Brain-Machine Interface Technology (Neuralink, BrainGate)

There was some big news this past week in the realm of brain-machine interfaces, AI, and medical science. Since I don't see it being discussed elsewhere, I figured it's time to start a distinct topic.

Neuralink, a company founded by Elon Musk and others in 2016, has been developing a device that is orders of magnitude more capable than anything else on the market that will create a direct brain-to-computer interface. The product launch presentation occurred July 16, was livestreamed on their new YouTube channel, and was covered by all sorts of media.

The initial market for Neuralink's products will be people with injuries or diseases, such as quadriplegia or Parkinson's, that prevent them from using electronic devices like phones and computers, with human trials beginning in 2020. Obviously, the intention is for the company to expand in the medical field and eventually out of it into the consumer market, with the ultimate goal of creating a complete brain-to-AI interface.

Elon Musk has been on record many times as saying that general artificial intelligence (as opposed to the specialized kinds we use today) is one of the greatest potential threats to mankind, and that the only way to beat it in the long term is to join it: become a part of the machine instead of its slave or pet. More prosaically, having the ability to directly access machine memory and learning at a high rate of throughput is vital to our continuing evolution as a technological species. Imagine, for example, being able to "remember" HD video of anything rather than rely on faulty human memory or an external device. Imagine learning how to do any specialized task just by downloading the software for it.

Yes, there is peril here, but also lots of opportunity.

Anyway, the goal of this week's presentation is much more prosaic: introducing the initial generation of the device and recruiting employees. What they've got now is a chip substantially smaller than a penny, with thousands (3,000 in the this model) of nanoscopic filaments with electrode tips smaller than 60 nm. These will be inserted by a robotic device into the brain, via a very small incision in the skull, and placed at individual synapses. The controller chip will be mounted into the surgical gap in the skull to seal it, and interface with a Bluetooth receiver that you can wear behind your ear.

The chip is supposed to last decades and will communicate with your phone or other wireless device. The signal from the electrodes is recorded and processed and used to control the software. For example, you could think about moving your arm and control a pointer, or think about typing and control a keyboard. You'll train your brain to adapt to the device just like learning to ride a bicycle or speak a language.

This could be used to give paralyzed or brain-damaged individuals the ability to communicate and interact with the world; it could give Parkinson's patients back their ability to use technology; it could allow amputees to control artificial limbs as if they were part of their body.

Neuralink has already conducted animal trials, apparently including a monkey, which may (or may not) have been an unintentional slip on Elon's part during the presentation.

Science fiction has long predicted that we could go to a clinic, get chips installed in our brains, and have a direct interface to a computer. This is the first step towards making it a reality.

FYI, if you're going to hijack this thread into a discussion about Elon Musk's personal life or media reputation, please go away.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 20th 2019 at 11:40:21 AM

I can say with certainty that reading about having a chip inserted into a brain made me a little queasy,but the benefits though those are interesting and of great benefit to medical science ,but then it occurs to me there's lots of other applications for a brain chip,the military for instance would definitely use this technology

It reminds me of something I once saw on TV in the past, which went a bit more headlong into theoretical transhumanism than this but could be broadly summed up as "instead of uploading the entire brain, add silicon and offload more and more to that, steadily, rather than making an entire copy and just booting it up". Really made me think about the nature of consciousness.

Assuming for a moment that it works as advertised, I'd be willing to get one as an able bodied person. Being able to control my mouse/keyboard with my mind would be so cool.

I feel like we are a long, long way off from seeing these used outside of medical reasons. It is not an insignificant operation to "install" and imagine having to go under the knife if you experience a glitch or need a hardware update. And doing all that as an elective procedure?

> Being able to control my mouse/keyboard with my mind would be so cool.

Who needs a mouse or keyboard when your mind answers for you?Who even needs a computer when you can directly connect to the internet?

You could even establish sort of neural network through the chips

Directly interfacing to the internet sounds like it could result in a Brown Note.

Though I imagine that information overload could be a legitimate concern.

I imagine that there's a significant number of millenials who'd do it once companies start programming games specifically to interface with the new tech. I'm including porn there, of course, but not exclusively - for example, it might be used for a Pokémon GO app or for an MMORPG. (I somehow doubt we've learned anything from the latter series. )

I fear that this is one of those concepts that's going to start off great then get taken too far.

If we could magically stop at "help the sick/impaired" that'd be great. We're not going to stop at "helping people live their best life."

Probably not something I'm going to, or even desire to see perfected in my lifetime.

Doctor Who had the cyberman,who were the result of constantly replacing their organic bodies of cyber replacements to the point where they were no longer quite human,modern series literally had them as brains in a metal body,that's what immediately springs to mind you talk about going too far.

