Our Cyborg Future

The only way to beat the AIs is to join with them. Our cyborg future is well illustrated in this video from Bertolt Meyer who has an artificial arm that he has hacked to control other devices.

I am in the process of building a device (the “SynLimb”) that attaches to my arm prosthesis instead of the prosthetic hand. The SynLimb converts the electrode signals that my prosthesis picks up from my residual limb into control voltages (CV) for controlling my modular synthesizer. The SynLimb thus allows me to plug my prosthesis directly into my snythesizer so that I can control its parameters with the signals from my body that normally control the hand. For me, this feels like controlling the synth with my thoughts. I show the prototype(s), explain how we put it together and how it works, and do a little demo.

In one way this is obvious. There is very little difference between sending electrical signals from the brain to the hand and then using the hand to control the synthesizer and sending electrical signals from the brain through the artificial hand directly to the synthesizer. As Meyer notes the whole process feels very natural. The fact that it is obvious and natural will make adoption very quick.

Hat tip: John Backus