back to article DARPA looking for mind-controlrepair brainplug tech

Famed military maverick madscience outfit DARPA has launched a new bid to keep America's tech edge sufficiently sanguinary. This time the killer boffins want nothing less than an accurate computer simulation of a living humanoid brain - which they may use for purposes benign or sinister. The new push is called Reorganization …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good to see DARPA has successfully resolved the "hard AI" question

    I remember back in the day when there was much debate over whether one could simply (re)boot consciousness from a captured algorithmic state. I must have missed the announcement that it was trivially solved - or just possibly the crazy-techers don't feel that their budgeting & goals should be at all constrained by petty considerations of "known to be in accordance with established research?

  2. Frank

    A novel is not a specification

    In all the articles I read about DARPA and it's ambitious requirements, there are ideas that trigger strong feelings of deja vu in me. I've come to realise that these are in fact the plots and sub-plots in various science-fiction novels that I've read, sometimes way back in the past. Somebody in DARPA has been tasked with blue skies thinking and pushing the envelope but they've ended up in the science fiction section of the library instead of the scientific research paper collections.

    I shall sit back and wait for DARPA to call for the development of a Holtzman shield. Just hope they don't try to use in in desert warfare - or maybe hope that they do.

  3. amanfromMars Silver badge
    Coat

    Oops... who let the dogs out/Who put the fox in with the chickens?

    Lewis,

    That would appear to be DARPA encroaching/overlapping IARPA territory .... "Are you a scientist or engineer with a creative idea that you think could provide the nation with an overwhelming intelligence advantage? Do you want the opportunity to turn your idea into a revolutionary capability? If so, consider joining IARPA as a Program Manager.

    Each IARPA program starts with a good idea and a good person to lead it. Without both, IARPA will not start a program." ...... http://www.iarpa.gov/join.html ......... and really Looking for some sort of MkUltra Sensitive Manchurian Candidate Super Spy in Yin ....... and also into Stealthy Binary Boffinry with AIReal Virtual Deadhead Yang ........ for a Cowboy Hero/Renegade Icon Meme. QuITe whether Uncle Sam can Supply that from National Stock or whether he'll have to Buy in InterNetional Talent is only a Simple Matter of Presenting them with a Good Idea which Leads, for it will quite Naturally come from a Being and AIDEntities into such Programming ..... so it is always best to ignore anything which would limit Intelligence such as "Applicants must be U.S. citizens and able to obtain a Top Secret clearance. ODNI assignments require successful completion of a counterintelligence polygraph within the last seven years. " ..... because what is to say that U.S.citizens are not as smart as they need to be, to be able to Lead Anything/Everything. And anyway, it is only a red herring, for they have lots of other rules which bend/dispense with dumb rules to allow them to welcome in any Third Party able to Offer them an Undoubted Advantage.**

    The following,[just part of a larger whole],may be of Interest to them, although it is very recently delivered to/from a .gov.uk server, and should be presently sitting on a number of senior* Stormont desks, Inviting Innovative Third Party Action* whilst also Testing Intelligence for Fitness of Future Purpose. ........ "a Radical, Fundamentally New, Virtual Reality with Media and IT Governance Facility, with Leading Intelligences Playing a Powerful Transparent Controlled Power Game for Real ....... an XXXXStreamly Sophisticated ARG/AIMMORPG in which to Work, Rest and Play Safely. And where any questions you may have on such AI Programming can be immediately answered and any foreseeable problems raised, discussed and resolved and or dismissed as being no longer valid in the light of what was/is being discussed and discovered. ..... And I think that should tell you pretty much all that you may need to presently know in order to take a next step in which to be involved and therefore also Lead with Shared Input which can then be Outputted to Media and IT for Realisation of Virtual ProgramMING ...... QuITe Titanic Quarter Holywood Style."

    * The Innovative Invitation includes Easy to Follow and QuITe Specific Instructions to Aid Thought Processes, as All in the Big House on the Hill, and All in Big Houses on Hills, are as Virgins at the Great Games which can now be Played Virtually, but some do have QuITE Unique Latent Skills which Generations of Troubles have Honed to a Keen New Edge, well able to Lead in a Novel Program as IT Follows with a Perfectly Transparent Script.

