
Neuralink Progress Update [video] - lelf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVvmgjBL74w&hn=1
======
mrwnmonm
A comment from techcrunch:

As the scientist who first published data on neuronal firing in the brain of
freely-behaving primates (available at: Ludvig N. et al., 2001, Journal of
Neuroscience Methods, vol. 900, pages 179-187) , I am curious to see this
demonstration. I also know that in order to make any meaningful link between a
human mind and a computer one must record the identified firing of at least 5
billion neurons from the "mind-generating" association cortex in behavioral
and environmental contexts -- which is absolutely impossible with each and
every currently available and envisioned electrophysiological technique loved
or not, claimed or not, advertised or not by Musk.

\--- Nandor Ludvig, MD, PhD

Source: [https://tcrn.ch/3b3YGGC](https://tcrn.ch/3b3YGGC)

~~~
jv22222
Nandor Ludvig follow up comment:

> I did watch this presentation for an hour -- but it was so painful for me to
> experience this scene of incompetence and mockery of neuroscience getting
> worldwide attention simply because of Musk's money (while true scientists
> lose their jobs because of the lack of NIH or NSF grants for their quality
> research) that I add some sentences here and just leave. They did not show
> how their robot-controlled microelectrodes actually penetrate into the
> cortex and find cells -- because, as every single-cell recording expert
> knows, this is the difficulty: not just to move each microelectrode close
> enough to the targeted neuron but to make sure they can be kept there for
> long periods while not damaging the cell either. To do this, as claimed by
> Musk with 1,000 microelectrodes within an hour with "surgery without
> anesthesia", in the pulsing brain with no neurosurgeon present is not just
> impossible but even its proposal is an outright embarrassment for people
> with more education than the Twitter-audience encouraged to send their
> questions. Enough. Carl Sagan's prophetic 1996 book "The Demon-Haunted
> World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" predicted an America sinking in
> "superstition and darkness". This time has arrived. -- ---Nandor Ludvig, MD,
> PhD

I must say, it does feel like history repeating itself. It seems that anyone
who is an expert in a field that Musk enters ALWAYS bets against Musk.

And then, in the fullness of time, they are often proven to be wrong because
Musk finds another way they couldn't imagine - probably because he works as a
multi domain expert and from a viewpoint of first priciples.

It will be interesting to see if that is how this one plays out.

~~~
nine_k
As somebody said, if a old and renowned scientist says something is possible,
he's most likely right; if he says something is impossible, he has a very
serious chance of being wrong.

~~~
amacbride
Clarke’s First Law: “ When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that
something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that
something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”

------
kevinskii
I'd be happy to be corrected by an actual neuroscientist, but I don't think
some folks realize just how far away the Neuralink team is from being able to
do any of the things they are claiming. Inserting electrodes in the brain is
the easy part. The reason no one else has yet bothered with this level of
miniaturization is because it won't be of much benefit until you can figure
out a way to decode the signals reliably. This is extremely daunting, and it's
something that has occupied lots of brilliant people full time for decades.

~~~
nikkwong
I actually really hope that is the case. I have a feeling of existential dread
every time I imagine all the effort I am putting into learning and acquiring
new skills all going to waste when those tasks become absolutely second nature
to everyone, irrespective of effort or time investment.

Although, I am all for fixing the existing problems that it obviously could
solve; I fear my mother will succumb to Alzheimer's, and something like this
is dearly needed. It just seems like we won't know when to pull the brakes.

~~~
Melting_Harps
> I actually really hope that is the case. I have a feeling of existential
> dread every time I imagine all the effort I am putting into learning and
> acquiring new skills all going to waste when those tasks become absolutely
> second nature to everyone, irrespective of effort or time investment.

I'm not a neuroscientist, but with such a limited understanding of the brain,
beyond just the anatomy and the nature of neurotransmitters, let alone
consciousness, I think you can allay such fears for the time being.

I think this could have significant benefits for neural diseases like
Alzheimers, Parkinsons, ALS and possibly anxiety and addiction/mania based
maladies but the idea of simply being able to 'download' the ability to learn
a new skill in real time seems entirely preposterous.

I say that because some of the skills that I have been able to turn into
careers have actually required I learn something where my brain no longer
interferes with the process so that it is done effectively.

The notion of muscle memory is real, meaning you cease thinking about it and
it just occurs out without any effort due to continual practice and
repetition: my question is how can your body recover from an
unexpected/unpredictable error if you haven't already practiced that same
scenario over and over, and you were only given the default normal operation
of x skill? Most learning is adaptable and gained from observed behavior, be
it our own or others, to mistakes.

Experience is a funny thing, and our brains are flawed in recalling many of
our most cherished or dreaded events and experiences accurately; I honestly
think this could be a medical boon for the aforementioned diseases, but the
Matrix-like learning will probably be a quixotic pursuit, in my opinion. One
that sounds awesome on paper but would be horrible in practice.

