Tokyo Offers $1 Billion Research Grant For Human Augmentation, Cyborg Tech

The Japanese government is offering researchers up to $1 billion to develop ambitious human augmentation and cyborg technologies. From a report: As reported by the Nikkei Asian Review, the government will soon invite researchers and academics to submit proposals in 25 areas, ranging from technologies which can support our aging bodies to environmental solutions that tackle industrial waste. An unnamed government source told the publication that 100 billion yen ($921 million) has been set aside to fund these projects for the first five years of a decade-long support agreement. While some of the projects, such as cyborg technology, might appear whimsical, others are heavily grounded in problems that Japan faces. Industrial waste, an aging population, and the challenge of cleaning up our oceans have influenced some of the project areas on offer.

That figures

[rmdingler]

About the time when I'll be needing some augmentation, this tech will be log-jammed in FDA trails.

A glimmer of sanity

[ChromeAeonuim]

Good to see someone in the world is sane. It used to be, for the kings and emperors who had all the money they could ever hope to spend, they looked to ways to live longer, the one thing their effectively unlimited wealth couldn't buy. Sure, the fountain of youth or philosopher's stone turned out to be nothing more than myth, but they still tried.

Now we live in an age where science and technology are doing things that would seem like magic to those people, understanding so much more about how the world

Augmenting human memory?

[shanen]

Interesting that there is not a single visible comment yet. I guess it's just a cloud of AC driveling reduced to Subject: lines that no one cares about.

The idea I've been toying with involves figuring out how our memory works so that we can learn how to learn better. I still don't think we can compete directly with the computers, but we need to understand more about what we can do well.

Simple example to introduce the topic: Do non-vocalizing speed readers store memories differently? The initial hypothesis I'd like to study is that the visual cortex can be subverted to store words rather than visual elements. The entry point of the research might be fMRI examinations of various kinds of people while they respond to questions about books that they've read. You can even extend the idea to special groups, such as blind people who are highly fluent at Braille versus the ones who can only listen to books. What parts of their brains are active as they think about what they've read?

Returning to my original Subject:, after we know how memory works, then we can try to figure out how to make it work better. Or at least how to use it as effectively as possible. (I can even see a way for the google to make money off it...)

If you've seen some links to this sort of research, I'd appreciate your sharing. I haven't been able to find much. I think Karl Lashley was looking in the right directions, but he was born too soon.

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[hardwarejunkie9]

Good news! There are entire research programs dedicated to that. I think you'd do well to look up cognitive engineering, neuroergonomics, and the human factors discipline. So much of what we do in the development of interfaces and new technologies is really about the concept of 'cognitive offloading'. Natural Born Cyborgs, by Andy Clark, is also a really good introduction to the material. A friend of mine is also working on mathematical communication schema for blind math education. As for a specific resea

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[shanen]

Well, I'm afraid that I'm not as good at finding the good news you are referencing. I just finished another psychology book with quite a bit of fMRI stuff, but almost nothing on memory (though that reference to Lashley was fresh). A few weeks ago I read an entire and fairly recent book focusing directly on fMRI without finding any good leads. In previous years I had been focusing more on the neurological approaches, but it seems like memory is out of scope again, at least in all the sources I found.

From a c

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[hardwarejunkie9]

Don't get hung up on fMRI. It's one tool out of many, like fNIRS. It may be useful, but don't jump to a preferred tool or solution until you've defined your problem more clearly.

Instead, focus on a better understanding of memory. You wouldn't theorize about how to program efficiently based purely on analyzing the design structure of RAM. Sure, it's related, but there's a few more levels to it.

If you're looking at cognitive engineering, Engineering Psychology and Human Performance by Wickens et al is a g

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[hardwarejunkie9]

Additionally: if you want to use the visual cortex to store words, we already due that via mnemonics. The brain's structure is much more malleable and generalizable than we usually appreciate. Neuroplasticity is wild. So, long story short, I doubt a structural explanation for memory will really give you the leverage to improve learning and performance that more general education and cognition research would tell you.

As for your thought about brain activation in blind braille readers, I don't have an easy

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[shanen]

Ah, the "neuroplasticity" keyword. Quite important. I hadn't mentioned it, though I've been seeing it come up from time to time. Major topic in several chapters of the psychology book I just finished.

I thank you again, though I am familiar with most of the meta-research tools you mentioned. I even have a direct personal link to one of the leading researchers on blind interfaces, but you've reminded me to drop a line on the topic.

Partially a personal preference problem? I do prefer book-length presentations,

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[hardwarejunkie9]

On the paper vs. book consideration: it's really a matter of timing and access. Basically, books take time and effort and imply an existing audience for them. The book gets written as a distillation of existing research, not as the novel discovery of that research. They're more structured and authoritative, but they're more expensive to access and potentially delayed. I'd put it as a matter of reading books to see what a field has largely settled versus what current ongoing new concepts are. The cutting ed

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[shanen]

Just expressing concurrence with most of what you said, but my primary objective is clarity, not being up to the minute on the latest trends and speculations. The main place I sort of disagree with you is that I think it is easier to make suitable adjustments for the biases of the author when the author's perspective has been forcibly clarified in the process of writing a book.

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[AmiMoJo]

Interesting that there is not a single visible comment yet.

I was going to post something insightful, but I forgot what it was.

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[shanen]

Actually, by the time I had finished composing my comment, two visible comments had appeared. Minor ones. All of the rest of them were still collapsed.

Riddle me this Batman: Why do people post without their karma bonus? I can't believe that most people have such low karma, and the ACs mostly deserve (and earn) the lowest possible visibility, but commenting without the bonus seems to be paradoxical: "I feel strongly enough to write this comment, but I'd prefer that fewer people read it."

Then again, given the

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[Type44Q]

I haven't been able to find much.

This is because we are keeping program on the "down row" because it courd cause nationar embarrassment: program is research to augment penis.

Public masturbation of 1233630

[shanen]

Z^-1

Japan was always cyberpunk

[newsdee]

They need to get ready for all that Cyber stuff they've been promising over the last decades...

Elon Musk: heavy breathing

[melted]

Elon Musk: heavy breathing. Given that they already have a robot which sews electrodes into human brains, that money could come in handy if there aren't too many strings attached.

Gundam

[PPH]

Funded through the Ministry of Agriculture [gearfuse.com].

Bad idea

[AndyKron]

I bet they get shit in return for all that money.

Do you WANT Makaku??

[ChoosyBeggar]

Because THIS is how you get him!!

Strogg!

[pak9rabid]

Bring on the Strogg!