    ** Given all the Phishing/Phorming/Snooping Technology that is Supposed to be Available to Give AI, Total Information Awareness, it is Surprising how Slow the Human Brain is in Dealing with Stuff which would BetaTest IT for Fitness of Purpose. But then, I suppose that is what the article is all about, Lewis ..... ‘DARPA looking for mind-controlrepair brainplug tech... 'Bio-computationally accurate' simian-simulant sought’.

    And you'll not see that headline and by-line in the Sun or the Mirror or the News of the World ..... that other world out there fed a completely different diet to dull their senses/subdue their intellect.

  4. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    Who is ready to try it?

    "I thought you said you could just read his brain electronically," protested Ford.

    "Oh yes," said Frankie, "but we'd have to get it out first. It's got to be prepared."

    "Treated," said Benji.

    "Diced."

  5. D. M
    Black Helicopters

    The beginning of Matrix

    Agent Smith is going to pay a visit.

  6. Steve
    Coat

    And remember, always mount a scratch monkey...

    http://edp.org/monkey.htm

  7. Paul
    Happy

    Monkey magic

    Let me be the first to applaud the munificence of our new, banana-wielding masters.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Prediction

    It looks like we will all be forced to work in Skynet's global banana plantation.

  9. Kurt Faasse
    Alien

    War gave us penicillin, it can give us the Matrix

    I don't see what's particularly wrong about all this. Virtual waterboarding? Remote drones? Grokking? I use an OCZ nia (neural interface actuator) to play Psychonauts. It's evolution in the making.

  10. Rich Silver badge

    Defence posture

    > Stimulation of non-human primates in order to evoke a biomimetic response

    So they want to see what happens when they throw it a banana?

    I have to go now. I'm having Donkey Kong flashbacks.

  11. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Coat

    Bring me a another brain, Igor!

    One like your current one, Marthter? Or one that workth?

    The one with the long rubber gloves in the pockets, if you'd be so kind...

  12. Dan
    Boffin

    Speak English, boy!

    Glad you included the el reg translations, because otherwise I wouldn't know what the hell they were on about. Could we control Wacki Jackboot Smith with it?

    execute jackboot_cliffjump;

    go

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    I for one...

    ...welcome our monkeydroid overlords.

    Unless this is all part of my simulated reality

  14. Ash
    Joke

    Does this mean...

    ... I can finally get myself a monkey-butler?

  15. amanfromMars Silver badge

    Melodramatic Mole Hills and the Vole's Achilles Heel.

    A few clicks of the mouse after reading threads here, landed me here and there ...... for a classic tale .... http://www.wizzy.com/andyr/Mel.html .... which describes Win Win Protocols that can never Lose and Relatively Early Deep Packet Inspection/Reverse CodeXXXX Engineering on a Hunt for Original Genius and the Irreverent Sublime Indifference that Humbles the Pursuit of Magnificence.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Not a new idea, but...

    Why limit their experiments to only monkeys? Put all those convicted-beyond-a-doubt wifebeaters, rapists, child-molesters, and drunk-drivers to good use by signing them up for mandatory government medical experiments. Better to have those people (if you can call them that) do something _useful_ to pay their debts to society, rather than just getting free room/board and cable TV until they're let out to re-offend again. Put them to use instead. Maybe something good will come of it that would benefit all of society.

  17. Cameron Colley

    RE: Not a new idea, but...

    Once the government decide who their "Jews" are I'm sure we'll see many such experiments in this country.

  18. Andy

    games

    maybe we'll see in game NPC's actualy be interesting to interact with.

    NPC:- welcome <name>, have you <actioned> the <quest objective>?

    Player:- no, i have bananas.

    NPC:- have lots of <ingame currency>

    Player:- Best. Quest. Ever.

    or maybe counterstrike like bots not get stuck behind walls?

    just an idea or two...

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Do you think...

    Do you think you can add more memory?

    Mine's the one with the cranial interface in the hood.

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