~~~
nikkwong
I agree with most of what you say; however.. if you consider some novel
ability like speaking a foreign language, I would think that your aptitude in
such a skill is a product of many factors, albeit memory and recall being
paramount. If what Elon says about this device is true, and we can use it to
mentally interface with the web, then I don't see what would stop us from
speaking new languages "on-demand". This is a very naive and layman
perspective but I believe I've heard Elon claiming ideas like this around the
potential for this device. Not sure what the delta is between practical
applications like disease treatment and this somewhat sci-fi scenario, but I
hope it is large.

------
Tuxer
I'm surprised nobody talked about the potential implications of effectively
embedding, now that the device is standalone, a lithium ion battery into your
skull.

I'm not a battery hater whatsoever but in the case of a thermal runoff if the
battery starts burning... there is no way to get it out.

~~~
polytely
Seems like a nightmare now that I think about it, like you get a ransomware
popup beamed into your visual cortex saying:

"We are in your brain, wire the contents of your bank account to the following
bitcoin adres: <adress>. If you do not comply, we will blow up your neuralink,
if you try to alert anyone, we will blow up your neuralink. We are watching,
you have 2 hours, good luck."

"01:59:59"

"01:59:58"

...

~~~
lightgreen
This imaginary problem can be solved by having a hardware off switch.

~~~
antpls
Imagine your brain got so used to the neuralink interactions and benefits that
turning it off causes an insurmontable pain (like drugs)

~~~
lightgreen
Sure if someone has two improbable situations combined, they are doomed. But
they are more likely to be killed by a lightning.

------
m0dE
The only major technical update from its initial announcement a year ago is
that they're no longer hiding the transmitter behind the participant's ear.
(and pigs!) Other than that, the whole thing seemed like a recruitment
attempt, but that's fine. I fully support mission, and I'd love to work for
them if given opportunity. To apply:
[https://jobs.lever.co/neuralink](https://jobs.lever.co/neuralink)

~~~
mysterEFrank
They put it in a pig brain and can use neural signals to predict the pigs
behavior - that's major progress

~~~
zaroth
Seriously! How much faster would people expect them to be able to run with
this?

Something like this is the work of a lifetime. Elon is 49, and isn’t running
out of funding any time soon. It’s an incredibly costly and risky endeavor
which could improve a lot of lives.

I think the idea of putting it into an otherwise healthy individual is way,
way off and kind of a distraction? But in the meantime if this can somehow
help treat e.g. Alzheimer’s it would be an absolute godsend for millions of
people.

------
torotonnato
The efforts made by Neuralink’s team are impressive and, IMO, the idea is very
serious, with lots of practical short term consequences as well. Someone said
that getting electrodes into the brain is the easiest part, but I beg to
differ on this, for the simple reason that data is more accessible, abundant
and clean than ever. Accessibility of data has obvious implications on the
pace of progress in using said data.

Now, on the demo and its tech: some other commenters are concerned about the
safety of the lithium battery, but what about the Bluetooth? The stacks I used
in my embedded projects were simply horrible and I’m heavily biased against BT
even on principle :D

What about the electrodes being, in the end, simple conductors and, so,
antennas? I’d hate to be in a NMR machine with a NL in my head (thunderstorms
too? An attacker with a jammer?!).

I was expecting a write demo too, but maybe it’s not something you want to be
streamed online for the general public.

