The head of the American gaming company, Valve Corporation, says a fast-paced future is fast approaching in which video games will use people’s brain signal data to adjust the experience they have, and even a future in that people’s minds can be adjusted through computers.
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The head of Valve Corporation talks about BCIs in an extended interview. Source: 1 NEWS
Gabe Newell spoke to 1 NEWS about the future of brain computer interfaces (BCI), an area he and other Valve staff have been studying for several years, and talked about how Valve is working to use the BCIs in the gaming sector.
Newell admits some of the ideas may seem unbelievable and said some of the discussions he is having around BCIs are “indistinguishable from science fiction,” but according to him, game developers would be making a mistake in not investigating BCIs in the short term future.
To help them do this, Newell said Valve is currently working on an open source BCI software project, which allows developers to begin interpreting signals that are read from people’s brains using hardware such as virtual reality headsets. modified (virtual reality).
“We are working on an open source project so that everyone can have high resolution [brain signal] read technologies integrated into headphones, in a lot of different ways, ”Newell said.
Valve has been working with OpenBCI earphones.
OpenBCI introduced in November a headset design called Galea, designed to work alongside VR headsets like Valve’s Index.
Open BCI Galea BCI headphone design. Source: OpenBCI
“If you’re a software developer in 2022 and you don’t have one in the testing lab, you’re making a silly mistake,” Newell said.
“Software developers for interactive experience[s] – You will absolutely use one of these modified VR head straps to do it routinely, simply because there is too much useful data. “
This data will usually consist of readings of the player’s body and brain, which can be used to find out if the player is excited, surprised, sad, bored, funny, and scared, among other emotions.
Mike Ambinder, senior experimental psychologist at Valve Corporation, plays a game while carrying an OpenBCI Ultracortex BCI Array. Source: Mike Ambinder / Valve Corporation
Readings can be used by developers to improve immersion and customize what happens during games, such as increasing the difficulty a bit if the system notices that the player is bored.
Aside from reading only people’s brain signals, Newell also discussed the reality of the near future of being able to write signals in people’s minds, to change the way they feel, or to offer better visuals than real ones. in games.
He said BCIs will lead to much better gaming experiences than a player could go through with their “meat peripherals,” such as 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 there was a way to repair anything effectively, which makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective, but does not reflect consumer preferences at all.
“Therefore, the visual experience, the visual fidelity that we can create: the real world will cease to be the metric that we apply to the best possible visual fidelity.
“The real world will look flat, colorless, blurry compared to the experiences you can create in people’s brains.
“What gets weird is when who you are becomes editable through a BCI,” Newell said.
For now, people agree that their feelings are how they feel, but Newell says BCIs will soon allow them to edit those feelings digitally, which can be as easy as using an app.
“One of the first apps I hope we’ll 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 advantage could be the reduction or total elimination of unwanted feelings or conditions from the brain, for therapeutic reasons.
Some people who wear RV headphones suffer from vertigo due to the mismatch between what they see and what their body perceives, but Newell said that right now, BCIs have advanced to a point where this vertigo could be suppressed. artificially and “it’s more a matter of certification than scientific.”
Valve Index virtual reality settings. Source: Valve Corporation
Despite several feasible applications for BCIs, Newell said he hesitates to stop Valve’s progress and turn it into a consumer product, when the speed of research is so high.
“The pace at which we learn things is so fast that you don’t want to say prematurely,‘ Okay, we close 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 synthetic body parts development projects in exchange for experience.
“It turns out that 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 software faster than it can be iterated into a prosthesis, so we offer them a framework in which they can research and work with patients.”
In case you were wondering, a cyber member of the Valve brand is probably off the table for now.
“Valve doesn’t work on creating virtual prostheses for people,” Newell said.
“This is what we contribute to this particular research project, and that’s why we have access to leaders in the field of neuroscience who teach us a lot about the neuroscience side.”
On the subject of prostheses, Newell said there are some interesting questions to answer around the development of artificial limbs.
“As soon as you do that, they say,‘ Oh, well, can we give people a tentacle? Our brains were never designed to have tentacles, but it turns out that brains are really flexible. “
Neuroplasticity is a term that refers to the ability of our brain to re-learn how to operate the body when something changes.
Neuroplasticity also takes place when we learn to use tools: an example would be a builder who used a hammer for so many years that it feels like a natural extension of his body.
Newell gave a personal example of neuroplasticity. In 2006/07 he underwent two corneal transplants and after surgery a phantom image of some objects in the field of view between the eyes occurred due to the change in color perception.
The disease disappeared after a few weeks, as his brain readjusted to the new entrance that was received from his eyes.
So the future of BCIs sounds interesting, but what about the darker side?
Newell briefly mentioned that BCIs could potentially be used to cause physical pain to people, even pain beyond their body.
“People could be made to think [are] injured injuring his tool, which is a complicated issue in itself, “he said.
Game developers could take advantage of this feature to make a player feel the pain of the character he plays as when he is injured, perhaps to a lesser degree.
Like any other form of technology, Newell says there is a certain degree of confidence in using it and that not everyone will feel comfortable connecting their brain to a computer.
He says no one will be forced to do anything they don’t want to do and that people will probably follow others if they have good experiences, comparing BCI technology to cell phones.
“People will decide for themselves if they want to do it. No one makes people use a phone,” Newell said.
“I’m not saying everyone loves and insists they have a brain computer interface. I’m just saying that each person will decide for themselves whether or not there is an interesting combination of features, 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 that than other computer systems,” Newell said.
“Right now, you have to entrust all your financial data, all your personal information to your technology infrastructure, and if the people who build these people do a bad job, they will lead consumer acceptance to a cliff.
“No one wants to say,‘ Oh, remember Bob? Remember when Bob was hacked by Russian malware? That was a sucker – is it still running naked through the woods? “Yes, people will have to have a lot of confidence that these are safe systems that have no long-term health risks.”
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