Boosting your brain bandwidth
Artificial synapses pave the way for superhuman intelligence
13 November 2032
At first, when scientists wanted to boost the brain, they created implants that could increase memory. The thinking was, there are only so many items one can hold in working memory simultaneously – about seven – that installing a chip that doubled this number would make you smarter. And it did.
Working first with mice, and later with cognitively impaired volunteers, neuroscientists eventually succeeded in linking their brains to electronic devices that increased memory function, and it helped, but not as much as they had hoped.
“It’s like installing more RAM in your laptop,” said one researcher, “it improves performance, but only incrementally, not exponentially.”
The problem is your brain has limited bandwidth – everyone’s does. The synapses that connect your neurons can only communicate at a certain speed, and that’s the limiting factor. The brain is an amazing organ, and capable of incredible feats of memory and computation. But nature has its limits.
Now scientists have figured out a way to overcome that. A decade ago, researchers proved that optoelectronic circuits could work as artificial synapses at 10million hertz, 30,000 times faster than a human neuron’s rate of about 340 hertz. The challenge was to find a way of powering these devices inside your head.
Now biotech advances have provided the solution. Using blood chemistry and heartbeats as a source of power, researchers have tested these microscopic superneurons in laboratory rats, and the animals demonstrated massively increased brain power.
“It’s incredible how quickly they learned the new maze,” remarked the lead scientist.
Safety and ethics in humans are the next obstacles. We all want to be smarter, but is it fair if only the rich can be ultrasmart? And with all those gazillion synapses firing at once, you could end up with a serious brainstorm!
Perhaps we should leave artificial intelligence where it belongs — in the machines. /First published on Mindbullets 17 November 2022
AI IS AUGMENTED INTELLIGENCE 12 June 2029
We used to but think that ’of s an AI as artificial intelligence, old concept. Now we use it to mean augmented intelligence; natural human intelligence augmented with bioelectronics wizardry.
The average human brain has a working memory of seven items, plus or minus two. That means we can, on average, remember seven things at once; the more gifted can handle about nine. Thinking about an upgrade?
Now you can install the latest neuroprosthetic from CognitionUP and get a working memory of 20. That puts you up at the supergenius level. The chip is the size of a grain of rice, and connects to your brain with 3Dprinted carbon neurofibres.
Of course, not everyone wants brain surgery in order to become superintelligent, but AI has been a blessing for people suffering from the aftereffects of stroke, traumatic accidents and congenital diseases. Their lives have been returned to normal, or better.
The problem comes in with elective upgrades, which are not strictly necessary. Now people of average intelligence are jumping up the evolutionary ladder, if they have the cash and the appetite for invasive surgery. Billionaires are buying CognitionUP for their child prodigies, widening the gap.
“What happens when the richest among us can buy more smarts?” asked neuroscientist Vivienne Ming more than a decade ago.
“Will we even recognise them as fellow humans?”
Regulators have sprung into action, drafting a series of bills designed to restrict the use of AI in “normal’ people. But who’s to say what’s normal these days? The laws leave too many loopholes to be enforced, and China has a host of specialist surgeons with long waiting lists.
Meeting someone with AI is a bit disconcerting, but they’re easy to discover. They are so bright, they just can’t hold a conversation with us normal people! And they’ve got a chip in their head. /First published on Mindbullets 28 May 2015