In a uncommon interview, Gabe Newell has mentioned he’s been spending “a lot of time” wanting into brain-computer interfaces. “The Matrix is a lot closer than people think”, he says, and it’s going to be “an extinction-level event for every entertainment form that’s not thinking about this.”
He additionally talks about Half-life: Alyx, his fondness for Doom, and why he can’t cease enjoying Dota 2.
Here’s the total interview with IGN, although I’ve jumped straight to Matrix chat.
Newell does qualify his optimism a little bit. “It’s not going to be The Matrix”, he says: “The Matrix is a movie and it misses all the interesting technical subtleties and just how weird the post-brain-computer interface world is going to be. But it’s going to have a huge impact on the kinds of experiences we can create for people.”
“It turns out that your brain has really good interfaces for some things and really badly designed, kludge-y interfaces for doing other things, and the fact that your immune systems gets involved in your perceptions of temperature means there are all sorts of weird parts of your brain that participate in the sensation of being cold, whereas things like your motor cortex or your visual cortex are much more tractable problems. And that’s what I mean. We’re going to learn a lot as we proceed as to what things work and what things don’t, what things are valuable to people and what things are party tricks that don’t really matter in the long run.”
Brain-computer interfaces have been round for some time, however in very restricted kinds, and primarily to assist folks with neurological impairments. In a GDC talk last year, Valve’s resident experimental psycholgist Mike Ambinder confirmed they didn’t have any initiatives underway. This may nicely quantity to nothing, like when Valve received enthusiastic about measuring your sweat.
It may additionally legitimately be superb. Who hasn’t fantasised about properly-immersive, whole-brain fooling VR? I feel there’s advantage, too, in Newell’s emphasis on unpredictable developments. He compares the hypothetical tech to “trying to describe the internet to someone who’s never used the internet before”. A brand new mode of interacting with each bodily and digital worlds is sure to throw up wild experiences.
But, you recognize, books aren’t going wherever.
