Valve (Mike Ambindee) to speak about brain-computer interfaces at NeuroTechGaming event

[Arthands]

NeurotechGaming 2020 event: Connect your brain to video games

What if you could connect your brain & body to a video game? Join leaders from the gaming and neurotech industries. Organized by NeuroTechX

www.eventbrite.com

Mike Ambinder - Principal Experimental Psychologist at Valve (the game company that created Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Steam, Dota 2) will be one of the speakers for NeuroTech Gaming event

Gabe Newell has been talking about Brain-Computer Interfaces in recent time, so I guess Valve has been well deep into the R&D in this field?

 

[armadillopoke]

I already have a brain-computer interface, it's called my body and I happen to quite like it as a way of interacting with the world.

 

[SigSig]

I'll pay any price to play videogames and not experience RSI. let me buy a devkit, hurry it up

I already have a brain-computer interface, it's called my body and I happen to quite like it as a way of interacting with the world.

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ok, many don't

 

[armadillopoke]

ok, many don't

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I admit I hadn't thought about it in this way, a good point.

 

[Mivey]

I already have a brain-computer interface, it's called my body and I happen to quite like it as a way of interacting with the world.

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Also, the idea of controlling things with your mind isn't supposed to replace your body. Imagine an artist creating images just by thinking about them, giving them more control than any other instrument ever could. Or doing all the stuff people use Smart Speakers and Assistant, but without the "Hey Alexa" or the need to speak, just a bit of concentration.

 

[Soap]

I remember Gabe talking about this and he was all in. Some of the stuff he was decribibg freaked me out tbh (like matrix type stuff).

 

[armadillopoke]

Also, the idea of controlling things with your mind isn't supposed to replace your body. Imagine an artist creating images just by thinking about them, giving them more control than any other instrument ever could. Or doing all the stuff people use Smart Speakers and Assistant, but without the "Hey Alexa" or the need to speak, just a bit of concentration.

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To me this just seems to be missing at least part of the point of art.

 

[EVIL]

I already have a brain-computer interface, it's called my body and I happen to quite like it as a way of interacting with the world.

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Its not about replacing any of that, its about enhancing to interact with things that are not within the world more efficiently, like multilayered information structures. being able to interact via thought if you will with any device possible around the room. or actual information overlay being projected straight into the brain like a waking dream. there are countless of implimentations for this kind of thing, but def dont expect whatever valve comes up with in like 20 years or to touch everything. just things within their narrow field of entertainment, like reading emotions and have that influence and adjust the games you play. very interesting stuff.

 

[Arthands]

I already have a brain-computer interface, it's called my body and I happen to quite like it as a way of interacting with the world.

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It isn't just about how you interact with the world. Its also how the game world react to you(r brain). The link suggest some thought provoking questions such as:

• What if games could adapt its environment based on your thoughts and emotions?​
• What if you could communicate with your teammates using your brain and thoughts alone and act as one organism?
• What if your enemies could learn from you and dynamically change their behavior to keep the gaming experience much more engaging?

So I guess for a FPS, the enemies could learn your play style and adjust their tactic on the fly in a non-prescriptive way.

 

[Principate]

Its not about replacing any of that, its about enhancing to interact with things that are not within the world more efficiently, like multilayered information structures. being able to interact via thought if you will with any device possible around the room. or actual information overlay being projected straight into the brain like a waking dream. there are countless of implimentations for this kind of thing, but def dont expect whatever valve comes up with in like 20 years or to touch everything. just things within their narrow field of entertainment, like reading emotions and have that influence and adjust the games you play. very interesting stuff.

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That all sounds like nightmare scenario's. Purely unintrusive output sure I could understand and get behind that but input nah. Despite all our developments in computer science we still can't secure an election electronically from malicious entities. Let alone how these sorts of things could be abused by authoritarian entities. It's the sort of tech that can make things very bad, very quickly.

 

[Birbos]

Real life SAO please. It was predicted like 5 years ago that we were still 15 to 20 years away from it happening given the scale of development at the time. With all the research being done by Elon and many others hopefully the timeline has been accelerated significantly.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Also, the idea of controlling things with your mind isn't supposed to replace your body. Imagine an artist creating images just by thinking about them, giving them more control than any other instrument ever could. Or doing all the stuff people use Smart Speakers and Assistant, but without the "Hey Alexa" or the need to speak, just a bit of concentration.

