Stanford Neurosciences Institute’s BAM-BAM system is in big trouble already. It has been sued for defamation of character by over eight thousand readers and may be charged with hate crimes.
BAM-BAM (Brains Acting Mad-Brains Acting Mad) uses Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology to rapidly replicate brainwaves and post them on Facebook. The software’s double name, BAM-BAM, stands for Brains Acting Mad twice.*
The software went haywire Tuesday afternoon, when one of the researchers decided to see how many people he could anger using only his thinking, just for fun.
He wore the machine while cursing up a blue streak, and his thoughts were translated to text by BAM-BAM’s software and posted to the social networking site. The majority of the output is not printable, but some examples were released:
Maybe if you had an IQ greater than that of a french fry.
What is that in your hair? Oh it’s your face.
Go chew a log.
Get that flying kite out of here.
My infant texts better than you do.
Batch.
Dumb.
Dumb batch.
Fracking batch.
Dumb fracking batch.
Suck it.
In response to the posts, there were over 30,000 hits on a link to obtain BAM-BAM’s contact info. The link was just below text reading: “Don’t sue me please, but if you have to, click here to find out how.”
“There were some typos, but overall it was a success,” said the researcher, who is one nasty piece of work and is also being sued. “No one guessed it was software, and it was fun. Better than my old job selling dog bile! I know it’s hatred, but it still feels like being famous.
“Maybe people think you can’t sue a machine,” continued the researcher. “But you sure can. It’s just like suing anybody else, maybe even a little easier.”
Stanford expects all of the cases will be dismissed, but the BAM-BAM project is still going strong.
“Thirty thousand hits in a week is good,” said a spokesperson. “But we are looking for something more like thirty thousand hits a day, either from a lot of people or from just few readers who are really incensed.
“With that volume we feel we can create a system that replicates a human being. We want BAM-BAM’s software to fade into the background, so much that people don’t know it is there, and they can just focus on the thinking we’re publishing.”
“Ideally we’ll have enough traffic to bring BAM-BAM down. That would actually be a real success.”
How will the scientists anger enough people to cause the BCI software to crash?
“We’ve scheduled a bunch of women’s rights activists to wear the kit while listening to Howard Stern broadcasts,” said a spokesperson. “Old ones, from back before he was so nice. That should trigger another good run.”
The experiment raises a question- if a machine can replicate thoughts, could children be taught to? Would it be possible to teach almost any subject this way, without any of the usual processes we think of as learning? Early experiments have focused on very young children.
“Well, we can probably teach them to curse,” said the researcher. “We’ve gotten pretty good at the curse words.”
Is the world ready for children who can curse in their brains, before they can speak?
“Ready or not,” said the researcher, “We definitely could do it.”
Here is a creepy video about Reflectors you definitely should watch:
Tired of hearing your own thoughts echo in your head? Try imagining the sound of a silent room instead of repeating an idea. Just quickly, then let it go.
And some thing to wash away that creepy taste
*Did I already say that?