[extropy-chat] Warwick: Could future computer viruses infecth umans?

[nsjacobus at yahoo.com]

What I was suggesting was a completely general neuro-biological 
interface that is capable of interacting in both directions. I'm not 
suggesting simply an interface that is used to control a PC with your 
thoughts (we can already do that). I'm taking about a general interface 
that allows the body to interact with an external computing system. 
Such as system would be able to convert digital signals into proteins, 
endorphins, nerotransmitters, etc and vice versa. This would enable a 
far more sophisticated interaction between the machine and biological. 
One would be able to write code on the computer to generate specific 
and complex biological reactions. Given such a scenario, a suitably 
constructed computer virus could have as it's payload an egg that 
causes the neuro-biological interface to generate a pathological state 
on the biological side of the interface resulting in a biological virus 
being instantiated.

What I'm getting at here is not simply a way to hook up a brain/mind to 
a computer. I'm talking about interfacing the biological system to the 
digital system.

The analogy of a virus not being able to run on windows and linux is 
not really apt here. A more accurate analogy would be a virus that is 
translated/compiled to run on a new operating system/architecture. 
Imagine a computer virus that contains it's own cross-compiler and it's 
own source code....that's a much better analogy to what I'm suggesting.

-NJ

On Nov 16, 2004, at 2:38 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote:

--- nsjacobus at yahoo.com wrote:
> Certainly. Again, it would depend totally on how the
> interface works.
> If the interface has the ability to "interpret"
> biological data and
> then to dynamically generate an appropriate code
> version of the
> bio-data, then one could imagine that a biological
> virus could be
> interpreted/compiled into some bizarre message/code
> etc on the computer
> side thus resulting in a virus.

Pardon me, but that is complete and utter ignorance.

A neural interface interprets *ELECTRICAL*, not
*BIOLOGICAL*, data: neural impulses and signals on
circuits.  It translates thoughts, not proteins.
True, neurotransmitters do convey part of the neural
impulses, and computer signals can be transmitted
electronically - but, again, it's pure information.  A
virus may be primarily "information" encoded in DNA or
RNA, but it also contains a mechanism to infect - in
computer terms, an executable portion, however minimal
in proportion to the information that may be.  The
nature of this executable portion is inherently
different between biological and comptuer viruses -
which is why the one can not translate into the other,
even if an infected person's brain is linked to a
computer.

Alternately, think about this: why are Linux machines
utterly safe from Windows viruses?  Different OSes;
a Linux machine has nothing that can even run a
Windows virus, unless the Linux machine has set up
specific emulation.  The difference between either OS
and the human body's "OS" is far greater still.  In
this context, a neural interface is the equivalent of
an IM client: it can transmit and receive information,
but that by itself does not inherently expose one OS
to viruses that can run on the other, even if said
viruses get transmitted over the connection.  To make
them compatible would require either radically
redesigning the human body to be like the computers
we have invented, or vice versa - neither of which is
likely to happen before we have the ability to upload
minds onto computers.  (An uploaded mind running on a
computer is a different story, but that's not what
we're talking about here.)

Now, if there was an "emulator" - some device to
auto-construct biological things based on input
commands - and this was in any way controllable
through the neural interface...one could possibly do
that, but that's not the same as the neural interface
itself nor is it an inevitable, or even likely,
consequence, because that's just asking for trouble.
It'd be kind of like making military control systems
directly accessible, and thus theoretically hackable,
from the public Internet.  Note that the US military
explicitly forbids doing that with its own systems for
this reason.

Hollywood may accept baseless technobabble as reality,
but this list tries to focus on actual science, which
really does define some things as impossible no matter
how plot-convenient they might be.  (Which makes it
more interesting than most Hollywood productions, IMO,
since one can not just wave one's hands to make all
problems go away.)
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Cheers,
Nige

--
  A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, 
butcher a hog, design a building, write a sonnet,  set a bone, comfort 
the dying, take orders, give orders, solve equations, pitch manure, 
program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die 
gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.

  -- Robert Heinlein