see this entering clinical
trials. it's been the favorite year for that every time i run a poll
on futureblogger. i just picked a date closer to now for the sake of
argument since we'll have to think about the impact of the iPlant in
terms of society as we know it now anyway.

one thing tho, i'm not sure it's wise to assume that emerging
biotechnology will require FDA approval after 2015. as in, cutting
edge science has been happening in the US so far but that trend may be
changing, partly because of the balance of world-power changing but
also because the US has a recent history of biotechnophobia and severe
cuts in science funding. not saying it's not a good bet that the
iPlant will first be developed in the states, but it's one bet out of
many, especially seeing that, like you say, this technology is
relatively easy to implement.

[Tommi]

> yea 2015 is more like the date i can see this entering clinical
> trials.

Maybe that was mentioned on the first page - my bad.

>not saying it's not a good bet that the
> iPlant will first be developed in the states, but it's one bet out of
> many

Right. When you mentioned Brazil (for example) above I thought you
were talking about
just the offerers of surgery, but I agree that it might be developed
elsewhere as well.

Btw, have you considered how much the pharmaceutical industry might be
doing its' best to hinder the development of iPlant?

[psique]

> Btw, have you considered how much the pharmaceutical industry might be
> doing its' best to hinder the development of iPlant?

i doubt the pharmaceutical industry will actually care that much.
we're talking a multibillion dollar industry versus a product that
doesn't even exist yet, nor is proven to work. i wouldn't be surprised
if most people would prefer new generation psychopharmaceuticals once
these become actually successful and safe to having something
surgically inserted into their skull. nevermind the cost of an implant
versus the cost of medication..
apart from that, there's so much more than just the market for
psychopharmaceuticals - or can the iPlant cure cancer and HIV too?

[Tommi]

> if most people would prefer new generation psychopharmaceuticals once
> these become actually successful and safe to having something
> surgically inserted into their skull. nevermind the cost of an implant
> versus the cost of medication..

But you do think that iPlant + Wii Fit is a great idea. And you can't
get that
with medicines.

I just saw this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq2cKjEnRlA

I'd really like to try a FPS connected to iPlant. After a successful
kill I would
get a shot of dopamine and if I would co-operate well, my serotonin
would increase (for example).
Too bad it can't control adrenaline :)

[Edward Miller]

I think the use for the iplant in violent video games is both unnecessary and potentially dangerous. People already seem to have an easy time convincing themselves to play hours and hours of Counterstrike.

[psique]

okay so you got me re iPlant and Wii Fit.
but when it comes to activities that rely on the motivational
(intellectual not physical) aspect of iPlant use, i still think people
would prefer a pharmaceutical if there was one (and there are, ritalin
et al are just still too crude). or maybe some people would prefer an
iPlant, or it would suit their needs better. but big pharma is not
going to lose out (and hence not gonna get afraid) anytime soon,
that's just ridiculous.
as a slightly off example: roughly 4 million parkinson's disease
sufferers worldwide, only 40000 medtronic implants. - and that
although PD meds are still pretty crap.

[Christopher Harris]

edward, sure it's dangerous, and to most people the idea of iPlant applications for video games probably seems completely twisted, but tommi makes a good point: we need to consider every desirable (from any point of view) application of this technology, because as soon as this idea hits mainstream people will propose, for better or worse, every possible third-party-application imaginable. PD DBS implants are probably limited to 40.000 at least in part because there is no commercial value in it, only insurance.

speaking of of disturbing applications, a thought that keeps passing through my head is how well you could train iPlant-equipped monkeys. P.C. Jersild talks of 'mechanical monkeys' in A Living Soul, but only briefly. but if primate testing is required before this thing is implemented in humans, which is more than likely, someone will surely start considering a construction-line of monkeys doing repetitive but fairly complex problem solving... what's the potential financial value of that? seriously, what kind of money could you make off a factory of iPlant-monkeys?

i don't think dopamine-boosted kills in videogames is a good idea but it IS the kind of application i want to be aware of.

