The human mind is very flexible and capable of re-wiring itself pretty much as needed, as has been proven by various brain implant experiments.

Presently the communications mechanisms for each such experiment tends to be developed just for that experiment. For example optic implants only connect to the optic nerve and generic implants connect directly to the gray matter and the user is expected to do the heavy lifting of communicating with it.

While every brain is different major centers of communication, concept storage, association, and so forth are about the same.

I propose a standardized brain-computer communication protocol generalized to most people's brain types, requiring specific implant locations, and involving a series of interaction steps that will almost always result in effective communication.

For example the computer could send signals to arbitrary locations in the user's visual cortex and the user would respond to the computer with what it's trying to say. Many such prearranged conversations would let the computer understand how to best communicate but mutual understanding would be established much faster because most people store visual information in the same general places.

The idea is that given a certain set of guidelines the computer is following the typical user can establish effective communication faster using these protocols.

The computer-brain interface can then be used to send and receive arbitrary kinds of signals and a computer can have a driver that sees the interface as a session layer protocol.
-- Voice, Apr 06 2011

People make so much of machine-human interfaces, but it's been going on, gradually, for centuries, starting with writing, the place-value system, movable type, telephone, television, computers, internet .... What's so special about surgically implanted devices? Our sensory and motor systems are still, in 2011, more sophisticated interfaces than anything implantable, and, other than the cool factor what's so special about direct cortical stimulation?
-- mouseposture, Apr 07 2011


A quick Wikipedia scan shows a reference to the word Cyborg in 1960. The idea of using a "protocol" for communication must predate Morse, to use a "recent" example.

While the earliest appearances of direct machine interfaces did not necessarily detail a protocol, it's difficult to characterize this as a new idea in any meaningful sense.
-- theircompetitor, Apr 07 2011


Sorry, I don't get it. So the computer sends an output to the user's visual cortex. Fine, that's already been done through a biometric implant - no biggie there. But then what? The user "respond(s) to the computer with what it's trying to say" - How? Using a non-brain-interface like a keyboard and screen? Directly pressing a button? How does the user get to communicate back to the computer in this set-up? And shouldn't the whole communication loop be 'in-brain'? And if so, you need to connect the computer up to specific bits of the brain to monitor incoming traffic - something that is going to be tricky to do without invasive and 'interactive' surgury. i.e. your hardware connections have to be made at specific points in the human's CNS prior to the human getting the chance to 'negotiate' where these points are via your protocol.
-- zen_tom, Apr 07 2011



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