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Short Film Illustrates Military Augumented Cognition

AugumentedAlex Singer, director of TV shows including  Cagney and Lacy, Hill Street Blues, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, has created a film set in 2030 that portrays what life will be like in the days when augmented cognition (using computers and nanotechnology to improve brain functions including memory, attention, learning and comprehension) is possible.

DARPA commissioned the short film, which was written by Singer’s wife Judith. The couple screened the film in April 12 to a crowd of science educators at the Conference on Communicating Science to Broader Audiences at the University of Nebraska. The film is available as a free download on their website.

The film takes place at a command center where vigilant analysts protect the global economy by monitoring financial transactions and halting them if they appear illegitimate. Each of the analysts wears a headband that monitors their brain activity in order to determine how quickly they can absorb information and what form to present it in. A five minute add on at the end of the film attempts to explain the technology that would make this sort of information awareness possible.

The command center scenario is not terribly exciting, but perhaps it is not meant to be. Combined with the five minute documentary that follows it, the screenplay is very informative. The main thing that I find hard to swallow is their prediction that we will be able to cram dozens of extremely bulky sensors, including a functional MRI, into a tiny headband.