'Sleep will become an app you run, where you input, 'I need this much sleep, this much REM,'' Newell says. But he also has a sales-pitch example of how mainstream acceptance could begin: with brain-control apps, whose interfaces resemble modern phone apps, for boosts like easier sleep. Newell uses the phrase 'science fiction' a few times in describing this possible BCI-driven future, along with overt references to The Matrix film series. Or, more plainly, 'Oh, I'll turn up my focus right now.

'Where it gets weird is when who you are becomes editable through a BCI.' How many years until the tentacles?Īs an example, Newell throws out a casual mood: 'I'm feeling unmotivated today.' He envisions a world where such a state of being is no longer seen as 'a fundamental personality characteristic that is relatively intractable to change' and shifts to 'feed-forward and feedback loops of who you want to be.' 'But that's not where it gets weird,' Newell continues. Later, he claims that 'the real world will seem flat, colorless, and blurry compared to the experiences that you'll be able to create in people's brains.' 'Our ability to create experiences in people's brains, that aren't mediated through their meat peripherals, will be better than is possible,' Newell asserts as part of his latest 12-minute video interview. In a Monday interview with New Zealand's 1 News, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell finally began teasing a more intriguing level of BCI interaction: one that changes the state of your brain. Most of what we've seen from Valve's skunkworks divisions thus far, particularly at a lengthy GDC 2019 presentation, has revolved around reading your brain's state (i.e., capturing nervous-system energy in your wrists before it reaches your fingers, to reduce button-tap latency in twitchy shooters like Valve's Counter-Strike). We've seen this most prominently with SteamVR as a virtual reality platform, but the game studio has also openly teased its work on ' brain-computer interfaces' (BCI)-meaning, ways to read brainwave activity to either control video games or modify those experiences. For years, the open secret at Valve (makers of game series like Half-Life and Portal) has been the company's interest in a new threshold of game experiences.

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