THE BRAIN DRAIN

THE BRAIN DRAIN

Ok, before you move on to another page, this is not a Star Trek article. The big news is that Honda motors last week announced that they have developed a technology to detect thought patterns in the human brain and translate them to a robot. I’m not sure I see the correlation between car building and mind reading robots. Maybe one of the engineers tripped across the idea while he was trying to design a new hub cap. I can only guess that the guys in the car building department had a lot of free time on their hands. In any case this emerging technology has amazing long term potential.

The Honda press photo depicts a test subject sitting comfortably in a chair, garbed with what can only be described as a pasta strainer with a bunch of wires emanating from it. In any case, the company claims to be able to isolate and identify the brain impulses that we send to our limbs in order to make them move. By feeding this information to Asimo, the Honda robot, it can emulate four basic movements from the motions that the subject’s brain (a.k.a. Ginny pig) is transmitting. This new technology could represent an entirely new way for humans to interface with everything from computers to appliances.

I’m thinking that maybe Honda has some master plan to use this new technology to help them sell more cars. Maybe the driver could wear one of these hair dryer looking gimmicks and just mentally steer the car down the road. Of course, I’m not sure what would happen if you started thinking about hockey.

As a little background, Honda is an innovative and well run company that is branching out into jet airplanes and other technologies to round out their portfolio and lessen their reliance on car building. These guys are major players in everything from lawn mowers to motorcycles. They make a wide range of products from marine engines to ATV’s, all while U.S. car companies are busy building yesterdays cars.

In my mind this recent development has dangerous and far reaching implications, into the whole man vs. robot relationship (and you would already know this if you had my brain hooked up to one of those high tech brain sucking colanders). The possibilities are endless, in fact, I’m wondering if I concentrated real hard, if I could possibly get the robot to do the Macarena.

I mean, what if in the future we could be subjected to involuntary brain scanning and draining. It could potentially be used by the government, police, and even jealous wife’s and girl friends. ( I swear, that was my lipstick you found in the car) I’m also wondering if they could use any of this ill gotten information against me in a court of law. Being Italian, I’m already starting to think of ways to beat this new system. I just hope this contraption isn’t half brain scanner and half lie detector, which would be the last thing I need. I’m even wondering if I could throw it off course by just sitting there and thinking about baseball.

I don’t want you to think I have anything to hide (since the conviction, I mean) and I certainly don’t want to come off as being paranoid or skitzo here but , I’m not sure we should let this device fall into the wrong hands. The more I think about it, if this gadget can read my mind and interrupt my thoughts, maybe somebody can just flip a switch and throw that sucker in reverse and download their own thoughts right into my own noggin. ( I worry about stuff like this)

This new brain scan technology is in the very early stages right now, but unless I’m wrong it has huge profit potential and I want to buy in now, before the price goes up. My plan would be to get in on the ground floor before they end up going the multilevel marketing route, or being sale item of the week at Walmart.

Not to be short sighted, I also gave some thought as to how this new technology could help man- kind, especially “me- kind”. I’m thinking if I got U.S. import rights, I’d have to mass produce those bad boys to make them affordable to the average Joe. I could roll those brain drainers out nationally and get filthy rich. My plan would be to get the price down to 3 payments of $19.95 and then I could hawk them on my own infomercial with the Sham-Wow guy as my spokesmen. (robot and extension cord not included)

I guess this all goes to show that by building on newer and newer technologies, we can accomplish some amazing things. No to take anything away from the Japanese but something tells me that they may have stolen this technology from my father. Years ago my dad had already mastered the task of sitting in a chair and by merely thinking about something, it would get done. He called it “having kids”.

I wonder if I can teach that robot to cook Italian food….

Please feel free to contact me at: pooritalainboy@gmail.com

P.I.B.