Blog Neuralink Says it's Nearly Ready to Install Computers in Human Brains

[TMC Staff]

Elon Musk offered a demo this week of the brain computer built by his company Neuralink. In a livestream demo, Musk explained that the goal of Neuralink is to connect the brain to a computing device through flexible threads that are 10-times thinner than a human hair. Neuralink believes that neurological problems can be treated...
[WPURI="https://teslamotorsclub.com/blog/2020/08/30/neuralink-says-its-nearly-ready-to-install-computers-in-human-brains/"]READ FULL ARTICLE[/WPURI]

 

[AceSkywalker]

I don't know about the rest of you all, but I'm extremely wary of this kind of stuff. Time and time again, stuff that is touted to bring good to the world has been abused for whatever reasons. Pretty sure that this tech will be no exception.

 

[hill]

I don't know about the rest of you all, but I'm extremely wary of this kind of stuff. Time and time again, stuff that is touted to bring good to the world has been abused for whatever reasons. Pretty sure that this tech will be no exception.

Yea - maybe after the cars consistently 100% no longer Phantom stop or slow, or slam into the back of stopped trucks, ever again .... for at least a few years - maybe hold off until then before we go planting crap inside of our heads.

 

[Mikedrives]

I don't know about the rest of you all, but I'm extremely wary of this kind of stuff. Time and time again, stuff that is touted to bring good to the world has been abused for whatever reasons. Pretty sure that this tech will be no exception.

 

[Mikedrives]

I don't know about the rest of you all, but I'm extremely wary of this kind of stuff. Time and time again, stuff that is touted to bring good to the world has been abused for whatever reasons. Pretty sure that this tech will be no exception.

Whachoo talkin' about? Nukuler power is gonna be so cheap they won't even bother to meter it, and nothing could possiblie go wrong...
On the other hand, Elon *does* have a better record than that...

 

[Altes]

Dont even know where to begin here...I have spent my entire career in medical device development (all startups) and the last 15 years in neuromodulation. Everything Elon and his band of engineers and computer scientists and programmers said can be done and isnt anything new or revolutionary. 1000 electrodes is leaps ahead of todays tech (20 or less) but unimaginably short or the Million (billion?) or so connections that would be needed to run major brain systems (no one even knows).

At best this is a medical version of Tesla, massive effort to gather data of a random system (yes, brains are rather randomly wired, like vehicular traffic environments times a billion) to create value by having the largest data set.

Not saying this wouldn't be valuable but in order to control something you must understand how it works.
The first step is to wire up the brain and gather data, on each and every brain. Given the speed of computers today or even 10 years from now this will take a bunch of time, Currently, brains are running 30 times faster than even the fastest computers made and even then that's just number crunching not factoring logic, storage etc
Once each persons brain is mapped then you have to figure out how to write to it, currently we have crude methods of blocking signals with impulses and exert crude forms of "control" over very specific abnormalities. I won't even wade thru the ethics of rewriting brains and the potential for mistakes, abuse etc.

I could go on but HBO's "Silicone Valley" portrayed it nicely...

Here's to a kickass potato cannon...

 

[jeremymc7]

The whole thing is highly interesting to me as is a lot of this "fringe" science. The problem as I see it is that might if not all the things that would benefit me, including something like Neuralink, just either wont be available or won't be to the level needed to benefit me personally during my lifetime.

The people that are around in 50 or 100 years are going to have MUCH more medical science benefits.

Like Bones said in the Star Trek movie where they go back to save the whales set in the 80/90's and he's in a hospital he things the state of medical science is barbaric. I still feel that's exactly where we are. Much of our science revolves around cutting things out or using toxins. Are we better than 25, 50, 100 years ago hell yes. But they cut things out and gave us Toxins as well. We've just gotten better at it. What we should be able to do in 100 years will be an entirely different kind of medicine.

 

[Welajust3d1]

yup, seems fairly obvious, Elon was been hooked up for a while now.

 

[Dutchie]

Why I am not the only one who seem sceptical

Neuralink's demo didn't impress experts

 

[SO16]

Gotta start somewhere.

OMG, there were doubters who are “experts”?!?!? Well this is a first. After all, no “experts” doubted landing rockets or EVs becoming vehicles that the general public wanted. Better throw in the towel then. /s

good grief. Of course it’s years away (and possibly decades.). But it’s exciting none the less. This is what drives innovation. They may not solve many (if any) of what they are hoping to. But you can bet many things will be learned along the way.

 

[jeremymc7]

Gotta start somewhere.

OMG, there were doubters who are “experts”?!?!? Well this is a first. After all, no “experts” doubted landing rockets or EVs becoming vehicles that the general public wanted. Better throw in the towel then. /s

good grief. Of course it’s years away (and possibly decades.). But it’s exciting none the less. This is what drives innovation. They may not solve many (if any) of what they are hoping to. But you can bet many things will be learned along the way.

