real world DNI

[hal]

As this youtube video alludes to, we apparently have a certain capability with MODERN Direct Neural Interfaces - that what we have in GURPS ULTRATECH may have understated what is possible.

For instance, a DNI installed in your peripheral nervous system can feed sensations from a virtual computer world directly to your brain. Rather than spoil the surprise, I'll let you watch this yourself...

Direct Neural Interface & DARPA


This would seem to imply that a 4 x 4 mm array can be implanted today at TL 8, which implies that the DNI of GURPS might be closer to TL 9 than 10.

Pretty astonishing if you ask me...

[AlexanderHowl]

Surgically implanted DNI is probably early TL9 (the neural interface implant in Ultratech is TL9), so they are right around the corner. Primitive examples are found today in the form of cochlear implants that function as mitigators for Deafness and Hard of Hearing (they directly stimulate the auditory nerve. Similar technologies are in the experimental stage for Blindness (they have gotten to the point where blind people can see movements and shapes, but not to the point where they can direct colors or fine details).

[Anthony]

Directly splicing into the peripheral nervous system is very plausibly TL 9, but isn't actually very interesting, because adding a nerve link doesn't mean you have any exotic additional ability to control linked things, so if for example you had a link in your arm, it would allow the system to read everything you try to do with your fingers (possibly including haptic feedback so you could type on a virtual keyboard and feel the keys), and if you didn't have fingers would still let you use virtual fingers to type on virtual objects, but it wouldn't actually let you do things you couldn't do with a keyboard except to the degree you can ignore the limitations of actual physical keyboards.

[Ulzgoroth]

I don't think they actually said they could give sensory feedback from VR, though certainly there's nothing that would stop them...

The flight sim control part was actually really disappointing-looking. The speaker said it handled 'every control surface' but what it looked like was a lousy arcade 'sim' where the player is using keyboard control and only pressing one key at a time...

Originally Posted by Anthony

Directly splicing into the peripheral nervous system is very plausibly TL 9, but isn't actually very interesting, because adding a nerve link doesn't mean you have any exotic additional ability to control linked things, so if for example you had a link in your arm, it would allow the system to read everything you try to do with your fingers (possibly including haptic feedback so you could type on a virtual keyboard and feel the keys), and if you didn't have fingers would still let you use virtual fingers to type on virtual objects, but it wouldn't actually let you do things you couldn't do with a keyboard except to the degree you can ignore the limitations of actual physical keyboards.

If you can come up with nerve blocks so that you don't engage your real muscles, it could be an improvement to VR environments. But mostly that seems aimed at people who are short of the full standard complement of meat-peripherals.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If you can come up with nerve blocks so that you don't engage your real muscles, it could be an improvement to VR environments. But mostly that seems aimed at people who are short of the full standard complement of meat-peripherals.

By far the most significant benefit of directly connecting to the nervous system is the ability to create full-function prosthetics.