Last thought: the pig limbs prediction task. I think that the prediction was
greatly aided by the chosen setting of the experiment (tapis roulant), but
still impressive. I’m sure that today we saw a very important piece of human
history unfold before out very own eyes

~~~
tsimionescu
> Accessibility of data has obvious implications on the pace of progress in
> using said data.

That is only true if the data is likely to be the right data. For motor
control, electrical signals seem to be pretty much it. But we have no clear
proof that the same is true for higher thought processes - it could well be
that chemical signals and processing inside each neuron itself are major
components of that, so the data would be massively limited.

It would also be interesting to see how well such an approach would do when
tried on a microprocessor - could we tell that a microprocessor is displaying
"hello world" by sampling electrical signals from its transistors and trying
to apply some kind of machine learning on that data?

~~~
bshanks
You might like this article titled "Could a Neuroscientist Understand a
Microprocessor?":
[https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jo...](https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005268)

------
mepian
Neuralink is a very interesting effort, but with brain-computer interfaces
there is an elephant in the room that seems to be brushed off or overlooked
all the time: the security of computers that get connected to your brain. You
don't want something so vital to be vulnerable to buffer overflows and
speculative execution attacks. I wonder if this is ever going to be addressed
seriously.

~~~
o_p
The only reason why software is unsecure is because we decided to tradeoff
security for development speed. Using secure languages, formal software
verification,etc you could create secure systems. Brain software would
definitely have to be put in much higher standard.

~~~
tines
Making it secure will take more time, and companies will not willingly waste
time because it puts them behind competitors. Therefore security is a solution
that can only be enforced via government regulation, and of course not all
governments are going to regulate it, which will naturally lead to a race to
deregulate under pain of being left behind.

So we might be able to make it secure hypothetically, but my bets are, we will
choose not to. Case in point would be self-driving cars, which are hilariously
underregulated.

~~~
lightgreen
> Case in point would be self-driving cars, which are hilariously
> underregulated.

Why is it bad?

Self-driving cars kill less people than human-driver cars per mile.

If we heavily regulate self-driving cars, we will slow down self-driving cars
development. Cars will probably be safer, but the number of cars will be
smaller, thus number of deaths will be higher.

No, we don't need self-driving cars regularions at this moment.

~~~
tines
> Why is it bad?

I didn't say it was bad, I was just observing and predicting.

> Self-driving cars kill less people than human-driver cars per mile.

The types of self driving cars you are referring to are the kind being sold to
consumers now, which are more like "assisted driving" than self driving. There
are very few of them (i.e. they are not widely tested), they are owned by rich
people (selection bias), and they ship with a giant warning not to let the car
actually drive itself without supervision. So you're really testing the crash
rate of wealthy educated people with driving assistance against the rest of
humanity without assistance, it is no wonder the deaths are lower. The type I
am referring to are the ones that actually drive themselves, the shipping
trucks and whatnot.

> If we heavily regulate self-driving cars, we will slow down self-driving
> cars development. Cars will probably be safer, but the number of cars will
> be smaller, thus number of deaths will be higher.

This simply restates the point I made originally: we will be able to make them
safe, but we will choose not to for whatever reason.

------
etaioinshrdlu
If human brains merge with computers, I hope we are running free software in
our heads. The idea of code you cannot observe or control, _in your head_ ,
seems like an attack on humanity. I'd like to see this put into actual law
from the start, possibly at the level of a UN Human Rights declaration. I'm
not interested in living in a world with an app store for your brain.

As an aside, the technical capability for true mind-reading doesn't seem too
far fetched anymore. I don't think society is currently structured to accept
the consequences of that. People are not what they appear to be on the
outside.

~~~
benmller313
If you don't want proprietary software in your head, don't install it in your
head. Why do you need the UN to stop you from doing that to yourself?

~~~
ethanwillis
It's naive to think this will be optional for long once it's viable.

Oh you have X,Y,Z mental illness? Treatment from or inclusion in society is
contingent upon getting this chip installed.

~~~
notmyname9173
We can’t even get people to wear masks in the middle of a fucking pandemic. Do
you _really_ think this is a likely and universalizable scenario?

~~~
ethanwillis
That's a minority of people and they are chastised for it. The vast majority
of people DO wear a mask. So yes, this is REALLY a likely an realizable
scenario.

