On linking human and machine brains

A look is taken here at how the use of implant technology is rapidly diminishing the effects of certain neural illnesses and distinctly increasing the range of abilities of those affected. An indication is given of a number of problem areas in which such technology has already had a profound effect, a key element being the need for a clear interface linking the human brain directly with a computer. In order to assess the possible opportunities, both human and animal studies are reported on. The main thrust of the paper is, however, a discussion of neural implant experimentation linking the human nervous system bi-directionally with the internet. With this in place, neural signals were transmitted to various technological devices to directly control them, in some cases via the internet, and feedback to the brain was obtained from, for example, the fingertips of a robot hand, and ultrasonic (extra) sensory input and neural signals directly from another human's nervous system. Consideration is given to the prospects for neural implant technology in the future, both in the short term as a therapeutic device and in the long term as a form of enhancement, including the realistic potential for thought communication-potentially opening up commercial opportunities. Clearly though, an individual whose brain is part human-part machine can have abilities that far surpass those with a human brain alone. Will such an individual exhibit different moral and ethical values from those of a human? If so, what effects might this have on society? (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

From the buzzing in Turing’s head to machine intelligence contests

This paper presents an analysis of three major contests for machine intelligence. We conclude that a new era for Turing’s test requires a fillip in the guise of a committed sponsor, not unlike DARPA, funders of the successful 2007 Urban Challenge.

Multicore-enabling the MPJ express messaging library

With the transition to multicore processors almost complete, the parallel processing community is seeking efficient ways to port legacy message passing applications on shared memory and multicore processors. MPJ Express is our reference implementation of Message Passing Interface (MPI)-like bindings for the Java language. Starting with the current release, the MPJ Express software can be configured in two modes: the multicore and the cluster mode. In the multicore mode, parallel Java applications execute on shared memory or multicore processors. In the cluster mode, Java applications parallelized using MPJ Express can be executed on distributed memory platforms like compute clusters and clouds. The multicore device has been implemented using Java threads in order to satisfy two main design goals of portability and performance. We also discuss the challenges of integrating the multicore device in the MPJ Express software. This turned out to be a challenging task because the parallel application executes in a single JVM in the multicore mode. On the contrary in the cluster mode, the parallel user application executes in multiple JVMs. Due to these inherent architectural differences between the two modes, the MPJ Express runtime is modified to ensure correct semantics of the parallel program. Towards the end, we compare performance of MPJ Express (multicore mode) with other C and Java message passing libraries---including mpiJava, MPJ/Ibis, MPICH2, MPJ Express (cluster mode)---on shared memory and multicore processors. We found out that MPJ Express performs signicantly better in the multicore mode than in the cluster mode. Not only this but the MPJ Express software also performs better in comparison to other Java messaging libraries including mpiJava and MPJ/Ibis when used in the multicore mode on shared memory or multicore processors. We also demonstrate effectiveness of the MPJ Express multicore device in Gadget-2, which is a massively parallel astrophysics N-body siimulation code.

Bi-directional human machine interface via direct neural connection

This paper presents an application study into the use of a bi-directional link with the human nervous system by means of an implant, positioned through neurosurgery. Various applications are described including the interaction of neural signals with an articulated hand, a group of cooperative autonomous robots and to control the movement of a mobile platform. The microelectrode array implant itself is described in detail. Consideration is given to a wider range of possible robot mechanisms, which could interact with the human nervous system through the same technique.

Perspex machine

We introduce the perspex machine which unifies projective geometry and the Turing machine, resulting in a supra-Turing machine. Specifically, we show that a Universal Register Machine (URM) can be implemented as a conditional series of whole numbered projective transformations. This leads naturally to a suggestion that it might be possible to construct a perspex machine as a series of pin-holes and stops. A rough calculation shows that an ultraviolet perspex machine might operate up to the petahertz range of operations per second. Surprisingly, we find that perspex space is irreversible in time, which might make it a candidate for an anisotropic spacetime geometry in physical theories. We make a bold hypothesis that the apparent irreversibility of physical time is due to the random nature of quantum events, but suggest that a sum over histories might be achieved by sampling fluctuations in the direction of time flow. We propose an experiment, based on the Casimir apparatus, that should measure fluctuations of time flow with respect to time duration- if such fluctuations exist.

Perspex machine X: software development

The Perspex Machine arose from the unification of computation with geometry. We now report significant redevelopment of both a partial C compiler that generates perspex programs and of a Graphical User Interface (GUI). The compiler is constructed with standard compiler-generator tools and produces both an explicit parse tree for C and an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) that is better suited to code generation. The GUI uses a hash table and a simpler software architecture to achieve an order of magnitude speed up in processing and, consequently, an order of magnitude increase in the number of perspexes that can be manipulated in real time (now 6,000). Two perspex-machine simulators are provided, one using trans-floating-point arithmetic and the other using transrational arithmetic. All of the software described here is available on the world wide web. The compiler generates code in the neural model of the perspex. At each branch point it uses a jumper to return control to the main fibre. This has the effect of pruning out an exponentially increasing number of branching fibres, thereby greatly increasing the efficiency of perspex programs as measured by the number of neurons required to implement an algorithm. The jumpers are placed at unit distance from the main fibre and form a geometrical structure analogous to a myelin sheath in a biological neuron. Both the perspex jumper-sheath and the biological myelin-sheath share the computational function of preventing cross-over of signals to neurons that lie close to an axon. This is an example of convergence driven by similar geometrical and computational constraints in perspex and biological neurons.