[Tommi]

> as a slightly off example: roughly 4 million parkinson's disease
> sufferers worldwide, only 40000 medtronic implants. - and that
> although PD meds are still pretty crap.

I read that for young the operation is a lot more useful. Perhaps that
offers a partial explanation.

Regarding gaming, iPlant would still be way off the 'machinery' of
eXistenz, it's just neurotransmitter biofeedback. I think doing
science
is very worthwhile and should be a priority but games with pain
feedback (for one) would be a pretty good way for spare time IMO.

But then, perhaps if we'd get a stimulator á la Heath, the lust for
violence would disappear altogether.

Meanwhile, I already have what I think is a good idea for the games.
iPlant has to be calibrated for each game. What that means is that
for all moves in the game (jumping, crouching, loading weapons,
dropping
weapongs, everything), you do those things. The iPlant has one of
those
Blaha's sensors so it can save the neurotransmitter pattern of all
those
moves. What that will mean in the game is that your brain will be
fooled
a little bit into thinking you are actually doing those moves again
even
when you are just using a joystick (or a brain-computer interface).

[psique]

as for my PD example: up to 10% of cases are young onset - that should
leave 400000 patients under 45.. fact is, dbs isn't used unless the
patient in question has to up their meds to insane quantities; dbs for
depression or ocd isn't even being tested on patients who aren't
treatment-resistant etc.. pharma will always have a firm place in the
treatment of neurological/psychiatric disorders.

btw, thanks for having successfully hijacked this thread, can't
believe i played along myself...

[Christopher Harris]

far as i know they only consider DBS for PD patients who used to respond well to L-dopa but are experiencing bad side effects and/or have developed tolerance. because there's still a 1-3% risk of serious complications and the procedure is expensive ($50.000) and very complicated (8-12hrs with a dedicated surgical team, plus regular checkups), that doesn't leave too many patients that actually fit the bill. basically most patients get similar benefits from L-dopa and those who don't usually can't get the implant anyway.

the market for iPlants may be much larger because there may be a lot more applications for direct regulation of dopamine than for inactivating the STN. i think the idea of mimicking real-life monoamine fluctuations in a video game is a really cool idea but let's stick to what we know works in animal models for now - simple reinforcement of behavior by electrically generated pulses of dopamine. we've got:

- pysical exercise, where the Wii may fit in nicely
- learning by reinforcement of correct answers on computer tutorials
- iPlant-driven research (or other repetitive behaviors)

what else? this is partly for the seminar next tuesday, people will want to know what we think can be done with this technology

[psique]

"because there's still a 1-3% risk of serious complications and
the procedure is expensive ($50.000) and very complicated (8-12hrs
with a
dedicated surgical team, plus regular checkups), that doesn't leave
too many

patients that actually fit the bill." - i rest my case.

On May 5, 10:10 am, "Christopher Harris"

<christopher.aidan.har...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> far as i know they only consider DBS for PD patients who used to respond
> well to L-dopa but are experiencing bad side effects and/or have developed
> tolerance. because there's still a 1-3% risk of serious complications and
> the procedure is expensive ($50.000) and very complicated (8-12hrs with a
> dedicated surgical team, plus regular checkups), that doesn't leave too many
> patients that actually fit the bill. basically most patients get similar
> benefits from L-dopa and those who don't usually can't get the implant
> anyway.
>
> the market for iPlants may be much larger because there may be a lot more
> applications for direct regulation of dopamine than for inactivating the
> STN. i think the idea of mimicking real-life monoamine fluctuations in a
> video game is a really cool idea but let's stick to what we know works in
> animal models for now - simple reinforcement of behavior by electrically
> generated pulses of dopamine. we've got:
>
> - pysical exercise, where the Wii may fit in nicely
> - learning by reinforcement of correct answers on computer tutorials
> - iPlant-driven research (or other repetitive behaviors)
>
> what else? this is partly for the seminar next tuesday, people will want to
> know what we think can be done with this technology
>

[Tommi]

> btw, thanks for having successfully hijacked this thread, can't
> believe i played along myself...

Sorry :-[