Dear readers, before you is the first chapter of the story, the plot of which will organically intertwine such different topics as, for example, biological immortality, the colonization of Mars, the Amish and a very interesting domestic computer EU1863. How? Don't try to guess, you'll never guess. You will see everything for yourself as the new chapters are unhurriedly laid out.
The assembler of switches and sockets Tonya, listening to Radio VOS, drew attention to an unusual announcement. A certain organization invites people who have recently gone blind to an experiment in neurophysiology. This is just her case. Intuition suggested that ads on such
the radio station can be trusted, and Tonya dialed the number.
She agreed that a representative of the organization would pick her up by car on Friday after work. And here she is - in the cabin, judging by the sound, clearly an electric car. Hardly Tesla, probably Leaf. But it is not important.
The office smelled good of coffee. The specialist asked the guest:
Have you recently gone blind?
- Yes. It happenedβ¦
- Most importantly, recently. Are you familiar with neuroplasticity?
- Certainly. For example, in blind dogs, the sense of smell is aggravated, and in humans, the sense of touch and hearing.
β Great example. At one time, the blind helped the air defense of the besieged Leningrad. And a person who has recently gone blind is left with a visual cortex, the huge computing power of which is not involved in any way. Not yet enabled.
- And you want to organize something like GPU computing on it?
It's too late for you to participate in our experiment. Your neuroplasticity is already moving irreversibly towards telepathy. Kidding.
- Yes, it's easy to guess. Okay, give me a neural interface.
...
β Tonya, congratulations, all three operations were successful. And on the heart, and on the neck, and on the visual cortex.
- On the heart? And on the neck?
βYour visual cortex is in a fierce battle right now. The rest of the brain tends to gradually grab it for their own needs. To prevent this from happening, she must solve some problems continuously. So powering the neural interface through something like Qi is not an option. This, that, they forgot to turn it on, well, you understand. It needs to work without any maintenance around the clock. And the heart ... Did they tell you at school why it beats, although it is soft?
- I do remember. It beats against the chest.
- That's it. The amplitude is big. Here we are, as in the famous song, and implanted a magnet right in the heart. And a fixed winding was placed nearby. And they passed a cable in a biologically inert sheath through the neck.
- Farewell, gymnastics for the neck?
- What are you, what are you. Four "squares", a supply of hoo, what will happen to him?
You can move your head from side to side.
Yes, I look like...
- You look the same. The seams are barely visible, sorry I can't show you that. Yes, and more. At any time, the neural interface can be checked with the built-in test utility. The idea is taken from Rain Man. Try to mentally multiply a couple of eight-digit numbers.
β Oh, it worked. What if you share?
- You can't. Only multiplication. The utility is simplified to the limit. KISS principle. Okay, ahead of the weekend, now we will go to the first test of our invention. Today there will be a competition between several autopilot developers. We will get serious
advantage: we have you, the participants in the experiment.
- I agree. By the way, do you have "Leaf"?
Let's move on to "you". By the way, I'm Petya. I have a self-propelled gun. But there are details from the Leaf in it. Only in the competition we will not use it. Because fifteen participants will fit only in Iveco Daily, which we bought cheaply from Transavtoliz. Instead of the back row of seats, they installed equipment for communication with neurointerfaces. Fifteen people with live coprocessors for one chest of silicon! Well, I'll be in the driver's seat. The organizers of the competition will put a camera there so that they donβt try to drive. You can only press the mushroom button if necessary, the rest is a disqualification. Well, you can sleep, or
think about anything, or chat with a neighbor. This will not affect the work of the visual cortex in any way.
...
- First place! Tonya, you probably heard how some pieces of foam plastic flew apart from competitors? But we don't. It was the organizers who, with decorations and moving mannequins, recreated in the smallest detail the situations in which the Tesla autopilot failed.
βBut our autopilot, while better, is impractical?β
β Because the programmer wrote this opus in one evening with heavy libraries. It will shrink - and instead of one autopilot, fifteen, even more effective ones, will turn out.
- Tell me, do I consider myself a cyborg now?
- I guess, yes.
And the cyborg has a beating heart. So romantic!
Historical reference: Petya's character has a real prototype. If he became an IT specialist and visits Habr, he will recognize himself by reading the next chapter. Well, if he went into neurophysiology, he probably laughs now, considering everything described to be impossible. But fiction does not tolerate too much
serious approach.
That's all for now, but in the next chapter we will fast-forward to 1993 and try to fit the EC1863 computer into the plot.
Source: habr.com