Johns Hopkins Bionic Arm

[Dr Mordrid]

Hand and fingers work, wrist rotates and flexes, senses of heat and touch etc etc.

Core and cover


Link....

Prosthetic Arm Can Be Controlled Naturally, Provide Sensory Feedback

Science Daily — An international team led by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., has developed a prototype of the first fully integrated prosthetic arm that can be controlled naturally, provide sensory feedback and allows for eight degrees of freedom—a level of control far beyond the current state of the art for prosthetic limbs. Proto 1, developed for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program, is a complete limb system that also includes a virtual environment used for patient training, clinical configuration, and to record limb movements and control signals during clinical investigations.
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More Advanced Prototype Within Reach

APL, which was responsible for much of the design and fabrication of Proto 1, and other team members are already hard at work on a second prototype, expected to be unveiled in late summer. It will have more than 25 degrees of freedom and the strength and speed of movement approaching the capabilities of the human limb, combined with more than 80 individual sensory elements for feedback of touch, temperature, and limb position.
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[Technoid]

Now if they could find out a way to hook it up directly to the nerve lanes.....

[Dr Mordrid]

For now they move the arm nerves to a patch on the front of the shoulder and use transdermal electrodes to do the connection. Coming soon is a direct nerve connection using biochip tech developed by DARPA for military brain implants.

This has advanced scary fast to the point where USC has built a prosthetic hippocampus brain implant for rats with the goal of building similar parts and others for higher brain functions for use in humans. The hippocampus is involved in memory and spatial navigation. It's key in Alzheimer's being one of the areas first affected.

Another paper just this week reported on attempts to connect an artificial eye, actually a mini video cam, directly to the brains visual pathways, bypassing the eyes and optic nerves entirely. Theoretically this could also include IR, UV or even terahertz sensitivity, acting like Geordi LaForge's goggles.

They're moving fast, faster than even online reports, and ethical considerations abound;

* after how many implants, particularly those affecting memory and behavior, do you become more machine than human? Borg?

* if you create an android whose 'brain' contains nearly as many functional human neurons as an augmented human at what point does "it" get rights, even to the point of citizenship?

Using the structure of the body to decide could be moot given how fast prosthetics is moving, as this arm and bioengineered organs, bones and tissues show.

These questions will have to be addressed a lot sooner than anyone anticipated even a few years ago.

Neurons connecting to neurochip - ~2003

[Mehen]

I think the sheer number of connections and plasticity required for something to act like a human brain is far too complex for us to reach any time soon.

[Dr Mordrid]

That depends on how you approach what's digtal and what's organic.

Parts of the brain whose input/output can be simulated by digital circuits, like much of the hippocampus, are naturals for replacement/augmentation and others are in the works. Just this week a Harvard paper documented how a mini camera could be connected to the brain via BMI [brain/machine interface] at the lateral geniculate nucleus for artificial vision, and that's just the start.

DARPA's motivation is twofold: repairing soldiers and accident victims is motive 2. Motive 1 is memory and comm implants through BMI for Special Forces troops, and that's not as far away as even most physicians think

Starting as bio or android a mix is coming and society will have decisions to make.

Get used to the term "BioRoid"

[Mehen]

I can definitely see the input/output part, but the processing part not so much. So for the periphery I see hope, but as for the CNS, not so much.

So yeah, BioRoid I could see, but that can't be mixed up with AI.

[KRSESQ]

I want one!

What the Hell am I saying???

after how many implants, particularly those affecting memory and behavior, do you become more machine than human? Borg?

This question was touched upon in the original Ghost In The Machine. It's conceivable that a person could be mechanically augmented to the point that it would be impossible to tell where the machine ends and the human begins.

Kevin

[Dr Mordrid]

I can definitely see the input/output part, but the processing part not so much. So for the periphery I see hope, but as for the CNS, not so much.

So yeah, BioRoid I could see, but that can't be mixed up with AI.

As long as the inputs get processed into the proper outputs the receiving neurons shouldn't know the difference.

Imagine what it would be like to have a memory/comm implant. Freaky, but handy as hell for exams

[KRSESQ]

This question was touched upon in the original Ghost In The Machine.

Dawddammit. Ghost In The Shell. My bad.

Kevin

I always get those mixed up!

[Technoid]

Get used to the term "BioRoid"

Sounds like a case of digital hemorrhoids

[Dr Mordrid]

See cyberpunk, especially the original "Appleseed" manga "Robotech" anime, both from 1985, for the terms origin.

Semi-synonym for "Replicant", "Biot" and the character Proto in SAC 2nd GIG.