------
ofou
Sometimes I think that we are going to become the AI that Elon Musk is trying
to prepare us to fight against to. This technology is literally opening
pandora's box. Both the amazing and scariest thing in the world will come out.
Pretty crazy times we are living. Cannot highlight this enough, we're
summoning the demon hacking our brains.

~~~
colordrops
If AI becomes vastly more intelligent than humans as he predicts, a neural
implant is nothing more than a teddy bear to make us feel better. If we
augment ourselves with AI, our expanded selves will see the brain as vestigial
and slowing us down, eventually excising it, then we become full machines.

In a way, transitioning like this, rather than only creating non-human AI in
parallel, would hopefully transfer some of our humanity into the machines. In
any case we would look back at this transition as a natural metamorphosis. I
wouldn't be surprised if this metamorphosis is a natural emergent phenomenon
among civilizations across the universe.

~~~
ofou
My point is that Human + AI = AI. There's no AI around the corner as far as we
know, but you can argue that the portion of machine intelligence is growing at
a crazy rate. So, we're becoming slowly an AI as you correctly pointed out,
maybe it's just plain evolution. I wonder if no AI comes out after all (by
itself), we'll be the One created through ourselves.

~~~
bioipbiop
I disagree, Humans already have a neural interface with AI via the visual
cortex and the auditory nerve. You are forming a neural link with an AI when
you have a conversation with your Google Home.

I imagine a electrode neural link would with much the same way, but faster and
less disruptive. Humans would off load tasks like: information discovery,
complex mathematical calculations, and making arrangements for holidays to
their AI companion.

~~~
ofou
The kwown argument that <<you're already a cyborg>> seems to fit nicely with
the current status of humanity. The problem I see lies when you decide to
integrate these machine learning models (not "sentient" AIs) as part of neural
substrate at a convinient broader bandwidth. We are already seen the disasters
of biases, filter bubbles and many more to come. There is a huge gap between a
cyborg (or Augmented human) and an AGI. The latter doesn't exist yet but we
are slowly building it through the links of our mind. That is both the real
summoning the demon and quantum leap of faith in evolution.

~~~
bioipbiop
I see the topics of biased information and neural input bandwidth as unrelated
as the current rate of bandwidth is sufficient. As you mentioned, humans have
repeatedly demonstrated the ability to whip themselves up into a frenzy
throughout all of recorded history. So it’s a bit strange to suggest we
shouldn’t adopt a technology on the basis that it might encourage us to do
what we are already doing.

Also filter bubbles in media have generally been created by quite basic
algorithms that only meet the definition of AI when you really stretch it. You
might argue that a more advanced AI might create more toxic bubbles, but it
seems to me that our society has just about perfected toxic bubble creation
and any further advancements in the field would suffer severely from
diminishing returns.

~~~
ofou
Taking very Elon's words: “This was futile. I tried for years. Nobody
listened.”. If going backwards is just not an option, we must be more
conspicuous of the dangers of new high tech deployments. I think everyone here
share the same feeling: thrill but chilling at the same time. It's Inevitable
by the way, on the Kevin Kelly's sense of the word: this is our technium
taking shape and we better learn how to deal with it fast, like it or not.

------
jka
This could be the contemporary equivalent of the lie detector test -- unlikely
to be proven wrong for a long time, yet influential despite of questionable
results.

------
blackbear_
"This is starting to sound like a black mirror episode... Well, I guess
they're just very good at predicting" \- Elon Musk

------
tryauuum
It must be fun to work in a team of those assorted specialists

~~~
RivieraKid
Not really: [https://outline.com/FnfbkD](https://outline.com/FnfbkD)

"The company is now down to just two of its eight original founding
scientists."

------
ofou
My thoughts on @neuralink

The Good: Explore by direct observation/interaction the brain, cure countless
disseases along the way, and eventually augment humans.

The Bad: Privacy, Hacking, identity theft, memory implants, infinite
dystopias.

The Ugly: The rich/poor divide will be cognitive.

~~~
lightgreen
There were thousands of similar predictions when mobile phones were created.

Literally, when any new technology created, people started predicting dooms.

~~~
ofou
Yes, business as usual but what is actually unpredictable are second or even
third order effects from the deployment of technologies. Taking social
networks as example, USA's president sounds like doom to me.

