UVVY ISLAND - Ever wish for a personal memory upgrade? According to world renowned Professor Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, England, this dream could become reality in the near future. A group of 50 residents listened to a presentation hosted by Giulio Perhaps, Manoj Undercity, xyryx Simca, Arcturus Gregory and the World Transhumanist Association.

Warwick (KevinW Zenovka in Second Life) carries out research in artificial intelligence, control, robotics and biomedical engineering. He has built several robots that make basic decisions. A film was shown in which one robot senses and responds to sound by moving in the direction of the sound. Another robot searches for power on a grid below it, which Warwick indicated was its innate response. Lights came on when it located power, and this was equated as “happiness” for the robot. Warwick said that our constructed robotic memory power is about equal to what bees and wasps have naturally, so we have a long way to go to get close to human brain processing power.

An audience member commented that humans read books and machines can read books. Do machines get something from the reading, more than we suspect? Researchers are look for an answer.

A rat was fitted with a chip device as well as a video camera for monitoring its movements. It was possible to train the rat to move within a maze by sending messages to the rat’s nerves which it learned to interpret. This could be useful for finding a bomb in an area without having to send humans in.

A fascinating segment of the presentation was the report of the implanting of a chip into Warwick’s arm in 2002, making him the first cyborg. The chip remained in his arm for three months. Untested, this implant could have made him crazy and carried health risks, as previously something of this kind was only tested on chickens. Instead, Warwick worked to identify and then control the nerve signals sent to his brain so that he could turn on lights or use the Internet to get a robot hand to mimic his movements.

Next, Warwick’s wife Irena agreed to a chip implant as well. A test was conducted, blindfolding and separating Warwick and his wife on either side of a room with groups of researchers around each so they could not see each other. Irena moved her finger and Warwick said “I actually felt a charge running up my index finger! It ticked I suppose. I yelled out ‘Yes!’ and I was right. We had established nervous system to nervous system communication.” No false positives were found, and Warwick accurately determined each time his wife moved by only listening to the nerve signals coming to him. “My brain knew it was my wife sending a signal. It felt like my wife communicating with me.”

“Little is known about how nerve signals work,” Warwick said. “The nerve appears around 7 KHz wave frequencies and tying them into movements is very difficult. We have a lot to learn.” Learning about the nerve signals can offer therapeutic help for those with Parkinson’s disease and other nerve damage illnesses.