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Brain Chip To “Enhance” Soldiers



Yesterday I posted a news story about a man who got off a murder charge by reason of insanity. It’s easy to get people to believe you’re crazy when you kill someone on the grounds that you believed they had a computer chip in their brain designed to get them to in turn kill you. Turns out this rationale may not be insane for much longer though.

A (mainstream) Australian news site reports an invention which sounds suspiciously similar to the one our poor insane friend was trying to battle:

US military experts are attempting to create an army of super-human soldiers who will be more intelligent and deadly thanks to a microchip implanted in their brains.

Scientists believe the implant will vastly improve the memory of troops so that they can recall every detail of their training and become more effective fighters.

Researchers at the University of Southern California’s bio-engineering department have created the chip, which acts in exactly the same way as the hippocampus - the part of the brain that deals with memory.

In experiments, the team removed that section of the brain of dead rats and inserted the chip in its place. The implant sent exactly the same electronic signals as the real thing.

The next stage of the project is to test the implant on live animals. If this work proves to be as successful, experiments could one day be carried out on soldiers.

In fact, this is a pretty damned exact parallel to that murder news story:

Ngai’s attorney has said Ngai believed music professor Danielle Martin was a robot or was controlled by a computer chip in her brain and was trying to kill him.

Are the two items unrelated, or has testing of these things gone significantly farther than this article states?

[Via Cryptogon - for more creepy fun in this direction, also check out these two posts on Dodging Invisible Rays.]

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9 Reader Responses

  1. Ant Says:
    October 26th, 2005 at 11:13 pm

    It just makes me think of underlying plots for zombie films. To create the ultimate zombie army of strong, relentless, fearless, mindless people. Scary.

    I despise the fact that they’re trying to make this type of thing an accepted option, rather than things like… establishing peace and humanity…

  2. Emerson Says:
    October 27th, 2005 at 12:17 am

    I wouldn’t get too worked up just yet. The artificial hippocampus has been “just around the corner” for ages now. Citing military applications, too, is a good way to get funding. Throwing the words “fighting terrorism” into research descriptions is fairly normal for anything with even the slightest hope of soaking up some sweet government funds. No doubt it’s possible that the prime target is military, but these kinds of things can easily get very twisted around in the popular press.

    Even if the chip does work, it’s rather overhyped in terms of the “be more intelligent” comment. The hippocampus is very important for memory, but that’s also a fairly primitive part of the brain. Boosting it up isn’t going to create any new Einsteins. Current methods of increasing its performance in humans seems to just give the subject a bit of an edge when it comes to memorizing things. Where the primary benefit to this would be is within groups suffering severe damage to that part of the brain, such as folks suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Even there it’d be a bit of a finger in the dam approach. Still, as someone born into a family which seems to have at least some predisposition to Alzheimer’s, I’m hopefull for absolutly anything which might help. I realize it’s a bit selfish, but I’m not going to adopt a false stance of apology for worrying about my brain rotting away while I’m still alive.

  3. Tim Boucher Says:
    October 27th, 2005 at 1:20 am

    I wouldn’t get too worked up just yet.

    I don’t think anybody’s really getting “worked up”… it’s more all in good fun at this point. More than anything, I’m just shocked when I juxtapose these two news items. It lends credence to something most people would consider insane.

  4. hebrides Says:
    October 27th, 2005 at 9:07 am

    This stuff is not new, man, not at all. Again, I gotta point you to the work of José Delgado, who was a professor at Yale University after immigrating here from Fascist Spain. He made the front page of the New York Times (May 17, 1965) for stopping a charging bull by sending a radio signal into a “stimoceiver” that he had implanted into its brain. He published a book about his research, which can be read online here: www.angelfire.com/or/mctrl/delgado.htm

    ‘Course, after the book came out in ‘68 or ‘69, nothing about this work seems to have been mentioned again. I’ll bet the brain-implant cow farm that the research being done for soldiers is based at least, in part, on his work.

  5. Truth Seeker Says:
    October 27th, 2005 at 11:09 am

    What about Brain Chip To “Enhance” Compassion?

    This reading list may explain this

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/sear...orm/ref=s_sf_b_as/104-4135318-3141548

  6. Tim Boucher Says:
    October 27th, 2005 at 11:19 am

    He made the front page of the New York Times (May 17, 1965) for stopping a charging bull by sending a radio signal into a “stimoceiver” that he had implanted into its brain.

    Again, I know it’s not new, I just think its crazy that its finally coming around to this level of usage, or at least public acknowledgement. I forgot all about that bull thing. That’s a great one.

  7. Fell Says:
    October 27th, 2005 at 1:14 pm

    This just raised an interesting thought in my own mind about the adventure of life in general. I was watching Millennium the other day and there was a point where one character left his life behind in favour of allowing himself to blossom into that which he was “supposed” to be.

    I know this is a quote from an ancient philosopher or poet, but to paraphrase, he left an introspective note behind: How can one go one living this mundane life when you wonder what the future-you would be thinking if she or he looked back? If you could put the events of your life relatively to the life you end up living?

    This drove him to leave his life behind, so start living the adventure he was meant to be.

    It makes me wonder, with all the news of peculiarities, archonic oppression, et cetera, that what does it take before a true resistance starts? Is a resistance necessary, or is society ready for the oncoming technologies? I’m not saying one way or the other, but if life is akin to a game… what does it take to inspire a hero, and what does it take to maintain that people stay as background NPCs, oblivious to the struggles of the Hero character?

    Sorry for the RPG analogy. But some of this stuff we’re hearing about nowadays is straight outta games, and it rings so true with the whole work on archetypes as put forth by the likes of Campbell.

    :)

  8. james Says:
    October 27th, 2005 at 9:09 pm

    Here’s one I saw today.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173500,00.html

  9. Ant Says:
    October 27th, 2005 at 11:28 pm

    Thank you for that insight, Fell. That one took me to some places in my head where I really needed to go at the moment. I need to put something like that on my wall so I don’t forget it when I get stuck in my workaholic mode.



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