The head of the US gaming company, Valve Corporation, says a fast-paced future is coming in which video games will use data from people’s brain signals to adjust the experience they receive – and even a future in which people’s minds can be adjusted by computers. .
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The head of the Valve Company talks about BCI in an extended interview. Source: 1 NEWS
Gabe Newell spoke with 1 NEWS about the future of computer-brain interfaces (BCI) – an area he and other Valve employees have been studying for several years – and talked about how Valve works to use BCI in the gaming sector.
Newell admits some of the ideas may seem incredible and said some of his discussions about BCI are “indistinguishable from science fiction” – but according to him, game developers would make a mistake by not investigating BCI in the near future. short.
To help them do this, Newell said Valve is currently working on an open source BCI software project, allowing developers to start interpreting signals read from people’s brains using hardware such as modified VR (virtual reality) headphones.
“We are working on an open source project, so that everyone can have a high resolution [brain signal] read the technologies built into the headphones, in a lot of different ways, “Newell said.
Valve worked with OpenBCI headphones.
In November, OpenBCI unveiled a headset design called the Galea, designed to work with VR headsets such as Valve’s Index.
Open the design of the Galea BCI BCI headphones. Source: OpenBCI
“If you’re a software developer in 2022 who doesn’t have one of these in the testing lab, you’re making a stupid mistake,” Newell said.
“Software developers for interactive experience[s] – you will use absolutely one of these modified VR headbands to do this routinely – simply because there is too much useful data. “
These data will generally consist of readings from the player’s body and brain, which can be used to tell if the player is excited, surprised, sad, bored, amused and feared, among other emotions.
Mike Ambinder, Senior Experimental Psychologist at Valve Corporation, plays a game while wearing an OpenBCI Ultracortex BCI Array. Source: Mike Ambinder / Valve Corporation
Readings can be used by developers to improve diving and customize what happens during games – such as increasing the difficulty a bit if the system realizes that the player is bored.
In addition to just reading people’s brain signals, Newell also discussed the near future reality of the ability to write signals in people’s minds – to change the way they feel or to provide better-than-real images in real life. Games.
He said BCI will lead to much better gaming experiences than a player could go through “meat peripherals” – as in their eyes and ears.
“You’re used to experiencing the world through your eyes,” Newell said, “but the eyes were created by this low-cost bidder who didn’t care about failure rates and RMAs, and if it broke there was no way to fix anything effectively, which makes evolutionary sense, but does not reflect consumer preferences at all.
“So, the visual experience, the visual fidelity that we can create – the real world will cease to be the metric that we apply for the best possible visual fidelity.
“The real world will look flat, colorless, blurry compared to the experiences you will be able to create in people’s brains.
“Where it gets weird is when who you are becomes editable through a BCI,” Newell said.
Right now, people accept that their feelings are exactly what they feel – but Newell says BCI will soon be able to digitally edit those feelings, which could be as easy as using an app.
“One of the first apps I expect to see is improved sleep – sleep will become an app you run where you say, ‘Oh, I need so much sleep, I need so much REM,'” he said.
Another benefit could be the reduction or total elimination of unwanted feelings or conditions in the brain, for therapeutic reasons.
Some people who use VR headsets suffer from vertigo because of the mismatch between what they see and how their body feels – but Newell said that at this point, BCI has advanced to a point where vertigo could be artificially suppressed and that “It’s more of a certification issue than a scientific issue.”
Configuring Valve Index VR. Source: Valve Corporation
Despite several feasible applications for BCI, Newell said he is reluctant to stop Valve’s progress and turn it into a consumer product when the speed of research is so high.
“The rate at which we learn things is so fast that you don’t want to say prematurely: ‘OK, let’s block everything and build a product and go through all the approval processes, when in six months I’ll have something that would have allowed a lot of other features. “
Valve also contributes to projects that develop synthetic body parts in exchange for expertise.
“It seems like game engines are really useful because they simulate a lot of the information you need to create a simulated hand for people,” Newell said.
“You can iterate the software faster than you can iterate a prosthesis, so we provide them with a framework in which they can do research and work with patients.”
In case you’re wondering, a Valve brand cyber member is probably on the table for the moment.
“Valve is not considering creating virtual prostheses for humans,” Newell said.
“This is what we are contributing to this special research project, and because of this we have access to neuroscience leaders who teach us a lot about the neuroscience side.”
Regarding prostheses, Newell said there are some interesting questions to answer in the development of artificial limbs.
“As soon as you do that, they say, ‘Oh, well, can we give people a tentacle?’ “Our brain was never designed to have tentacles, but it seems that the brain is very flexible. “
Neuroplasticity is a term that refers to the ability of our brain to learn again how to act the body when something changes.
Neuroplasticity also occurs when we learn to use tools – an example would be a builder who uses a hammer for so many years that it feels like a natural extension of their body.
Newell gave a personal example of neuroplasticity. He underwent two corneal transplants in 2006/07, and after the operation a phantom image of objects in the visual field between the eyes was produced due to the change in color perception.
The condition disappeared in a few weeks, as his brain readjusted to the new entrance received from his eyes.
So, the future of BCI sounds interesting, but what about the dark side?
Newell briefly mentioned that BCI could potentially be used to cause physical pain to people – even pain beyond their physical body.
“You could make people think they did [are] injured by injuring their instrument, which is a complicated subject in itself, “he said.
Game developers could use this feature to make a player feel the pain of the character they play as when they are injured – perhaps to a lesser degree.
Like any other form of technology, Newell says there is a degree of confidence in using it and that not everyone will feel comfortable connecting their brains to a computer.
He says no one will be forced to do something they don’t want to do and that people will probably follow others if they have good experiences, comparing BCI technology to mobile phones.
“People will decide for themselves if they want to do it. Nobody makes people use a phone,” Newell said.
“I’m not saying that everyone will love and insist that it has a brain-computer interface. I’m just saying that each person will decide for themselves whether or not there is an interesting combination of feature, functionality and price.”
There will also be a heavy burden for developers to ensure that their BCI products are rigorously tested and protected from infringements.
“There’s nothing magical about these systems that makes them less vulnerable to viruses or things like other computer systems,” Newell said.
“Right now, you have to trust all your financial data, all your personal information in your technology infrastructure, and if the people who build these people do a bad job, they will drive consumer acceptance off a cliff.
“No one wants to say, ‘Oh, do you remember Bob?’ Remember when Bob was hacked by Russian malware? That sucked – is he still running naked through the woods? “or whatever. So yes, people are going to have to have a lot of confidence that these are safe systems that don’t pose long-term health risks.”
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