Post by myrthman on Jan 12, 2011 7:41:58 GMT -5
(This could also easily go in the near-future genre)
I wish I'd heard of this project while it was still active; it would have been fun to participate. However, the article I read at wikipedia suggested an idea based on the citizen science concept and evolving technology.
In the future, not only is the public brain trust tapped by science via group testing and online image chronicling, but directly, via some sort of wire or wireless device. Volunteers are given the opportunity to put the unused portion of their brain power to work, in synergy with others', for top government and science research projects.
Maybe there's a nanotech network in special pillows that accesses a person's unused memory and synaptic processes while she sleeps. Maybe retinal scanners probe the recesses of our minds while we're about our day-to-day business. The research is done in the background. Our private thoughts and memories are guaranteed to be kept private; only our "random access memory" is used to boost the collective human-computer's analytical processing.
Seems to be many directions this could take. What would computers be unable to study that multiple human minds could? Surely images of other galaxies and astronomical objects would be only the beginning. What about the complexity of decoding all DNA for every plant and animal species on the planet (or several planets)? Of course, there'd have to be a glitch to make a good story. Maybe our privacy is not guaranteed after all. Maybe some "volunteers" are actually not. Maybe one person taps into the brain trust of all the volunteers and becomes a walking super-encyclopedia with dangerous access. Maybe there's a policing unit developed to protect volunteers (similar to that in Inception?).
What thoughts do you have? (That we aren't already aware of--thanks for jacking in!)
Related links:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_zoo
www.galaxyzoo.org
--
Edit: After finishing the article and further exploring galaxyzoo.org, I realized there are still some ongoing projects. Perhaps you'd like to volunteer now before the plot gets too thick?
I wish I'd heard of this project while it was still active; it would have been fun to participate. However, the article I read at wikipedia suggested an idea based on the citizen science concept and evolving technology.
In the future, not only is the public brain trust tapped by science via group testing and online image chronicling, but directly, via some sort of wire or wireless device. Volunteers are given the opportunity to put the unused portion of their brain power to work, in synergy with others', for top government and science research projects.
Maybe there's a nanotech network in special pillows that accesses a person's unused memory and synaptic processes while she sleeps. Maybe retinal scanners probe the recesses of our minds while we're about our day-to-day business. The research is done in the background. Our private thoughts and memories are guaranteed to be kept private; only our "random access memory" is used to boost the collective human-computer's analytical processing.
Seems to be many directions this could take. What would computers be unable to study that multiple human minds could? Surely images of other galaxies and astronomical objects would be only the beginning. What about the complexity of decoding all DNA for every plant and animal species on the planet (or several planets)? Of course, there'd have to be a glitch to make a good story. Maybe our privacy is not guaranteed after all. Maybe some "volunteers" are actually not. Maybe one person taps into the brain trust of all the volunteers and becomes a walking super-encyclopedia with dangerous access. Maybe there's a policing unit developed to protect volunteers (similar to that in Inception?).
What thoughts do you have? (That we aren't already aware of--thanks for jacking in!)
Related links:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_zoo
www.galaxyzoo.org
--
Edit: After finishing the article and further exploring galaxyzoo.org, I realized there are still some ongoing projects. Perhaps you'd like to volunteer now before the plot gets too thick?
