Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/07/22/wearable-device-amplifies-your.html
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This definitely qualifies as a “Wonderful Thing!”
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Wearable device amplifies your reaction time
Oh, I need this for the next time I have to confront a Trumpanzie / Racist / Bigot / TGOP’er. Yeah, I need this…
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I would be happy to give up my agency if I could be prompted to give an Al Jaffee “snappy answer” in that situation.
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Sweet. That would really help with the slapping of Nazis. At least until the tech is turned against us.
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Well, time to get those boosted reflexes, I guess! 
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I assume “amplified” means “reduce” here, not the usual “makes bigger”, otherwise I own plenty of “wearable devices” (tight clothing, heavy parkas) that amplify my reaction time.
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A couple cans of cider amplifies my reaction time.
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There are some people who have those kind of reflexes without that amplifier
Look out Jeopardy, here I come!
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What I’m taking away from this is that the less you value the sense of agency, the faster you can boost someone’s reaction time. Now, how much does the military value a soldier’s sense of agency? Would a soldier who could be compelled to shoot before the conscious decision to shoot be a compromise that they (the Powers that Be, not the soldier themselves) could ‘live with’? I think the Black Mirror concept has seriously eroded my trust-framework.
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“…particularly important when considering the development of exoskeletons and other systems that bring us physically closer to machines for augmenting human capabilities.”
Yes. Machines. We’ll need to load up with these devices in case the robots come after us.
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What I’m getting from this, and skimming the paper, is that the usual order of things is that part of my brain decides to do something, it tells another part that “I’ve decided this” which records the decision, and then the thing gets done. Whereas it’s possible using these prostheses to get step 3 to happen sooner than step 2.
But that sounds great, doesn’t it? (Certainly to this juggler!) I think that I could, and would be happy to, get used to learning what I intended to do by watching myself going ahead and doing it rather than needing an internal conversation to herald such decisions aforehand.
I’ve heard of experiments exploiting this delay that went something like this. Cruel researcher tells subject, press this button whenever you feel like it, but don’t if it lights up. Subject says, it lit up by itself, even though I wasn’t going to press it! Cruel researcher thinks, “Yeah actually you were, you just hadn’t told yourself yet” because the light is cued by the initial decision.
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Or to put it another way; your body decides to move, and then your brain retrospectively makes up the memory of having decided to move, “that was totally my decision”.
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Well, yes, it was your decision. Your body and your brain are not separate things.
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“When the metal ones come for you (and they will), you’d better have Old Glory Robot Insurance” (and better reflexes).
Yeah. Conscious introspection is really just the debug console of the human self.
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Pfft! Communities of machine refugees will have to guard against human killers disguised in robot suits.
“Listen, and understand! That Human is out there! It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear! And it absolutely will not stop, ever , until you are dead!”
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I find it more useful to interpret this as, it wasn’t [many-of-you]r decision, as your brain and your brain (and your brain and…) are separate things. The unity of the self is a fiction, convenient for making a pithy description of experience to store in long-term memory, but not very accurate moment-to-moment.
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And next, a skull gun!
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