~~~
lightgreen
Before social networks TV influenced president elections, radio before that,
and newspapers before radio. Each time media changes, it is doom.

~~~
asdff
This is a little bit of a false equivalency imo. You can walk away from a TV.
This is literally inside your brain. Imagine if a bad actor got the reigns, or
if a nation had a back door installed for their version for direct access to
their citizens. Literal mind control that you can't escape from at all. No one
is at the TV for 24 hours a day. Imagine if a kill switch were possible,
ushering the era of death by keystroke hundreds of miles away. You can't kill
someone with a TV, or a radio, or a newspaper.

~~~
lightgreen
> if a nation had a back door installed

So far no nation managed to install backdoors on all phones and laptops. I
have no reason to believe it will be different with brain implants.

> Literal mind control

It’s very far to that.

> that you can't escape from at all

You can always turn it off. With some hardware button.

------
andai
I have to wonder if the electrodes and implants are really necessary? Mary Lou
Jepsen is working on reading and writing activity to individual neurons using
infrared holography -- a wearable device.

~~~
emteycz
If someone else is interested, I found this recent video on the
topic:[https://youtu.be/CqsglRFjEKI](https://youtu.be/CqsglRFjEKI)

------
jv22222
This makes me feel uneasy, and weird, but... I think I like it.

It's probably all those movies written about the subject (ie Matrix) that add
to the uneasiness.

I like how he focuses on safety aspects and that it's reversible etc.

------
kerbal2000
Nobody asked the single hard question, so I'll put it here:

Those types of electrodes are known to cause permanent brain tissue scaring
after 1-3 years, similar to asbestos scaring.

How do they intend to solve this problem?

~~~
lightgreen
If I'm quadriplegic, I'd prefer my brain tissues scarred after 1-3 years and
then new implant installed in a different spot rather than being a vegetable
during that time.

(And when we have these implants helping paralized people for 10 years, we
will think of something. We don't need to solve all problems at once.)

------
rantwasp
I think there are a lot of questions one might ask but I’m going to say that
it’s too early to ask most of them. I’m sure that once this makes it past
prototype stage and human trials are on the horizon they will need to have
good questions to a lot of these questions and I have no doubt they are
thinking about basic and not so basic scenarios.

This is a good PR/recruiting stunt but nothing more. (Also Musk could use a
little bit of training when it comes to the way he is speaking and is timing
his speech)

~~~
quenix
Musk's presentation style has been this way since forever — after watching a
couple of his presentations, you kind of get used to it. He's not much of a
showman.

------
ethanwillis
This absolutely should not be allowed to be done. We are treading on dangerous
territory, except everyone is excitedly plodding forward without a second
thought.

~~~
mysterEFrank
I agree. This work is incredibly cool scientifically but this seems too
dangerous to pursue further

~~~
drannex
\- Said everyone who saw the first computers, planes, automobiles, trains,
bikes, phones, telegram, and likely the wheel.

~~~
mysterEFrank
I'm sure everybody who saw the first nuclear bomb said this too, and they were
right. I am become death

~~~
aero-glide
One could argue nuclear bombs and MAD are the reason there hasn't been a third
world war. Someone asked an engineer who designed ICBMs : How do you feel that
things you worked on may never actually be used? He said, then I have
succeeded. The purpose has always been to act as an deterrent. If my work was
used, then somewhere something has failed. Off topic to neuralink, but found
it interesting.

------
cruzai
Unimpressed, but great work..I can see potential but this is like making a
plane for landing on moon we are one decade early on this technology
...Electrode impedance is a big deal that I didn't see addressed here...It
hasn't been addressed for the past decade...There are so many impressive work
I see like the work by Berkeley professor Jose M. Carmena that could address
this issue...next Decade can be exciting.

