In April the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced contracts for a program to develop practical methods to help someone learn more quickly. In the ensuing press coverage, the endeavor drew immediate comparisons to The Matrix—in which Neo, Keanu Reeves’s character, has his brain reprogrammed so that he instantly masters kung fu.
DARPA is known for setting ambitious goals for its technology development programs. But it is not requiring contractors for the $60-million, four-year effort to find a way to let a special-forces soldier upload neural codes to instantaneously execute a flawless wushu butterfly kick.
The agency did award contracts, though, to find some means of zapping nerves in the peripheral nervous system outside the brain to speed the rate at which a foreign language can be learned by as much as 30 percent, a still not too shabby goal.
Sending an electric current into the vagus nerve in the neck from a surgically implanted device is already approved for treating epilepsy and depression. The DARPA program, in tacit acknowledgment of the fact that mandatory surgery might be unacceptable for students contemplating an accelerated Mandarin class, wants to develop a noninvasive device to stimulate a peripheral nerve, perhaps in the ear. The goal is not just to hasten the learning of foreign languages but also to facilitate pattern-recognition tasks, such as combing through surveillance imagery. To read more from Gary Stix, click here.