U.K. lab connects brains to quantum computers

In a room at the University of the United Kingdom of Plymouth,

he holds a Ph.D. the student sits at the computer, eyes closed as if meditating.

On his head, there is what looks like a black swimming cap, but it is actually an electroencephalogram (EEG) sensor that senses electrical activity passing through his head.

In front of him, in the monitor, is a picture of a two-point wireframe labeled “1” and “0.”

In the center of the globe, like a one-sided clock, there is an arrow rotating between two points. As the student shifts his focus from relaxation to open eyes, the arrow is moving and moving. Every few seconds, you enter a new digit.

It may not seem like much (and at the moment,

it is still very early in the job), but it is still fun.

As the student transforms his brain patterns from calm to strong and back again,

he produces alpha and beta waves and is then used to trick imitative qubits – the first unit in quantum computing,

featuring quantum physics – using nothing superfluous. of thought.

Working

“If you train yourself to produce these two types of waves, you can send some kind of Morse code to a computer,” professor Eduardo Miranda of the University of Plymouth told Digital Trends. “The problem is that it takes eight seconds to produce one command at the moment because the EEG is slow. We need a lot of analysis to analyze it. And this analysis is not so true, so we need to keep looking at it more often to see if the code really is what one wants to produce. ”

Welcome to the staggering, testing world of quantum programming world in the form of a brain-computer interface. According to its creators, it is the beginning of the formation of what the group calls the Quantum Brain Network (abbreviated as QBraiN). And it has the power to do a lot of things that you should be happy about.

More than the sum of its parts or a toaster-fridge?

If you’ve seen any of the most exciting glittering technology right now in the technological world, you’ve probably come across the names of the brain-computer interface (BCI) and quantum computer.

BCI is the term used for a computer control system using brain signals. Although all devices with hand-held inputs are technically controlled by the brain – although often using a finger-like coordinator or voice – BCI makes it possible to send these instructions to the outside world without first extracting from the brain to the toes or muscles

Birth of Quantum computers

Quantum computers, on the other hand, represent the Next Big Thing in a computer.

It was first proposed in the 1980s, and although it is now beginning to become a technological reality, quantum computing refers to a completely new way of computer design.

Not only will it be much more powerful than existing computers, but it will also make it possible to accomplish things that would not even happen to the millions of computers today.

They may if you believe their supporters, be the answer to the inevitable conclusion of the Moore Law as we know it.

However, while BCIs and quantum computers are undoubtedly the most promising technologies from the same area in history,

the question is why integration – which is exactly what the UK research alliance Plymouth, the University of Spain of Valencia, and the University is all about. of Seville, Kipu Quantum of Germany,

and the Thai University of China want to do the same.

Taking two technologies you must have and integration does not always work, however.

Aim

Technologists want nothing more than to combine promising ideas or technologies with the belief that, when put together,

they will represent more than the sum of their parts. Sometimes this works brilliantly. As financier Andrew Chen explains in his book The Cold Start Problem,

Instagram has expanded the emergence of camera-enabled smartphones and the effects of a powerful communication network to become one of the fastest-growing apps in history.

Taking two technologies you must have and integration does not always work, however. Apple CEO Tim Cook once joked that “you can turn a toaster and a refrigerator, but, you know, those things probably won’t please the user.”

So what makes a quantum-controlled brain a former model, a member of an over-the-sum-of-its-parts club, and no signs of a toaster refrigerator problem?

In a paper published in early 2022, the above-mentioned research consortium writes: “We anticipate the development of highly connected networks of wetware and hardware, processing ancient and quantum computer systems, guided by brain-computer interfaces and AI

Such networks will include unfamiliar computer systems and new ways of working with the human machine. ”

Use cases galore

Most importantly – and, if applicable, the fastest change – is the use of the Quantum Brain Network that will help BCIs work better. Our brains are incredibly complex.

Proud of 100 billion neurons, they form large, quadrillion networks of never-ending connections using small electrical impulses.

Today, science is able to record how the parts of the brain communicate, from the smallest interaction of neurons to the neuron to the vast interactions between neuron networks.

But doing this often involved more sophisticated techniques, such as the use of magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which can only be obtained from advanced research labs.

The BCI test based on the dull EEG metal is usually relatively simple in terms of what it can do: Say, decide whether one is thinking blue or red, or making a plane without going up or down or left or right. They are no different.

The quantum metaverse?

Then there is the opportunity to use the brain to interact with the quantum computer itself,

rather than just use it to process bootstrap.

Drawbacks

“In the future, it may affect quantum regions in a quantum-oriented quantum machine,” Miranda said. “I will not say that we will be able to brainstorm with quantum computers, but we will be able to communicate directly with quantum states.”

That would be to configure the quantum computer not in a weird way of displaying, but by thinking about what output you want and letting the machine edit the correct code quickly.

It’s like an evolutionary computer (where you state what output you want and allow the machine to figure out a creative way to go) in superposition steroids.

Some of the researchers in the project are also excited about the prospect of creating what they call quantum metaverse. (And if you think the current concept of the normal metaverse is not clear at the edges, try and wrap your head in quantum proportions!).

Somehow, though, the idea makes sense. A.I. Researchers have long speculated – and, indeed, this supports the whole idea of ​​true artificial intelligence – that brainwashing can be replicated with hardware and software.

Since at least the 1990s, some physicists and mathematicians have been arguing about the concept of quantum consciousness.

For example, a 2011 paper co-authored by world-renowned Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose states that “consciousness depends on the biological calculations in the collection of microtubules within brain neurons,

That these quantum numbers are related to and regulate the functioning of neuronal, and that Schrödinger’s continuous transformation of each quantum calculation ends in line with the Diósi – Penrose (DP)’ goal of reducing the purpose ‘of quantum states. ”

“There is a lot of philosophical debate going on that the brain works like a quantum computer,” explains Miranda. “People dream that maybe it is possible that if we were able to connect our brains with a quantum machine,

then we become a machine extension or the machine becomes an extension of our brain.”

(Miranda said she was “completely unsure” about the argument that the brain works like quantum computers.)

Step one in a long journey

At the moment, most of this is far – and far away. Progress will need to be made in a number of areas:

Quantum computing (the first demo is made using quantum computer simulation),

the usefulness of quantum algorithms, continuous advances in brain learning technology, and much more.

The next step, says project professor Enrique Solano, director of the research team Quantum Technologies for Information Science (QUTIS),

“found a trapped-ion [quantum computer] or one based on spin qubits, operating at room temperature. and to ensure compliance with the times of delay and compliance. ”

Unlocking this Pandora Box of a quantum-controlled quantum computer will be difficult. We talk about the years before this worked on more than a few promising demos. But big new things often take time.

“The brain is the most complex thing we know so far in the universe,” Solano told Digital Trends. In this sense, if you connect it with an old visual interface,

you should adopt its simplified model with fewer biological and intelligent features. ”

Quantum computing could be the solution to that problem. Welcome to the Quantum Brain Network, for sure.