With a pig named Gertrude, Elon Musk demonstrated his startup Neuralink's technology to create a digital connection between the brain and the computer. A wireless connection from the Neuralink device showed the pig's activity as it sniffed around a pen on stage on Friday night.
The demonstration shows that the technology is significantly closer to Musk's radical ambitions than it did on a product debut in 2019 when Neuralink only showed photos of a rat with a Neuralink plugged in through a USB-C port. It's still far from reality, but Musk said the US Food and Drug Administration approved "groundbreaking device testing" in July.
Musk also showed a second generation device that is more compact and fits into a small cavity carved out of a hole in a skull.
"It's like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires," Musk said of the device.
It communicates with brain cells using 1,024 thin electrodes that penetrate brain cells. Then there's a bluetooth connection to an external computing device, although the company is considering other wireless technologies it can dramatically increase the number of data connections.
Although the pig demonstration showed that neural activity was being transmitted wirelessly to a computer, it didn't reveal any of Neuralink's long-term ambitions, like a computer that communicates meaningfully with a brain or a computer that understands what the peaks of neural activity actually mean .
Medical start for Neuralink
Neuralink initially has a medical focus, e.g. B. the support of people with injuries of the brain and the spinal cord or with congenital defects. The technology could help paraplegics who have lost the ability to move or feel because of a spinal cord injury, for example. The first use in humans aims to improve diseases such as paraplegia or tetraplegia.
"If you can sense what people are trying to do with their limbs, you can get a second implant where the spinal injury occurred and create a neural shunt," Musk said. "I am confident that in the long term it will be possible to restore a person's whole body movement."
But Musk's vision is far more radical, including ideas like "conceptual telepathy," where two people can communicate electronically by thinking of each other instead of writing or speaking. The long-term goal is to pursue a future in which Artificial intelligence, which is far smarter than humans, is killing us.
Musk envisions people using Neuralink to connect to their own digital AI incarnations. "The future is controlled by the combined will of the people on earth," said Musk. "From an existential threat perspective, it will be important to achieve a good AI symbiosis."
Back up and restore your memories
"The future is going to be strange," Musk said, discussing Neuralink's sci-fi usage. "In the future, you can save reminders and answer them," he said. "You can basically back up your memories and restore them. You can potentially download them to a new body or a robotic body."
He is aware that some people will have problems in Neuralink too. "That sounds increasingly like a Black Mirror episode," Musk said, referring to the dystopian TV series.
He also discussed infrared, ultraviolet, or X-ray vision using digital camera data. "In time we could supervise someone," said Musk.
Neuralink builds a robotic installer who is ultimately designed to handle the entire surgical installation process. This involves opening the scalp, removing part of the skull, inserting the hundreds of "thread" electrodes along with an associated computer chip, and closing the incision. The plumber is supposed to avoid blood vessels to avoid bleeding, Musk said.
As with Fitbit, Apple Watch and other wearable technologies, Musk sees a health benefit for Neuralink in addition to the direct communication between the brain and the computer. Neuralink chips can measure temperature, pressure, and movement, data that could warn you of a heart attack or stroke, Musk said.
Computers need power, and Neuralink's in-skull chip is charged by wireless charging through the skin, Musk said.
Neuralink's previous work
Since the launch event last year, Musk and Neuralink have published a scientific article in the Journal of Medical Internet Research in October. The paper described the development of their robotic device, an arm capable of carefully inserting hundreds of thin threads, about a tenth the width of a human hair, into the brain. Sometimes referred to as a "sewing machine," it can feed about six threads per minute, each made of flexible plastics and having 192 electrodes.
The company's early research focused on the interface with the rodent brain. In their October paper, Musk and Neuralink described two Neuralink systems A and B tested on rats in detail. The former can insert more than 1,500 electrodes and the latter 3,000. The paper describes a freely moving rat attached to system B with a USB-C slot protruding from its head. However, there is no clear evidence that Neuralink has settled in the best spot for electrodes.
In the article, Musk and Neuralink acknowledge that "significant technological challenges must be addressed before a high bandwidth device is suitable for clinical use".
Working with rodents is impressive, but what caught people's attention over the past year was Musk's claim that a monkey "could control a computer with its brain." The JMIR paper contained no evidence to support this claim, and Musk did not mention it on Friday.