Category: To Read

From a long New Yorker feature:

“Since its inception, darpa had asked if computers could be more closely coupled with minds. But its interest in embedding electronics directly in the cortex emerged only after the N.I.H. workshops demonstrated that the technology was mature enough. In 2002, the agency created a program, called Brain-Machine Interfaces, which laid a scientific foundation for the development of cognitive implants that could enhance soldiers. “The human is becoming the weakest link in Defense systems,” the agency noted—implying that biology itself needed an upgrade. A darpa official speaking at an agency symposium encouraged attendees to visualize soldiers who could act as human lie detectors, or communicate by computer-aided telepathy.

By 2003, darpa had spent millions of dollars on Brain-Machine Interfaces. But in the post-9/11 political climate—following a controversial darpa surveillance program, along with the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq—the agency’s leadership sought to redefine its goals. The head of darpa’s Defense Sciences Office at the time told me, “We had this interest in being able to move things with the brain, and it didn’t look like anyone was going to be too excited about flying airplanes with the technology.” The country was at war, and many soldiers returning from the front with missing arms were using replacements that were little more than hooks—technology that would have been recognizable during the Civil War. darpa reasoned that it should focus its investment in brain-machine technology on making the wounded whole, rather than on building super-warriors. “Frankly, it made it easier,” the official said. “If someone said, ‘Why are you spending all this money?,’ it was kind of a dual-purpose thing. How could you argue we shouldn’t be?” darpa officials arranged for their director to visit Walter Reed Army Medical Center, to meet soldiers who had lost their arms. Moved by the experience, he committed more than a hundred million dollars to a new program, called Revolutionizing Prosthetics.”