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To me the endgame of brain-computer interfaces are limb replacements, restoring sight, etc. There's been huge advancements in that regard which make me optimistic but we still a ways off from full sight, limb tactile relay, etc.

To me this just seems to be missing at least part of the point of art.

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OK boomer.

 

[Doskoi Panda]

OK boomer.

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perfect

 

[armadillopoke]

That all sounds like nightmare scenario's. Purely intrusive output sure I could understand and get behind that but input nah. Despite all our developments in computer science we still can't secure an election electronically from malicious entities. Let alone how these sorts of things could be abused by authoritarian entities. It's the sort of tech that can make things very bad, very quickly.

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This is largely my view as well. The idea of hijacking my experience of the world isn't an exciting future technology I can't wait to try out, I find the idea of it nightmarish. I do appreciate that there are uses for this kind of technology for disabled people though.

 

[DirtySprite3]

Real life SAO please. It was predicted like 5 years ago that we were still 15 to 20 years away from it happening given the scale of development at the time. With all the research being done by Elon and many others hopefully the timeline has been accelerated significantly.

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Link to said prediction?

 

[Mivey]

To me the endgame of brain-computer interfaces are limb replacements, restoring sight, etc. There's been huge advancements in that regard which make me optimistic but we still a ways off from full sight, limb tactile relay, etc.

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That would certainly be an amazing progress in medicine, and certainly the most promising goal short to middle term, but I wouldn't call this the "end-game". This stuff would open the door to all kinds of crazy science fiction technology and could change our society in profound, and also scary ways.

 

[Weltall Zero]

That would certainly be an amazing progress in medicine, and certainly the most promising goal short to middle term, but I wouldn't call this the "end-game". This stuff would open the door to all kinds of crazy science fiction technology and could change our society in profound, and also scary ways.

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I still think that restoring limbs, mobility, sight, etc. would be a more profound change. And at the very least it's a lot less scary. :)

 

[the-pi-guy]

I already have a brain-computer interface, it's called my body and I happen to quite like it as a way of interacting with the world.

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As someone else said it's not about replacing your body.

These kinds of technologies have ridiculous potential for gaming, for real life stuff.

To me this just seems to be missing at least part of the point of art.

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What is the point of art?

 

[Lobster Roll]

Elgie Branch finally finished his Samantha 2 project, did he?

 

[armadillopoke]

What is the point of art?

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Obviously I can't give you a complete definition of it, but the idea that art would be improved by decreasing the labour involved in its production and increasing the 'accuracy' of the tools, seems to be implying that photographic recreation as accurately as possible with minimal difficulty is the top of the mountain in terms of the artistic process. Surely, at the very least, not all art?

 

[dyelawn91]

I don't see any way in which this kind of technology doesn't widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

 

[the-pi-guy]

Obviously I can't give you a complete definition of it, but the idea that art would be improved by decreasing the labour involved in its production and increasing the 'accuracy' of the tools, seems to be implying that photographic recreation as accurately as possible is the top of the mountain in terms of the artistic process. Surely not all art?

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That's not what it implies at all.
The primary goal is more control. More control can mean more detail, but it's not necessary.

 

[Musubi]

Cany wait until we have to worry about contracting brain viruses due to implants.

 

[armadillopoke]

That's not what it implies at all.
The primary goal is more control. More control can mean more detail, but it's not necessary.

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I suppose not. I still don't believe that removing consideration of labour and the medium from art is necessarily an improvement.

 

[Deleted member 23046]

Hope it will end better this time :

The Neurologist Who Hacked His Brain—And Almost Lost His Mind

Neurologist Phil Kennedy set out to build the ultimate brain-computer interface. In the process he almost lost his mind.

www.wired.com

And this one is also great to read, it's not the same field but the same mindset :

Everybody Freeze! | Corey Pein

Cryonics has regained an undue aura of respectability as the thought leaders of Silicon Valley have trained their vision on the conquest of death.

thebaffler.com

 

[justiceiro]

Not a technology I want to see applied to entertainment any time soon.

 

[I KILL PXLS]

I suppose not. I still don't believe that removing consideration of labour and the medium from art is necessarily an improvement.

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Who said it would be an improvement? Think of it more like a new medium. Not intended to replace but to be in addition to or allow more accessibility for.

