U.S. military plans to create cyborgs by connecting humans to computers

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has launched a new project under which an implantable chip will be developed that will allow the human brain to communicate directly with computers.

“The interface would serve as a translator, converting between the electrochemical language used by neurons in the brain and the ones and zeros that constitute the language of information technology”, the agency wrote in a release.

Speaking about the project, NESD Program Manager Phillip Alvelda said, “Imagine what will become possible when we upgrade our tools to really open the channel between the human brain and modern electronics”.

The U.S. military is working on an implantable chip that could turn soldiers into cyborgs by connecting their brains directly to computers. A device, for instance, could address sight or hearing deficiencies through feeding digital visual or auditory information to the brain at a quality and resolution higher than what is available at present.

Researchers say supercomputers already exist and so does the brain. The primary goal of the project is to build a sophisticated brain implant smaller than one cubic centimeter, according to a report from the Examiner.

Current neural interfaces approved for human use use 100 channels to aggregate thousands of neuron signals at a time, resulting in a noisy and imprecise translation.

While modern computing continues to develop at a staggering pass, we’re yet to develop a system that’s truly capable of interfacing with the complexities of the human brain.

The new program, which aims to achieve dramatically enhanced data-transfer connections between the brain and the digital world, falls under the wing of President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies). The chip can directly connect to computers and deliver important military data on battle instructions, enemy’s position and maps.

Over the course of four years, DARPA anticipates investing up to $60 million in the NESD program.

NESD brain devices could replace functionality of damaged structures for some types of degenerative brain disorders. The device would translate the chemical signals in neurons into digital code.

Scientists from various fields will be involved in the military’s new research project, including medical device packaging and manufacturing, low-power electronics, synthetic biology, neuroscience and photonics.

DARPA researchers will create advanced mathematical methods in order to “transcode high-definition sensory information between electronic and cortical neuron representations”, and functionally and accurately represent those figures afterward.