Welcome back to the FiveMinuteFriday episode of the SuperDataScience Podcast!.
You wake up the first morning in your new apartment. You decide to take a look at the gym across the street and are invited to try a class for free. You come across a group of friends chatting. A woman in the group is shocked when your two friends fail to correctly guess her birthday. You interject and say “your birthday is June 10th.” It unnerves them. How could you know that?
You explain to them that you have had a brain-computer interface surgically implanting in your skull. After several years of practice, you were able to move cursors around on display and can now make queries on the internet at will and receive answers as simple as a thought. So you used a convolutional neural network to match this woman to a name and a birthdate. The group of friends finds you distressing.
It’s the year 2040 and you’re hopeful that BCI will become more commonplace and easier to install so you don’t feel so alone.
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Podcast Transcript
(00:05):
This is FiveMinuteFriday.
(00:19):
You wake up on your first morning in your new apartment. There’s a gym across the street so you check it out for your morning workout. You’re new to the area and haven’t visited the gym before so you’re a little bit nervous as you walk down the steps into the basement-level facility.
You wake up on your first morning in your new apartment. There’s a gym across the street so you check it out for your morning workout. You’re new to the area and haven’t visited the gym before so you’re a little bit nervous as you walk down the steps into the basement-level facility.
(00:35):
You’re greeted by the friendly manager who welcomes you to try your first class for free and then you make your way to the main floor, where a trio of friends are hanging out and, based on the amount of sweat glistening on them, they’ve only finished their workout in the past few minutes. They’re sitting on the floor and chatting together loudly.
You’re greeted by the friendly manager who welcomes you to try your first class for free and then you make your way to the main floor, where a trio of friends are hanging out and, based on the amount of sweat glistening on them, they’ve only finished their workout in the past few minutes. They’re sitting on the floor and chatting together loudly.
(00:53):
One woman in the group remarks in disbelief as her two friends fail to correctly guess her birthday… they’re not even close on the month. “You’ve both known me so long,” she says. “How can you not know my birthday?” Quietly, calmly, you interject into their conversation. “Well, your birthday, Katherine, is June 10th.”
One woman in the group remarks in disbelief as her two friends fail to correctly guess her birthday… they’re not even close on the month. “You’ve both known me so long,” she says. “How can you not know my birthday?” Quietly, calmly, you interject into their conversation. “Well, your birthday, Katherine, is June 10th.”
(01:14):
The trio of friends look up at you in confusion and you sense their uneasiness. They don’t recognise you and they shouldn’t. You’ve never met. Katherine asks, “How do you know that?” And so you explain that you had a brain-computer interface surgically implanted in your skull. It took you several years of intensive practice — countless long evenings and weekends of frustrating effort that gradually gave way to minor breakthroughs like moving a cursor haphazardly around on an external display.
The trio of friends look up at you in confusion and you sense their uneasiness. They don’t recognise you and they shouldn’t. You’ve never met. Katherine asks, “How do you know that?” And so you explain that you had a brain-computer interface surgically implanted in your skull. It took you several years of intensive practice — countless long evenings and weekends of frustrating effort that gradually gave way to minor breakthroughs like moving a cursor haphazardly around on an external display.
(01:44):
You’re now, however, one of only a few thousand people on the planet who have gone through the extraordinary effort of mastering a brain-computer interface so you can now make queries on the Internet at will and receive replies to your queries instantaneously — information from the Internet pops into your head like any other thought. You see images as though it’s your own visual imagination and you hear written text in your own voice.
You’re now, however, one of only a few thousand people on the planet who have gone through the extraordinary effort of mastering a brain-computer interface so you can now make queries on the Internet at will and receive replies to your queries instantaneously — information from the Internet pops into your head like any other thought. You see images as though it’s your own visual imagination and you hear written text in your own voice.
(02:11):
So, you used a convolutional-neural-network service to match the woman’s face to a global database of people and you discovered her name is Katherine King. Her birthday was included in her database entry and so you were able to reel it off in an instant.
So, you used a convolutional-neural-network service to match the woman’s face to a global database of people and you discovered her name is Katherine King. Her birthday was included in her database entry and so you were able to reel it off in an instant.
(02:26):
At work, your brain-computer interface has proved tremendously helpful — nobody on the trading floor can trade stocks as profitably or quickly as you. But, as an early adopter of the technology, one of the few who have developed expertise with such an implant, broader society is put off by you.
At work, your brain-computer interface has proved tremendously helpful — nobody on the trading floor can trade stocks as profitably or quickly as you. But, as an early adopter of the technology, one of the few who have developed expertise with such an implant, broader society is put off by you.
(02:44):
The group of friends find you distressing. It’s clear from their body language — and you don’t need a BCI to help you with reading it. Looks like “new neighborhood, but same old story”: You’ll be working out on your own, as usual.
The group of friends find you distressing. It’s clear from their body language — and you don’t need a BCI to help you with reading it. Looks like “new neighborhood, but same old story”: You’ll be working out on your own, as usual.
(02:57):
It’s the year 2040 and you’re hopeful that over the coming decade BCIs will become easier to install and to master so that you’re not the only freak in town.
It’s the year 2040 and you’re hopeful that over the coming decade BCIs will become easier to install and to master so that you’re not the only freak in town.
(03:08):
All right, hope you enjoyed my tale of caution from the future! It’s my first time writing a fictional narrative like this in decades and so the first SuperDataScience episode to feature one. Please give me some feedback on what you thought of it, and if enough of you enjoyed it, I’ll write something again!
All right, hope you enjoyed my tale of caution from the future! It’s my first time writing a fictional narrative like this in decades and so the first SuperDataScience episode to feature one. Please give me some feedback on what you thought of it, and if enough of you enjoyed it, I’ll write something again!
(03:24):
If you’d like to learn more about brain-computer interfaces in a light-hearted way, check out Tim Urban’s Neuralink and the Brain’s Magic Future post on his WaitButWhy blog. The link is in the show notes. Ok, that’s it for this episode. Keep on rockin’ out there, folks, and catch you on another round of the SuperDataScience show very soon.
If you’d like to learn more about brain-computer interfaces in a light-hearted way, check out Tim Urban’s Neuralink and the Brain’s Magic Future post on his WaitButWhy blog. The link is in the show notes. Ok, that’s it for this episode. Keep on rockin’ out there, folks, and catch you on another round of the SuperDataScience show very soon.