 

[armadillopoke]

Who said it would be an improvement? Think of it more like a new medium. Not intended to replace but to be in addition to or allow more accessibility for.

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The way the first person framed it made it sound like it was supposed to be an improvement:

Imagine an artist creating images just by thinking about them, giving them more control than any other instrument ever could.

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[I KILL PXLS]

The way the first person framed it made it sound like it was supposed to be an improvement:

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Yeah but that's about improvement of control over the tools (ie accessibility), not an improvement of art in general which is what it sounds like you're talking about.

 

[armadillopoke]

Yeah but that's about improvement of control over the tools (ie accessibility), not an improvement of art in general which is what it sounds like you're talking about.

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If that's what was meant then I misunderstood the intention.

 

[Mivey]

The way the first person framed it made it sound like it was supposed to be an improvement:

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Well, you would have more control over it, in more dimensions. If that's an "improvement", I dunno. A lot of art lives from working around restrictions, so removing them entirely would ultimately just create a new form of expression. If that's "better", I can't really say, but I could see it be really weird and interesting. So having this technology be a real thing, would certainly be an improvement to me, in that it would make the world a more interesting place.

 

[Alec]

I'm on-board with SAO \ The Matrix \ SOMA.

I blew my Mom's mind when she was saying transphobic shit and I was like "Just imagine in a hundred years or so we'll be able to swap out genitalia on our android bodies at will and people are going to be looking back thinking 'Can't believe people were so close-minded to this shit.'"

 

[armadillopoke]

I'm on-board with SAO \ The Matrix \ SOMA.

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I love that two of these are dystopias lol

 

[Alec]

I love that two of these are dystopias lol

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I'd argue that the technology happened as a reaction to the dystopia, not the other way around. :)

 

[Dylan]

On one hand I'm always excited about new tech that seeks to use brain signals for any purpose..

..on the other hand, there have been so many techbros that get a whiff of EEG/MRI/MEG data and think they can magically solve problems that science has been working on since the 1900s. Usually a good sign that it's yet-another-usless-techbro-company is a team full of engineers and data scientists and zero neuroscientists.

That said, every once in awhile something really cool happens, so I will continue keeping my hopes up! The field of accessibility in games has seen a lot of good advancements for example. More of that!

edit: There's also a pretty good argument to be made that right now, video games would benefit much more from heart-rate monitoring than brain-signal monitoring. You can infer a persons mental state much better with heart rate information than a bunch of EEG traces as far as current tech goes.

edit edit: Hire me Valve! lol.

 

[RangerBAD]

I'm in as long as the interface isn't physically inserted into my brain. Need the SAO approach.

 

[thebishop]

What if just enough brain control is possible to solve the locomotion problem in VR? You still have hand/figure tracking, but horizontal movement can be controlled with thought.

 

[DarthBuzzard]

I'm on-board with SAO \ The Matrix \ SOMA.

I blew my Mom's mind when she was saying transphobic shit and I was like "Just imagine in a hundred years or so we'll be able to swap out genitalia on our android bodies at will and people are going to be looking back thinking 'Can't believe people were so close-minded to this shit.'"

Click to shrink...

Your Mom will likely experience this herself. In 10 or so years, I expect it will be common to have photorealistic avatars of any depiction in VR/AR, and being able to swap gender, body parts, and species at will with it feeling just as real as your real body minus things like tails that obviously don't fit into human anatomy.

 

[tr1b0re]

Make full-dive VR happen Valve and I will give you whatever price you demand

 

[eonden]

On one hand I'm always excited about new tech that seeks to use brain signals for any purpose..

..on the other hand, there have been so many techbros that get a whiff of EEG/MRI/MEG data and think they can magically solve problems that science has been working on since the 1900s. Usually a good sign that it's yet-another-usless-techbro-company is a team full of engineers and data scientists and zero neuroscientists.

That said, every once in awhile something really cool happens, so I will continue keeping my hopes up! The field of accessibility in games has seen a lot of good advancements for example. More of that!

edit: There's also a pretty good argument to be made that right now, video games would benefit much more from heart-rate monitoring than brain-signal monitoring. You can infer a persons mental state much better with heart rate information than a bunch of EEG traces as far as current tech goes.

edit edit: Hire me Valve! lol.

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You can watch his last year GDC conference about it:

 

[Xiofire]

This is terrifying, but in a great way.

