Brain-to-Brain Communication is Coming!

Dear Fellow Scholars, this is Two Minute Papers with Károly Zsolnai-Fehér. This is an episode that doesn't have the usual visual fireworks and is expected to get fewer clicks, but it is an important story to tell, and because of your support, we are able to cover a paper like this. So now, get this, this is a non-invasive brain-to-brain interface that uses EEG to record brain signals and TMS to deliver information to the brain. The non-invasive part is quite important, it basically means that we don't need to drill a hole in the head of the patients. That's a good idea. This image shows three humans connected via computers, 2 senders and one receiver. The senders provide information to the receiver about something he would otherwise not know about, and we measure if they are able to collaboratively solve a problem together. These people never met each other, and don't even know each other, and they can collaborate through this technique directly via brain signals. Wow! The BCI means brain-computer interface, and the CBI, as you guessed, the computer-brain interface. So these brain signals can be encoded and decoded and freely transferred between people and computers. Insanity. After gathering all this information, the receiver makes a decision, which the senders also have access to, and can transmit some more information if necessary. So what do they use it for? Of course, to play Tetris! Jokes aside, this is a great experiment where the goal is to clear a line. Simple enough, right? Not so much, because there is a twist. The receiver only sees what you see here on the left side. This is the current piece we have to place on the field, but the receiver has no idea how to rotate it because he doesn't see its surroundings. But the senders do, so they transmit the appropriate information to the receiver who will now be able to make an informed decision as to how to rotate the piece correctly to clear a line. So, does it work? The experiment is designed in a way that there is a 50% chance to be right without any additional information for the receiver, so this will be the baseline result. And the results are between 75% and 85%, which means that the interface is working, and the brain-to-brain collaboration is now a reality. I am out of words. The paper also talks about brain-to-brain social networks, and all kinds of science fiction like that. My head is about to explode with the possibilities, who knows, maybe in a few years, we can make a superintelligent brain that combines all of our expertise and does research for all of us. Or, writes Two Minute Papers episodes. This paper is a must read. Do you have any other ideas as to how this could enhance our lives? Let me know below in the comments. Thanks for watching and for your generous support, and I'll see you next time!