The InnerSpace Foundation and The IF Prize

“The IF takes the position that the most rapid timelines to solving humanity’s most serious problems — including providing complete and lasting cures for the most diseased and disabled — will be accomplished through widespread improvement of memory and mind, rather than through the best efforts of people who are well-meaning but of naturally limited abilities.” - Dr. Pete Estep

Apr 30th, 2008 (Palo Alto): Dr. Pete Estep will discuss the InnerSpace Foundation (IF), a new nonprofit being developed to promote and support neuroengineering approaches for the enhancement of memory and learning – biomedical goals that have the potential to improve not only the lives of those suffering from a specific malady, but everyone’s life.

This new organization is pursuing human intelligence enhancement as a humanitarian goal.

Looking at their website, Theodore Berger is involved. You may remember Berger as the team leader of the prosthetic hippocampus project that we mention here at Accelerating Future so often. On the IF website, Berger says, “Given sufficient funding, the development of a functional memory prosthetic device is as good as done.” Berger is Director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California. The rest of the advisers page is a list of world-class neuroscientists, many of which I’ve never heard of. The organization was founded by Preston Estep and James Clement.

The organization is offering two prizes: The IF Prize for Learning and The IF Prize for Memory. From the site’s FAQ:

“The IF Prize for Learning will be awarded for the successful development and demonstration of a device similar in function to a flash drive (a.k.a. thumb drive) for computers. This device will store standardized information that can be accessed by the brain (sometimes referred to as “downloading”) by thought alone (volitional access). This will allow someone to “learn” information in a completely revolutionary way. The other device will also be similar to a flash drive but will write or store a person’s memory information (sometimes referred to as “uploading”), which can be subsequently retrieved by thought.”

One more question from the FAQ:

Q: Are these technologies extremely futuristic, maybe even science fiction?

A: No. Nearly all of the technologies we use daily and take for granted, such as cell phones, airplanes, submarines, microwave ovens, and digital computers, once existed only as scientific possibilities and fiction. Ten years ago, thought-driven brain-computer interfaces were science fiction. But, recently, neuroengineers have made dramatic advances in interfacing electronic devices with the brain, and have demonstrated thought-controlled prosthetic limbs, computer desktop functions and gameplaying, and even basic speech synthesis.

Is this the beginning of a true intelligence augmentation effort?