~~~
sidcool
Elon was pretty clear since beginning that it is nowhere near complete and the
demo is to attract talent

------
zuhayeer
Not only are you going to have to charge your phone, watch, headphones, and
glasses, but you're gonna have to remember to charge your brain now too

~~~
balfirevic
> but you're gonna have to remember to charge your brain now too

Well, try not sleeping for a few days :)

~~~
zuhayeer
touché

------
Udik
I haven't watched the whole thing, did they address the problem of writing?
All I saw was detecting firing neurons from a small region of the brain (which
is cool and useful in itself) but saw nothing about actually transmitting to
the brain signals that the brain can interpret correctly. Which seems by far
the hardest part, when the device stops being a pure observer of a tiny region
of the brain.

~~~
zizee
I believe that they did show the "threads" firing, and the neurons lighting up
in response.

I imagine that initially they will be focusing on blunter interventions into
the brain, like detecting impending epileptic attacks, and send some sort of
signal to try and interrupt it. I think such things already exist in a cruder
form.

It's going to be a long while, and a lot of iterations before you can expect
to just "know" the contents of your latest text message.

------
elliottbavarian
What is technological progress without the courage to try. To challenge what
is impossible by all modern reason.

------
benjohnson1707
The big difference between him and top notch medical experts seems to be this
: piles of cash and cutting edge tech across all disciplines thrown at a
problem. It's not common that a research proposal gets granted hundreds of
millions of funding.

But here is what I've learned from Tesla/SpaceX: Cutting-edge tech changes the
initial conditions of a problem. How things are measured, analyzed,
manufactured, simulated etc.

The only things that are fundamentally constraining are the laws of nature. As
long as you don't violate them, things can be done, potentially (in
principle).

That why Musk has been like: OK, I see a feasible trajectory, so let's throw
money and talent at the problem and see how it goes. Which by the way is how
progress works. Pushing things.

Experts (especially scientists) have acquired their expertise within certain
initial conditions. Initial conditions incorporate assumptions that might be
outdated after having thrown money and tech at the issue.

That's why Musk doesn't give a damn about conventional wisdom but in my
opinion only cares about the fundamental physics when it comes to basic
feasibility.

What seems to be different compared to a lot of others seems to be that he is
a scientific mind by training and a hardcore engineer by profession. Plus
basic economics literacy and tons of money.

You usually find only one or those traits in people.

Tldr : his mantra is 'question your constraints'... Let's see how well that
goes with this project

------
0wis
Once again a project that seems to have gone from the drawing table to
redesign the prototype. And now well under way !

What I'm the most curious about is how they plan to handle exceptions and
failure modes to keep it unharmful.

------
panjo
I'm so excited by this and I'm glad that someone like Elon is finally
concentrating on agri-tech.

This is great news for pig farmers. Imagine being able to control the amount
of exercise they take, to bring them inside automatically and send them back
out on a schedule. If they get rustled or lost somehow they could be ordered
to walk back to the farm.

I'm sure this will revolutionize farming.

------
visarga
Can't wait to have neural data associated to text and images for multi-modal
training of neural nets. Up to present we have had the basic modalities:
video, image, audio and text, now we can have a new modality which is more
direct than even speech, remains to see how much of the embedding space it can
cover.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> What Dorothy illustrates is that you can put in the Neuralink, remove it,
and be healthy, happy and indistinguishable from a normal pig.

If I understand correctly, this is a device that can turn a person into a pig?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Nah, that's the web browser, invented a while ago.

------
xwdv
I would love to be able to control vim entirely through Neuralink. Using vim
already feels like I’m coding at the speed of thought, this would literally be
the speed of thought. The era of the 100x developer is coming.

------
sebmanchester
Is there some type of calibration that would be needed after implant to allow
for variance? Or does the robot surgeon just have perfect accuracy in where
the threads are implanted?

~~~
eigenvalue
I don’t think it matters so much to be super precise on the positioning. The
spike detection is pretty robust and then the real heavy lifting is in
analyzing the patterns of spikes across the set of 1,000+ locations. And that
is automatically calibrated as part of the process of getting it to work at
all (that is, getting the predictions to match the reality).

------
anorphirith
they mentioned you can "record backup and replay memories" and potentially
transfer them into a new body

~~~
gruez
>transfer

More like, copy to the new body and kill the old one.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletransportation_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletransportation_paradox)

------
jhales
How do they decide where to place the electrodes?

And how do they keep them fixed in the right position?

~~~
tintor
\- They focus on avoiding blood vessels. It is up to the software to learn the
mapping, after implantation. \- They talked about flexibility, slack of
electrodes, and pig head-butting. :)

------
ytninja
which should I learn now assembly or c for neuralink programming? or I don't
need to learn anything after surgery I can install all directly to my brain?

------
throwaw4y-plate
Was there any mention of glial scarring anywhere?

