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Mind Tech - HRogge - 04-13-2014
Finally took an hour to clean the text up and integrate the input from CG about the Neural Induction Helmet tech.
As we discussed in the "virtual pilot" thread I removed the ability to run mindstates on computer hardware or moving them between different bodies. This part became "ongoing research, do not hold your breath".
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Mind Tech
» The ability to record, share and integrate memories, skills and feelings shaped Catgirl Industries as much as the existence of Handwavium itself. It taught us a new way to form a society. «
-- Excerpt of Cathy's “The logarithmic way through the Singularity”, Jenga 2051
»The technology is very useful, but its abuse potential is creepy as hell. We had some talks about dangerous tech and keeping a few friends informed when we finally discovered what was going on on Jenga.«
-- Captain Shepard of the Normandy, Space Patrol
The Mind Tech of Catgirl Industries is a mostly confidential technology, which is normally not shared with people outside of Catgirl Industries. Most of the applications and research results are directly based on a technology acquired from a Boskonian Mad called Quattro in 2015.
Streams of thoughts sensor (SOTs)
The development of the Streams of thoughts sensor began in 2015, shortly after the first modules of Jenga were finished. With the fresh memory of the horrors Quattro had done to them and the approval of Great Justice, Catgirl Industries began to look for a way to detect manipulations of a living mind.
The starting point of their experiments was a stripped down Machine-Brain interface, simplified enough to become a read only sensor. After some failed attempts to decrypt the memory fragments the detector were displaying on the connected computer, the catgirls discovered that natural memories had a huge number of interconnections, but still were organized in some kind of linear order.
In time comparison of natural and artificial memories showed that natural ones had a different quality of connectivity among each other, which made the artificial ones standing out in the sensor data.
It took years, but in mid 2017 Catgirl Industries had created a prototype detector that was able display parts of a person’s memory as some colored line pattern, with artificial memories recognizable by a skilled operator. It took more years until the prototype became mobile and reliable enough to be used by specially trained investigators of GJ.
Memory Synthesis
Instead of keeping their research to detecting or maybe even preventing the manipulation of memory, Catgirl Industries also tried to look into a different kind of usage of Quattros technology. While storing a complete mind wasn’t possible for the computers on Jenga in the early years, the development of the SOTs allowed the catgirls to see the glimpse of another option.
In late 2018 Catgirl Industries successfully copied the complete memory of a language skill from the mind of a catgirl into a computer. After experimenting with the extracted data for quite some time, Catgirl Industries discovered that it was also possible to add them to the memory of another catgirl, allowing them to add the ability to speak the language within a few weeks instead of months or years.
Soon afterwards many catgirls at Jenga began to record knowledge skills of their own, trading them between each other. The creation and trading of advanced knowledge skills became an alternative currency within Catgirl Industries, authors of new knowledge software updates (also called ‘knowsoft’) could call in all kind of small favors from other catgirls.
Active Memory Syntheses is not about overwriting memories and experience in the brain, but about adding to the existing ones. While modified and extended over the years, it still use a similar hardware than Quattro used in 2015. In 2023 Catgirl Industries is still finetuning the process for non-catgirl brains to offer a 'language quick learning' service in the future.
The Third Eye
The Third Eye has its own page.
Neural Induction Helmets
Catgirl Industries was not the only party that got their hand on Quattros memory manipulation technology.
The Neural Induction Helmets are a Brain-Machine interface developed at Prometheus Forge. Its most common usage was as the interface of the KoFen system.
Following the Quattro Incident, the crew of Prometheus Forge spent a lot of time designing and making countermeasures for Brainhacking. While they focused on cybernetic interfaces, they did have experience with their existing Brain-Machine interface.
While not very public, the tech was used in several other places (fighter pilot helmets, the Mk. IV Patrol watches and comlinks among others) so it was also examined for possible misuse.
In normal use, the neural induction field reads and interdicts the senses of the user. It also tapped into the deep structures of the brain, connecting to what the technology’s creator (Robin Cain of the Supers) termed the ‘Intrinsic Self Image’ (part of what the Cybers called the Ghost line).
While it was possible to modify the tech to be dangerous, the efficiency of the induction field dropped off dramatically if done making it a losing proposition. The fact was the neural induction field was not strong/focused enough to read or overwrite memories.
Still, Prometheus Forge worked out tweaks to the design that improved its usual purpose but blocked most of the risk and gave it to the designer, as well as giving the risk assessment to Great Justice.
Mind Backups
While it was easily possible with Quattros tech to make a full copy of a person as long as there is a second body to upload the copy into, storing the full mindstate of a brain was difficult until mid 2020's. Advancements in the Streams of Thought sensor technology combined with new storage systems finally allowed a scientific breakthrough. At the same time the analysis and comparison of the global thought patterns also lead to a better compression. As soon as Moore’s Law and a new computer substrate made it easier to store multiple mind states in the storage arrays at Jenga, it became quite popular for many catgirls to keep a backup of themselves in a safe system.
Most of these backups have been encrypted with a shared key system, allowing a group of friends to access the backup together and revive a catgirl in case of a fatal accident. Mind states are considered too precious to allow any single person access to them and only Information-theoretic secure algorithms are allowed to be used in the process.
The content of a Mind State can only be run on the brain they have been recorded from, or on a brain of a medical clone of this body. An attempt to upload a Mind State to a different brain leads to data loss and a shallow copy. Catgirl Industries has an ongoing research project to resolve this issue and to run Mind States within simulated brains on a computer.
Trivia:
- There is an agreement of the Great Justice and Catgirl Industries that they do not try to market any Mind Tech related products without getting a clearance for them.
- HRogge - 04-16-2014
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