Sounds crazy enough to be amazing.

 

[Dylan]

You can watch his last year GDC conference about it:

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Thanks for the link that's awesome. His talk is essentially what I had been dreaming about when I set foot in an EEG lab; then spent the next decade of my life learning all about why all the cool stuff I was dreaming of doing with EEG and games is simply not possible without first coming up with some major advances to EEG signal processing tech; which is what the field, consisting of thousands of scientists around the world have already been working on for decades. Obviously that's a bit much for a GDC talk (edit: actually he does address this a bit!) and I'm not doubting Mike already has a good sense of the problems involved. But it's simply an inconvenient fact that the problems inherent to EEG signal processing are an enormous barrier to building a BCI interface that can work reliably with something super precise such as the modern video game. e.g. Movement and blink artifacts alone are a pain in the butt, even when the participant is instructed to stay still. Then there's the problem of signal to noise, which is massive in EEG, and is the reason why most event-related potential EEG studies require hundreds of presentations of even a simple stimulus in order to even observe the brains response to it. That's why I personally shifted my interest from "what can EEG tell us about the player experience during a video game" to "What can the EEG response of a video game player with mental health disorders tell us about the health of the individual?"

That said I don't think what Mike and others are working on is a dead end, it's just an extremely long and winding road. I wish them the best of luck! Looking forward to some cool stuff in the future.

 

[Deimos]

I already have a brain-computer interface, it's called my body and I happen to quite like it as a way of interacting with the world.

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Thinking about an action is a lot easier than pressing a button. Especially when you're playing a game that can have a ridiculous number of bindings, like MMOs.

 

[Ionic]

What if just enough brain control is possible to solve the locomotion problem in VR? You still have hand/figure tracking, but horizontal movement can be controlled with thought.

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I don't think the VR locomotion problem is about user input. There are enough joysticks on VR controllers to maneuver a character around like any FPS game. The issue is the disconnect between the sensation of moving in a game and the lack of physical response that our human bodies expect while moving. Maybe brain interfacing could fix this by providing the user somehow with the sensation of moving, but I'm gonna have to wait a couple generations before I'm ready to plug in.

 

[Deleted member 13645]

This is beginning in a few moments

 

[Noodle]

I wonder how much FUD it will contain. There are 3 possible outcomes:

1. He talks exclusively about BCIs that require brain surgery, which whilst amazing are a total non-starter for entertainment applications
2. He talks exclusively about BCIs you wear on your head, which so far are barely better than random number generators
3. He presents information on brand new pioneering non-invasive BCIs

 

[Deleted member 13645]

I wonder how much FUD it will contain. There are 3 possible outcomes:

1. He talks exclusively about BCIs that require brain surgery, which whilst amazing are a total non-starter for entertainment applications
2. He talks exclusively about BCIs you wear on your head, which so far are barely better than random number generators
3. He presents information on brand new pioneering non-invasive BCIs

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He already talked. He talked about person -> computer, not the reverse. The ability to have the game read your emotion and feelings and adapt on the fly to it. He gave an example of a game where you play a spy, but you have to keep your emotions in check to not get caught. The in-game avatar could reflect your feelings and NPCs would then be able to react to that.

It was an interesting talk, albeit was more about the possibilities than the actual technology behind it as I imagine that's heavily under NDA.

 

[Noodle]

He already talked. He talked about person -> computer, not the reverse. The ability to have the game read your emotion and feelings and adapt on the fly to it. He gave an example of a game where you play a spy, but you have to keep your emotions in check to not get caught. The in-game avatar could reflect your feelings and NPCs would then be able to react to that.

It was an interesting talk, albeit was more about the possibilities than the actual technology behind it as I imagine that's heavily under NDA.

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Unfortunately those ideas have been floating around since the noughties. You'd get much better data from pulse oximetry and galvanic skin response, with the added bonuses of the sensors being able to be integrated into the controller, being much cheaper, and being much less sensitive to movement.

He mentioned neuromarketing before he got into the BCI games part which is a bit of a red flag. The quality of BCI gaming gets a bit of leeway as the novelty of the new control options is fun in of itself even if they don't work too well, but for product testing where all that matters is the fidelity of the consumer feedback, no one should be relying on something as wildly subjective as single trial EEG analysis.

BCI will one day be as ubiquitous as cell phones, but it's around 30-50 years off yet.