If you’ve watched the Avatar movies directed by James Cameron, you’ll remember how humans can take the form of other alien creatures and remotely control the bodies they call Avatars.
Today, many signals in our brains can be easily measured. So, is it really possible for us to control different bodies or machines through some technology one day?
Avatar, Matrix, Inception, Neuromancer, Lucy… These movies, which are among the most important science fiction works of the world, had one thing in common: Being able to control bodies and machines in other places or dimensions with the power of the mind.
In the Avatar movies, people want to colonize the planet called Pandora, but the natural conditions of the planet are not suitable for humans to live. Since they cannot exist in human form here, they are developing a technology in which the Na’vi, the indigenous people of Pandora, can control their body form.
They can mentally connect to new bodies they call avatars and control their movements. In this way, Jake Sully, who is actually a war veteran and paraplegic, can move freely in his Na’vi form.
People can control their avatars with their thoughts, thanks to an interface that connects the brain to the computer.
In the movie, this system is called BCI, the “Brain Computer Interface System”, and it’s not a fictional term. That’s exactly what it’s called in real life. Although the technology that connects the signals in our brains with the machines has not reached the dimensions in the movie, it has actually been in our lives for a long time.
If you remember, Elon Musk founded a company called Neuralink. Here, studies are continuing on a technology that will provide just that. It may very soon be possible to make devices such as smartphones and computers such as smart phones and computers that we can control only with our brain signals, not by touching or keying, through chips inserted into our brains.
Avatar bodies may not be dreams. We are already at a very advanced point in establishing a connection between machines and the human body.
Today, technology has already been developed where you can move a robotic arm just by thinking you are moving your arm. Certain commands can be transmitted via a computer by attaching some implants to the brain.
These systems have been tested for many years and the tests result in success. However, it is not yet widely available.
Thanks to Brain-Computer Interface Systems, you can move objects with your mind power and complete your Jedi training.
In Star Wars Force Trainer, you can raise the ping pong ball in the tube by wearing a headgear that detects your brain signals. The more you focus, the better results you get, and Yoda congratulates his little Jedi, you.
Yet another important development in the same field: In 2016, a man with a paralyzed arm was able to control his fingers and play chess again with a chip implanted in his brain.
If we have reached this point, is it no longer possible for us to remotely control much more complex machines with brain power?
Almost. It is possible to distinguish between the signals of commands, whether you want to move the right arm or the left arm. But this is much simpler than controlling an entire body from afar.
The brain is a very complex organ with parts responsible for thousands of different activities. It is extremely difficult to categorize everything that goes on in our brains and to separate “thoughts” from data. The point that technology has reached today is also very limited.
Our brains don’t come from a single factory, no two are exactly the same. It may not be possible to produce standard systems that will work in the same way for everyone.
Each brain is unique and works differently from each other in line with their personal experiences in life. The same thoughts may not coincide with the same parts of the brain. Or, the same concepts may find different meanings in other brains. They may arrive at the same conclusions in different ways.
Therefore, it is not so easy to develop machines that will read the same signals and convert them to the same commands universally for everyone.
Will we be able to distinguish between a thought that crosses our minds and the command of an action that we really want to do?
Sometimes thousands of irrelevant things go through our minds in a minute. Some are thoughts that even we don’t want to hear, some are jokes we make to ourselves, or nonsense…
But can the machines that detect brain signals really distinguish which ones we are thinking seriously and which ones are just one of the countless thoughts floating in our minds in all the chaos? There are many questions like these and many more waiting to be answered before us.
The real brain-burning questions start at the point of interpreting this technology, not producing it.
Our brains are not just machines that process data consisting of zeros and ones. What makes us different from machines is our consciousness, which is the sum total of thinking, feeling, reflecting on our existence, and our emotions. It’s not just limited to brain functions and nerve activity, either.
We have consciousness because we have unique thoughts, memories, emotions, and personality. Our extremely rich, complex and personal experiences mean an endless amount of data. It may also be impossible to transfer something to machines that we cannot define in a standard way for everyone.
After this stage, the ball may fall on social scientists and philosophers instead of science, experiments and technology firms.
Human consciousness itself is a subject that is still not fully understood. Therefore, it is not only a matter of laboratories, electrodes and new technologies, but also of thinkers and philosophy. Our brains are living beings and do not work like computers.
Therefore, our main reservation is not physically producing this technology, but rather ethical and philosophical reservations, as in all AI issues. As technology develops at a rapid pace, more philosophy and social scientists will need to be involved and contribute in order to evaluate all kinds of possibilities that may arise.
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