The mind-controlled bionic hand that also controls your mind

From speech recognition to prosthetic legs, we've all but perfected the art of forcing computers to listen. Whether our input comes in the form of keystrokes or action potentials, by far our biggest concern in robotics has been finding ways to make machines better at understanding what we want from them. This week, a team of Swiss researchers announced that it will begin testing a new "sensing" bionic hand, one which looks to explore our ideas about the relationship between brain and machine. Now, it is the robots' turn to speak.

Most of us are familiar with the concept of training a computer, perhaps teaching a speech recognition program the nuances of our voice or accent. There is little conceptual distance between how you say the word "roof" and how you try to clench a fist; to a computer with the proper recording device, it's all just numbers in a matrix. When an unnamed Italian man gets his experimental new hand, however, it is the human who will have to learn an alien tongue. The system uses nanoscale wires fused to the ends of the median and ulnar nerves to allow communication both to and from the brain -- but even properly attached, a robotic pressure sensor is an alien thing. The first step in becoming a cyborg? Figuring out which finger is which.

It's a bit unclear how the sensory signals are being generated, whether they are designed to mimic signals from the corresponding section of the other hand, or will simply rely on the patient to build associations between each type of stimulation and its sensory meaning (See: Researchers give animals the ability to feel infrared light; humans next). The latter seems more likely, given the newness of the technology, so the patient will have to go through the process of sensory substitution(Opens in a new window) before the effect is complete.

The so-called electrotactile system that is to allow cyborg sensing is currently a bit ghoulish in appearance, with wires piercing the patient's forearm like something out of an '80s science fiction film -- frontier science rarely has designers on hand until way down the line. An earlier version of this same technology was put into practice in 2009, and the patient reported being able to feel pinpricks in three different areas of the hand.

More casual use -- the unconscious integration of mechanical and biological sensory information for pulling on a shirt or slapping an alarm clock -- will require much higher fidelity in both number of sites and types of stimulation. Perhaps most importantly, levels of stimulation should greatly increase the usefulness of a grasper, so patients can literally feel how tightly they are gripping a glass and modulate the pressure accordingly. (See: Paraplegic woman uses mind-controlled robotic arm to feed herself a chocolate bar.)

Interestingly, this technology went through its zygotic stages in the form of remote sensing; in the age of ubiquitous WiFi, there's no reason your hand has to be physically attached to you. Once we're making steady progress toward feeling that which is right in front of us, the next next frontier could easily be feeling that which is far away.