Brain chips to increase intellectual capabilities, control machines using thought alone, or transfer information directly into the brain are quite popular in sci-fi and have been recently adopted as concrete research goals by many science and engineering teams around the world. Currently developed prototypes adopt a "black box" model - they do not allow the user to experience what is going on inside the implant. Our brain, on the contrary, is open to us - it doesn't only process sensory input and calculate appropriate behaviors based on it, but also enables us to experience what is happening. In other words, brain activity is accompanied by consciousness. Potentially, brain chips can also be designed to have consciousness inside them. Inserted into a human brain, such a conscious implant would expand the user's conscious experience with its own contents. For this, however, a new kind of brain-machine interface should be developed that would merge consciousness in two separate systems - the chip and the brain - into single, unified one. Many technologies could be applied in this direction, for example the genetic engineering of special neurons designed to interface between ordinary neurons and electronic devices. Progress in conscious interfaces could eventually allow us to unify consciousness of different human beings, leading to the emergence of special kind of global brain, in which every individual will experience itself being a GB, and won't become just one of the cogs in this huge super-intelligent system. Alexandra Elbakyan is a neurotechnology researcher and advocate, and a software developer. Alexandra holds a BS in CS from Kazakh National Technical University in Almaty, Kazakhstan, specializing in information security. During the last year of her study, she worked on a security system that would recognize individuals by their brainwaves. After obtaining her BS she worked for a while with the Human Media Interaction Group at the University of Twente on the mind-controlled game Bacteria Hunt. Later she joined the Human Higher Nervous Activity Lab dedicated to the study of consciousness. Currently she is working in The Brain Machine Interfacing Initiative at Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg on the development of ECoG-based hand prostheses. She is avidly pursuing the project of creating a brain implant that would expand the consciousness of its bearer. Read more about this in Consciousness in mixed systems: merging artificial and biological minds via Brain-Machine Interface. This is a very multi-disciplinary effort... so if you're interested in neurobiology of consciousness, neurotechnology, neuroengineering, genetic engineering, brain-machine interfaces, machine consciousness and want to contribute — contact Alexandra!

1. new technologies to enrich
your mind
Expanding
consciousness with
Brain-machine
interfaces

2. Consciousness is…
experiencing brain processes

3. Consciousness is…
experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color

4. Consciousness is…
experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound

5. Consciousness is…
experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound taste

6. Consciousness is…
experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound taste smell

7. Consciousness is…
experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound taste smell pain

8. Consciousness is…
experiencing brain processes
different processes cause different qualia
color sound taste smell pain
let’s enrich this experience with new technologies!

9. Expanding experience
similarly to neurons,
brain implant
represents itself in
consciousness

10. Synthetic qualia?
but is it possible for artificial device
to create consciousness?
artificial neural network models
have been already developed
which demonstrate
rudimentary consciousness or some
aspects of consciousness
Edelman brain-based devices
neural networks simulations by
Dehaene, Gamez

11. Putting them together
how to integrate synthetic qualia
with those produced by brain?
learn from nature!
motion
sounds
shape
color
so how does brain bring them all together?

12. The miracle of broadcast
what makes the system conscious?
Information Integration Global Neuronal Workspace
Theory Theory
Tononi & Edelman Dehaene
• differentiation consist of • many specialized modules
many specialized modules • integration/broadcasting via
• integration each module subset of special workspace
profoundly affects activity of neurons
others
• consciousness can be
measured mathematically

13. The miracle of broadcast
what makes the system conscious?
Information Integration Global Neuronal Workspace
Theory Theory
Tononi & Edelman Dehaene
• differentiation consist of • many specialized modules
many specialized modules • integration/broadcasting via
• integration each module subset of special workspace
profoundly affects activity of neurons
others
• consciousness can be as Integrated Information: a provisional manifesto
(C) Consciousness
Tononi, 2008
measured mathematically

14. The miracle of broadcast
what makes the system conscious?
Information Integration Global Neuronal Workspace
Theory Theory
Tononi & Edelman Dehaene
• differentiation consist of • many specialized modules
many specialized modules • integration/broadcasting via
• integration each module subset of special workspace
profoundly affects activity of neurons
others
• consciousness can be
measured mathematically

15. The miracle of broadcast
what makes the system conscious?
Information Integration Global Neuronal Workspace
Theory Theory
Tononi & Edelman Dehaene
• differentiation consist of • many specialized modules
many specialized modules • integration/broadcasting via
• integration each module subset of special workspace
profoundly affects activity of neurons
others
• consciousness can be Neural mechanisms for access to consciousness
(C)
measured mathematically Dehaene & Changeux, 2003

16. The hardware
how to make the implant broadcast?
today’s brain-machine interfaces
DBS electrode
X many
connections are
not possible:
• can damage
everything
electrode grid • procedure too
X only those neurons cumbersome
close to the surface

17. The hardware
a new hopes
“sprouting” brain-machine interfaces
Harnessing the blood Growing up your own
supply network (R. Llinas) network of neuroagents

18. The hardware
interfacing in a brain-friendly way
neurons are their axons grow
grown on a chip through the brain
intermediate
layer between
brain and
communication channel is
electronics
natural for the brain

19. Applications
artificial bodies
tactile and
proprioceptive
feedback
for neuroprostheses

20. Applications
approach to “cracking neural code”
conscious neural implants provide a fresh approach to
the problem of transferring information into the brain
1. transfer happens when brain-implant system
becomes conscious
2. a mathematical tools for analyzing conscious systems
are being developed
3. these tools finally allow to calculate optimal design
for the implant enabling consciousness = information
transfer

21. Going further
exploring the minds of Others
would it be possible to
join conscious experience
of another being with
yours?
the major difficulty is
provided by functional
aspects of consciousness

22. Going further
the Consciousness Singularity
Ω
all consciousness on the
planet, living and artificial,
merged to a single one
the “functional problem”
disappears at the global
level

23. The end?
nop, just the beginning!
Thank you!