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At present, our brains are mostly dependent on all the stuff below the neck to turn thought into action. But advances in neuroscience are making it easier than ever to hook machines up to minds. See neuroscientists John Donoghue and Sheila Nirenberg, computer scientist Michel Maharbiz, and psychologist Gary Marcus discuss the cutting edge of brain-machine interactions in “Cells to Silicon: Your Brain in 2050,” part of the Big Ideas series at the 2014 World Science Festival.

This program is part of the Big Ideas Series, made possible with support from the John Templeton Foundation.

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Original Program date: May 29, 2014

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In the future we might see the rise of minds entirely on computers, be it uploaded humans, transhumans, or artificial intelligence. But what would such an existence be like? Would they interact with our world or live in entirely virtual realities or simulated universes?

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Bye bye, AR headsets?Mojo Vision, a California-based company that wants to make augmented reality (AR) capable smart contact lenses, has already conducted the first human trial of its technology. Last week, the company’s CEO Drew Perkins became the first person to use the contact lenses and shared his experience in a blog post.


Mojo Vision’s device design includes many firsts and now the prototype is good enough to be trialed. Is the future already here?

What else can deepfakes do?We’ve seen examples of deepfakes being used almost to change the course of history when a Zelensky footage emerged back in March and told the Ukrainian army to lay down arms amid the Russian invasion. Fortunately, it was sloppy, and the army didn’t buy that. And now, if you consider what happens when a post-covid world that birthed many remote job opportunities for digital nomads merges with AI, The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has t… See more.


The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned that some people are using deepfakes to apply for remote tech jobs.

SpaceX’s Starlink provided the fastest satellite internet in the world.

Starlink has been equally praised in recent months for helping civilians in Ukraine and criticized for making astronomical work harder to the point it might endanger humanity.

There’s no denying the experience it provides is impressive, with one user recently telling IE it allowed him to live an enviable off-grid lifestyle with 300 watts of solar energy.

What happens when machines begin to question their origins?

In this short film created with generative art, we explore how artificial intelligence sees the universe, its creators, and its potential futures. I believe the emergence of artistic A.I. has touched off a new era for art that could be as profound as the first cave paintings, 50,000 years ago. If these artistic capabilities are possible after only a few decades of A.I., research, what will the next 50,000 years hold? What will we become?

Crafted by Melodysheep in collaboration with artificial intelligence.

Supported by the good people at Protocol Labs:

Summary: Researchers identified a novel brain network that includes the fronto-parietal networks and fusiform gyrus which helps with the encoding of visual mental imagery.

Source: Paris Brain Institute.

Every day, we call upon a unique capacity of our brain, visual mental imagery, which allows us to visualize images, objects or people ‘in our heads’. Based on the recent case of a patient with a specific brain lesion, Paolo Bartolomeo’s group (Inserm) in the PICNIC Lab at the Paris Brain Institute has identified a region that may be key in mental visualization.