http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/pentagon-preps-soldier-telepathy-push/
When the soldiers of the future want to communicate, they’ll read each other’s minds.
The agency’s budget for the next fiscal year includes $4 million to start up a program called Silent Talk.
The goal is to “allow user-to-user communication on the battlefield without the use of vocalized speech through analysis of neural signals.”
Before being vocalized, speech exists as word-specific neural signals in the mind. Darpa wants to develop technology that would detect these signals of “pre-speech,” analyze them, and then transmit the statement to an intended interlocutor. Darpa plans to use EEG to read the brain waves. It’s a technique they’re also testing in a project to devise mind-reading binoculars that alert soldiers to threats faster the conscious mind can process them.
The project has three major goals, according to Darpa. First, try to map a person’s EEG patterns to his or her individual words. Then, see if those patterns are generalizable — if everyone has similar patterns. Last, “construct a fieldable pre-prototype that would decode the signal and transmit over a limited range.”
Last year, the National Research Council and the Defense Intelligence Agency released a report suggesting that neuroscience might also be useful to “make the enemy obey our commands.” The first step, though, may be getting a grunt to obey his officer’s remotely-transmitted thoughts.
• Deutsches Forum •