Brain as Game Controller - Valve and Gaben are Working on the Technology
Gabe Newell confessed in an interview that he is dealing with the issue of neural interface. According to Valve's boss, operating devices with our brains like in the Matrix can become reality earlier than we think. He also mentioned the impact of this technology on the gaming industry.
- Gabe Newell is working on the neural interface in his spare time;
- Valve's CEO believes that the technology will become reality much earlier than most people think. As a result, we can be witnessess to the vision from The Matrix coming true almost to the T;
- Gabe Newell believes that neural control will also apply to the video game industry.
In an interview with Ryan McCaffrey from IGN, Gabe "Gaben" Newell spoke not only about his company's failures (or more precisely, a certain card game failure). Valve's boss also mentioned the future, not limited to the next games without a three in the title. During the interview, he revealed that he is currently working on a neural interface, which allows for control of devices directly from the brain. For the time being, this is nothing solid, but only an activity that Newell is devoted to when, as he said, nothing else requires his attention. However, Gaben is serious about the applications of this technology and believes that the vision of the future from The Matrix is much closer to fulfilment than it might seem:
"We're way closer to The Matrix than people realize. It's not going to be The Matrix—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."
Gaben realizes that the implementation of neural control will not go without problems and tedious learning through practice, as always with completely new technologies. Most importantly, though not surprisingly, Valve's boss sees a potential for the video game market and beyond. In his opinion, anyone who is connected to any branch of the entertainment market will sooner or later have to think about it. It's possible that Newell is already thinking about using the neural interface in the Half-Life series, since he said in the same interview that he treats the games in the series as tools to face challenges in game design. Who knows, maybe this is the technology he is waiting for with the announcement of Half-Life 3? After all, Elon Musk claimed that the first prototypes of Neuralink's neural interface could be tested this year.