------
moneywoes
How much would this technology cost?

~~~
suyash
They said goal is to make it as affordable as LASIK

------
ytninja
where can I find the source code for neuralink in GitHub?

------
hcineb
Neuroscientist here. I have personally implanted many animals of different
species with similar apparatus as the ones described by neuralink, and
published numerous papers in the field, including theoretical papers on neural
activity coding and modeling. Here are my two cents about this. Sorry if it’s
long, I m hoping that this will help provide perspective on the topic at hand.

As a scientist, the first thing that is striking is that this is another
example of science by press conference. It’s probably why there is a lot of
eye rolling in the field. No data has been released (including in the single
author elon musk paper published a couple of years ago), and it is therefore
impossible to judge the results independently, let alone have a scientific
discussion about it.

First off, it should be noted that not much here is completely new. Chronic
implantation of multielectrode arrays, with wireless recordings have been
around for roughly 15 years. These arrays are able to record and stimulate.
This is usually done in mice, in which space is even more limited than the
pig. The number of contacts (i.e recording points) of 1000 is also on par with
the current state of the art (see, e.g the neuropixel implants). The fact that
neuralink managed to reproduce this seemingly from scratch is an impressive
feat, but in no way is it novel. Dozens of labs around the world do this every
day.

The issues with electrode recordings are to get close enough to each cell
without damanging anything. If the contact is too far, the recording is
polluted by other neurons, and one has to rely on blind signal separation to
make out each cell. As a result in typical experiments, each electrode is
manually positioned In the close vicinity of the neuron (think micrometers).
This is a challenge with large arrays because each contact is not independant
which reduces the yield. This likely happens here.

Another important problem arises with chronic implantantion. When you insert
something in the brain, make it as thin as you wish the brain will not like
it. There is going to be pushing and shoving of cells, and when the brain
reset in position (within minutes) it will have moved. This requires fine
tuning of each electrode’s position to keep it close to the neurons. More
importantly, it will create a scar. Cells will die around it, the organism
will try and isolate the foreign object. This takes weeks. This is the reason
why, roughly speaking, no single cell has been recorded from for more than
weeks (the record i believe is around 3 months): after a while the electrode
is simply too isolated from the actual neurons to pick up a signal. There are
endeavors around this, With other electrode materials, etc but neuralink does
not do that. (Another really cool way to do chronic implant is with calcium
imaging with small implanted confocal microscopes)

In addition, this is likely bad for the organism, and possibly not something
you would want happen in your brain. BTW I believe that (in addition to size
constraints) this is why they are doing studies on pigs now (although their
neural activity is not well documented as opposed to mice/rats or primates):
it is commonly used as a model for human injuries.

Finally, do be aware that some humans are already implanted chronically in the
brain with electrodes: \- For parkinsons, in a specific, non cortical area.
These electrodes can record and stimulate to alleviate crises \- For hearing,
it’s not stricto sensu in the brain (in the cochlear cavities) but it
stimulates neurons \- On the surface of the brain, with ecog electrodes mostly
used during surgery but sometimes chronically for epilepsy diagnosis

In addition to these technical issues (which are serious enough, by the way),
the claims made here are just sort of outlandish. Even in very well controlled
laboratory conditions, there is very little evidence that it is remotely
possible to “record” memories (let alone replay them). For the most part it is
because we have _strictly no idea_ how _anything is encoded_ in the brain
(there is even raging debate as to whether it “encodes” anything). (Sorry to
my neuroscientist friends and colleagues, but we are not close to anything the
layperson would qualify as “understanding what the brain does”, by a long
stretch.) In addition, some of the less outlandish claims (e.g. controlling
robotic limbs, etc) made by neuralink are things on which neuroscientists have
been working on for decades. It’s not impossible for sure (as many of us argue
in their grant proposals), but it is hard. And the plan presented by neuralink
(more electrodes) is in no way innovative to an insider in the field. In fact,
I doubt that it would get NIH funding.

TLDR there are many well documented issues with this endeavor that many people
have been working on for decades. It’s frustrating that the general public be
exposed to the uninteresting sugar coated sci fi version of an otherwise
complex, nuanced and thus interesting field of science.

