Brain-computer link, electronic immortality

I get asked every other day by students how the brain might be connected to the machine world for purposes such as mind backup, and how we can live forever electronically in principle. So here for my own convenience at least is a quick summary of the concept as technology stands today. Note that I don't develop the technology, I just follow and predict it and figure out some of the implications and occasionally invent potential solutions to obvious bottlenecks.

Direct brain links already exist. Millions of people have cochlea implants, a few people have retinal implants, and a few more (severely disabled people) have chips on the brain surface to allow their thoughts to be picked up to control apparatus such as wheelchairs. Other direct links to nerves allow chips to relay signals to other nerves to bypass nerve damage, or to control prosthetics. Of course, technology progress will mean that these kinds of links will get better and even become commonplace. But I don't think much progress will happen without much more miniaturisation, which probably means lots of nanotech. Signals can be picked up from the brain by various techniques today, but apart from direct probes into individual synapses, there isn't much hope of doing a full link. And we can't do that yet, well, maybe a single synapse so far. But the limits of miniaturisation are still a way off, and we can make devices down to 10 nanometres easily by 2025. The other obvious problem here is that opening the skull and dissecting the brain to connect all the probes would seem a bit extreme, and I don't think many people would volunteer. But if a suspension of electronic particles could be injected into the blood, and each particle connects to a single synapse, them we can see how it might become feasible. Sure, you'd probably have to use coatings on the particles to avoid problems with the immune system and might even have to make mechnical or chemical hooks to allow attachment and detachment, and of course a radio or optical system to relay signals. The power supply could be the body's own energy, so at least that might not be a barrier.

If, and it is a far away if, but hopefully more of a when, we can do all this, and my guess is about 2035-2040, then it will be possible to make an electronic copy of the brain externally. Synapse for synapse, neuron for neuron. And of course, while all this development has been happening, neuroscientists will have progressed enormously, underdtanding in some detail how the various brain processes happen at microscopic scales. Materials scientists will have developed the coatings and materials needed. Computers will have progressed in speed, storage, and most of all, in scope. They will not be purely digital, but will harness coprocessors that use analog and quantum computing as needed. (Analog is due for a big comeback soon, but that's another blog some other time). Memristors might help solve a lot of the implementation problems too, as it is now thought that some synaptic processes work in a similar way. So with all the progress in nano, biotech, IT and cognitive science that we should expect as normal progress in the next few decades, it seems quite reasonable to me to expect that we should be able to make a full link between the brain, with each component relaying data bidirectionally to external replicas. So at that point, with an electronic replica of your brain, and (unless you believe the mind is something supernatural) ergo, a copy of the mind, we have digital immortality. Well, almost. The first decade after the technology is potentially there will be used up in R&D to establish the technology, so we won't really have a full working full direct brain link till 2045 at least. And it will be extremely expensive at first, so only the rich or powerful will have access to immortality in the first wave. But as always, costs will fall, and by 2075, I think that pretty much everyone will have access to electronic immortality in principle. Laws might prevent or delay it, but the technology will be possible in that time-frame.

There is an alternative, more likely route, which uses similar tech, but happens on a more gradual and feasible evolution path. Even without replicating the entire brain, we should expect a lot of brain augmentation. Electronic technologies to help cure or at least help with Parkinsons or Alzheimers are being researched and developed. Memory might be enhanced, and processing or sensory activities, here and there in the brain, as we learn how to do it. Gradually, more and more of the mind will 'exist' in the electronics. Over time, maybe only a small fraction of the mind still runs on the original grey matter. One day, when the body dies, most of the mind will keep running. The person invests in an android body, uploads, or simply links to it, and carries on. They attend their funeral, make a nice speech, and go back to some sort of normal life. Death is no longer inevitable. It might be only partial, more of a phase change than an end to existence. Death will no longer be a career problem.

We are told all the time that death and taxes are inevitable. I don't believe that. High tech will increase global wealth until taxes are no longer needed. High tech will also mean that by 2075, everyone could have electronic immortality. Putting that in perspective, with ongoing health tech improvements, we should expect most people to be living to 100 by then, so anyone born after 1975 has a very good chance of not dying, and some born before that.

It irritates me immensely that I will be the last generation of my family with no choice but to die. I am too old, and already have a poor health record, so won't make it. Damn! But my daughter will, unless she is daft or unfortunate enough to die early.

I'll write another entry shortly on some of the obvious implications of this technology, many of which are fun to debate.