经济学人下载:脑机接口:下一个前沿地带(2)

As our Technology Quarterly in this issue explains, the pace of research into BCIs and the scale of its ambition are increasing.
正如本期的《科技季刊》所诠释的那样，对BCI的研究步伐及其雄心壮志的规模正在加快和扩大。

Both America's armed forces and Silicon Valley are starting to focus on the brain.
美国军方和硅谷都正在开始聚焦人脑。

Facebook dreams of thought-to-text typing.
脸书梦想着思维转化为文字的打字技术。

Kernel, a startup, has $100m to spend on neurotechnology.
创业公司Kernel有1000万美元要花在神经技术上面。

Elon Musk has formed a firm called Neuralink; he thinks that, if humanity is to survive the advent of artificial intelligence, it needs an upgrade.
马斯克组建了一家名为Neuralink的公司。他认为，在人工智能降临之后，如果人类想生存下去，需要一次升级。

Entrepreneurs envisage a world in which people can communicate telepathically, with each other and with machines, or acquire superhuman abilities, such as hearing at very high frequencies.
创业者们描绘了一个身在其中的人们能够相互或是与机器之间进行心灵感应式的沟通交流、或是获得诸如以甚高频听声辨音这样的超人能力的世界。

These powers, if they ever materialise, are decades away.
如果想让它们成为看得见摸得着的东西，这些力量尚有数十年之遥。

But well before then, BCIs could open the door to remarkable new applications.
但是，在那之前，BCI可能对全新的应用敞开大门。

Imagine stimulating the visual cortex to help the blind, forging new neural connections in stroke victims or monitoring the brain for signs of depression.
设想一下刺激视觉皮层以帮助盲人、在中风患者身上再造新的神经连接，或者是为了抑郁迹象而监视大脑等诸如此类的应用前景吧。

By turning the firing of neurons into a resource to be harnessed, BCIs may change the idea of what it means to be human.
把神经元的燃烧转化为一种可资利用的资源，借此，BCI或许就能改变做人意义何在的思想。

Sceptics scoff.
怀疑论者不屑一顾。

Taking medical BCIs out of the lab into clinical practice has proved very difficult.
让医用脑机接口走出实验室进入临床实践，已经被证明是非常困难的。

The BrainGate system used by Mr Kochevar was developed more than ten years ago, but only a handful of people have tried it out.
被科其瓦使用的BrainGate系统早在十多年前就被开发出来了。但是，只有屈指可数的几个人试用过这种系统。

Turning implants into consumer products is even harder to imagine.
让植入物变成消费品甚至更难想象。

The path to the mainstream is blocked by three formidable barriers—technological, scientific and commercial.
通向主流的道路被三大的障碍——技术的、科学的和商业的——给堵住了。