Edited by Ultimatum on Jul 20th 2019 at 9:49:39 AM

I'm all for it, myself.

I wonder how it would work on people under the Autism Spectrum like myself.

If it's voluntary, I'm not how one could take it too far.

I'm a transhumanist myself, though I do worry that a device like this could be used as some sort of mind reading device. Then again, maybe I'm worried over nothing in that area. Reading someone's mind with real precision is rather difficult, since thoughts are very complicated.

As if it was not already easy enough for big corporations to get data on you.

Or tough enough to avoid ads or spam or phishing scams.

This...this will inevitably lead to very bleak things in the future if it becomes widespread.

I would avoid this until regulation catches up with the tech. And that will take a very long time.

Definitely. Also, I do not want to know what a virus affecting this thing could do to my senses.

Depends-can this tech send info back into the brain? That sounds improbable. If it can’t, then in theory you should be safe from any form of attack or mind control.

I’d be more worried about it reading your mind, but I don’t think they’d be able to read it with any precision (though even reading vague emotions and the like could be scary).

It'd have to provide some degree of sensory linkage unless it was all one-way. If it allows you to receive information, that info can be an avenue for hacking.

It wouldn't necessarily have to be able to send anything to the brain to work. I imagine it would work using an external device to give feedback to the person with it. For example, if you're using it as a mouse, you would still need to be looking at a screen to know where the cursor is. Similarly, you might have to hook it up to a computer to know what's going on with it.

I think we can all rest easy that this device isn't going to be letting us watch porn with our eyes closed or sending our thoughts to the government any time soon. One of the things that was clear from the initial presentation is that it's at an extremely preliminary stage. What they need now more than anything is data: reams and reams of data on how the brain actually works.

In a weird way, it's similar to self-driving. You have to train a neural net to recognize all the scenarios, what leads to them, what the outcomes are, what the best path is through them. You need terabytes of data on many, many brains to piece together a picture of where everything is and what it does, recognizing that it's different for every person. At some point it'll reach a critical mass where the software is able to rapidly adapt to any brain, but that's a long way off.

The government is not what concerns me.

I acknowledge the relevance of the Deus Ex universe too much to let myself have a chip installed in my brain over something so trivial. Seriously, it's not even as having to move a mouse is an inconvience or disadvantage at all.

Ditto.

Imagine a chip that helps regulate endorphins or any other hormone related to a real condition people do, indeed, suffer from and could use treatment for... Now, think of the opioid crisis and those supplying the chips. And updates. And other incidental hooking devices not really aimed at those in anything other than the need they create in them.

Oh, there are ways to hack the brain, alright. We know a lot of them already. And, are crap at regulating predatory sales techniques, gambling and other addictive products.

I wouldn't trust programmable chips affecting the nervous system in ways more complex than a pacemaker until at least seventy years after the legislation catches up.

Transhumanism itself is cool. Unfortunately, the sociopathy endemic in current business models that would supply it to us? Isn't.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Jul 21st 2019 at 2:26:22 PM

To be fair, Deus Ex is really good at making Transhumanism look awesome. And while Deus Ex occasionally hits the nail on the head about society 75% of the time, the other 25% of the time it's almost intentionally ridiculous.

Having said that, I think a lot of transhumanists do tend to forget that cybernetics would actually be kind of a hassle. You'd need to get a surgery to have one installed, if it fails (like all fancy tech tends to do) you're down an organ, and there'd need to be a lot of regulation to keep it safe. Plus, it typically doesn't provide that much of a benefit compared to externally worn technology. For example, a cybernetic arm doesn't really do anything power armor can't, or a forklift or a robot.

I do think the neuralink and its imitators will be a common cybernetic in the future, though, but I don't think people will use much more than it. I would argue the future will mostly be lightly-augmented humans with externally worn technology like power armor or AR goggles along with non-sentient drones under their control. You wouldn't have a robotic arm, you'd call for a drone that would pick up heavy things for you. In other words: Purity-Supremacy.

I'm not sure that wholesale body part replacement is going to be as awesome as sci-fi makes it out to be. I believe that augmentation is going to be directed towards three primary goals, at least in the near future:

1. Restoring functionality for people who have lost it due to injury, illness, or other factors.
2. Allowing people to control external devices: computers, phones, even machinery with their minds.
3. Adding additional capabilities to the human brain, such as external storage, improved senses, and raw computing power.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 21st 2019 at 2:30:04 PM

Oooh shit.

I always thought brain-machine interface would be an inevitability, but not one that would come this quick. I was thinking along the line of 2080s-90s.