Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell talks about Valve’s exploration of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for games and more, in an interview with 1 news. Although Newell admits that the idea of having his brain interface directly with a computer sounds “indistinguishable from science fiction”, he says that developers would be making a “silly mistake” if they ignored the area.
Newell says Valve is currently working with OpenBCI headsets to develop open source software with the goal of making it easier for developers to understand signals coming from people’s brains. Basically, this allows the software to understand whether a player is enjoying a game and adjust the experience accordingly. For example, games can increase difficulty if they feel that the player is getting bored. But Newell’s most ambitious ideas involve actually writing signals to people’s brains, rather than just reading them.
Newell suggests that our ability to experience existing games is limited by our physical bodies – or “flesh peripherals,” as he puts it. But the direct interface with the player’s brain can open up much more possibilities. “The real world will look flat, colorless, blurry compared to the experiences you will be able to create in people’s brains,” says Newell.
Valve has spoken publicly about its work on brain-computer interfaces before. Back at the Game Developers Conference 2019, Valve’s leading experimental psychologist, Mike Ambinder, gave a talk on the company’s work in the field, VentureBeat reported at the time, covering many of the same possibilities and use cases that Newell describes in his recent interview.
In addition to its use in games, Newell says that BCIs can help in other areas of human life, such as sleep. “One of the first applications that I hope to see is better sleep – sleep will become an application that you run, where it says, ‘Oh, I need so much sleep, I need so much REM,'” he says.
Despite the possibilities, Newell admits that brain-computer interfaces carry their risks. He says the idea of a BCI making someone feel pain is a “complicated topic” and adds that the interfaces will be susceptible to viruses like other technologies, suggesting that they will need similar protections in place.
“Nobody wants to say, ‘Oh, remember Bob? Remember when Bob was hacked by Russian malware? This sucks – is he still running naked through the woods? ‘”, Jokes Newell. “People will have to be very confident that these are safe systems that do not pose any long-term health risks.”
Regardless, it seems that Valve still has no plans to commercialize its research. Newell says they are making such rapid progress that any device is in danger of becoming outdated after going through the slow marketing process. “The speed with which we are learning is very fast,” says Newell.
Other prominent companies currently exploring brain-computer interfaces include Facebook, which is working on a way to allow users to type with their brains, and Elon Musk’s Neuralink, which is trying to develop a less invasive way to connect a computer to the human brain.
You can find out more about Newell’s ideas about the potential of brain-computer interfaces in the full article 1 news, with whom he also recently spoke about Valve’s future game development plans.