~~~
vwat
It’s routine for labs to insert threads into brains? It’s routine for non-
rigid, fine threads to be inserted via robot? I’m just being honest, your
comment is not very convincing. And it skims over important details like the
fact that all electrode solutions before were not sub-dermal.

~~~
hcineb
I did not really say that any of this is routine. Nor did I try to be
particularly convincing.

But implantation of ultra flexible and thin electrodes is not new (and it is
promising, sure), several groups have been working on « mesh electrodes ». As
of now it has not really proved safe enough for chronic use in humans.

The subdermal aspect is also certainly a nice advance, but relatively useless
in a lab setting (and impossible in rodents).

The robotization is not really impressive, all electrophysiological apparati
are robotized, for obvious reasons: nobody can reproducibly place electrodes
with micrometer precision by hand.

But hey, let’s wait for some papers to be out and we’ll judge then.

~~~
vwat
Ok so I looked it up and it appears that this concept of very thin and light
electrodes is basically taking off right now with multiple implementations. In
this context, Neuralink is basically competing against other products for a
share of the neuro-implant market, which will be big at some point. Why
doesn’t your comment mention any of this? Or the relative merits of each
competitor? It’s not clear that neuralink was the first or the last to do any
of this. Why should their effort to find an electrode material that prevents
loss of signal be minimized? Shouldn’t they be encouraged to find a solution
like the other people trying to find a solution in academia?

And I know you won’t answer this because nobody ever answers questions that
aren’t inflammatory or insulting... but how could information not be encoded
in the brain? When you dream, your brain could not possibly be generating the
raw sensory signals... the only way to explain lucid dreams is heavy encoding
of information and a really powerful guessing system to fill in gaps where
signal decoding was weak or didn’t happen.

~~~
hcineb
Sorry if I did not make that clear but I fully agree that their endeavor
towards better electrodes should be encouraged, and maybe even saluted when
they provide evidence of improvement over the state of the art.

The question of information in the brain, including whether it is encoded is a
really hard one. Of course we can easily find some areas of the brain whose
response is _correlated_ with aspects of the outside world. But what does it
mean? Who (or what) is decoding it, why? Many different metaphora and
analogies can be (and are) readily applied to the brain. As of now, it is safe
to say that a comprehensive theory of neural processing has not really been
able to answer all of these questions. It’s just all very complex.

------
throwawayneural
(throwaway.)

I've been deeply interested in this field for a long time and BCIs
specifically. (not to brag, just to explain:) I have a graduate degree in a
related neuro field and strong & fast coding abilities.

Working @ Neuralink interests me a lot.

But I've also read the stories about Musk, how he treats employees, the
working conditions, etc. [0]

I'm not afraid of hard work but can folks here shed light whether it might be
worth it (or not) to go work there?

Are Tesla, SpaceX, etc. engineers generally... happy/satisfied?

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18679715](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18679715)

~~~
kiba
You're assuming that Elon Musk personally run each company he found as if it's
his full time job.

There's only one Musk.

~~~
nickik
Specifically Neurolink is likely only about 5% of the time. Its about half
each for Tesla and SpaceX according to him, more or less depending on what
happening.

------
dmerrick
I enjoyed this joke from the stream:

> If you bombard earth with photons long enough, it will emit a Tesla

~~~
mlb_hn
I think that goes back to a Karpathy quote [1], don't know where he got it
from

[1]
[https://twitter.com/karpathy/status/961307010246492160](https://twitter.com/karpathy/status/961307010246492160)

~~~
karpathy
Yes it’s one of my favorite thoughts, which is why I pinned it :)

~~~
modeless
It's a good one! You helping out with the ML at Neuralink at all? Maybe
someday Autopilot could learn something from recordings of people's brains
while driving :)

------
dwighttk
Oof. I wish YouTube had more than 2x playback rate. Elon is hard to listen to
at less.

~~~
Veedrac

      document.getElementsByTagName('video')[0].playbackRate = 3

~~~
dwighttk
thanks!

------
aaron695
The fact Elon talks about the universe stared as leptons and not hydrogen as
many pop sci shows do is a good example of his whole game plan.

Understand things at their lowest level and build.

Disrupt at the lowest level you can.

~~~
typon
Why pick leptons? Why not quarks? It's arbitrary.

~~~
qntmfred
Elon did say quarks and leptons.