Low hanging fruit here would be nerve stimulation for sciatic pain instead of things like Opiods.

 

[MAYAND]

Elon Musk offered a demo this week of the brain computer built by his company Neuralink. In a livestream demo, Musk explained that the goal of Neuralink is to connect the brain to a computing device through flexible threads that are 10-times thinner than a human hair. Neuralink believes that neurological problems can be treated...
[WPURI="https://teslamotorsclub.com/blog/2020/08/30/neuralink-says-its-nearly-ready-to-install-computers-in-human-brains/"]READ FULL ARTICLE[/WPURI]

Amazing work by Elon's team at Neurolink

 

[Altes]

Gotta start somewhere.

OMG, there were doubters who are “experts”?!?!? Well this is a first. After all, no “experts” doubted landing rockets or EVs becoming vehicles that the general public wanted. Better throw in the towel then. /s

good grief. Of course it’s years away (and possibly decades.). But it’s exciting none the less. This is what drives innovation. They may not solve many (if any) of what they are hoping to. But you can bet many things will be learned along the way.

What I object to is Elon claiming its revolutionary and inferring all these are the result of neuralinks innovation when in fact its just futures postulation on things that have existed for decades (neural stimulation, Deep Brain Stim, bluetooth LE, inductive charging). Yes, postulating about the future is exciting, but absolutely NOTHING Neuralink has done has not been done before if you bother to do some research

 

[Altes]

Low hanging fruit here would be nerve stimulation for sciatic pain instead of things like Opiods.

Umm this has existed for over 50 years. Spinal Column stimulation (SCS) has a long history for chronic pain and only drug company greed and the general populations search for a pill to solve everything has slowed its acceptance. New procedures and and new technologies Like DRG Stim, High Frequency stim, and closed loop feedback (ECAPs ) are all new technologies (last 10 years) miniaturization and inductive charging are creating minimally invasive "injectable" treatments as well
Spinal Cord Stimulation.

 

[Altes]

yup, seems fairly obvious, Elon was been hooked up for a while now.

that explains all the malfunctions

 

[Altes]

The whole thing is highly interesting to me as is a lot of this "fringe" science. The problem as I see it is that might if not all the things that would benefit me, including something like Neuralink, just either wont be available or won't be to the level needed to benefit me personally during my lifetime.

The people that are around in 50 or 100 years are going to have MUCH more medical science benefits.

Like Bones said in the Star Trek movie where they go back to save the whales set in the 80/90's and he's in a hospital he things the state of medical science is barbaric. I still feel that's exactly where we are. Much of our science revolves around cutting things out or using toxins. Are we better than 25, 50, 100 years ago hell yes. But they cut things out and gave us Toxins as well. We've just gotten better at it. What we should be able to do in 100 years will be an entirely different kind of medicine.

Not fringe science, its just in its infancy step 1 is to gather LOTS of data (Elon is good at this) then you can start learning how to fix and control stuff

 

[SO16]

What I object to is Elon claiming its revolutionary and inferring all these are the result of neuralinks innovation when in fact its just futures postulation on things that have existed for decades (neural stimulation, Deep Brain Stim, bluetooth LE, inductive charging). Yes, postulating about the future is exciting, but absolutely NOTHING Neuralink has done has not been done before if you bother to do some research

Did Elon say that Neuralink “invented” these things (Ie bluetooth, inductive charging, etc)?

I didn’t hear him say that. In fact, I think someone even said that they are using components that exist today in other devices. (Might have been Elon.). The presentation even showed that other companies have done similar things but just on a smaller scale. (Ie fewer channels). Also the hopefully ease of installation and relatively low price one day is encouraging.

Steve Jobs didn’t “invent” the phone either. Didn’t invent touch screen technology. Didn’t invent WiFi. Didn’t invent Bluetooth. Didn’t invent internet access via a portable device. But he packaged it in a way that was better than others had done before. That’s what I see with Neuralink.

A line that I like that I think applies to this is “big things have small beginnings”. You can probably guess the movie.

 

[jerry33]

If it gets rid of the rip-off hearing aids, I'll be first in line (Well, maybe second). $5200 for a device that should be about $150 to $300.

 

[jeremymc7]

If it gets rid of the rip-off hearing aids, I'll be first in line (Well, maybe second). $5200 for a device that should be about $150 to $300.

I don't need a hearing aid but I could benefit from one where I am, plus my hearing is slipping slightly year over year. All the hearing's I've look at are in that $5K price range and even though I have amazing insurance that covers $50k in medical annualy for me, including chiropractic and massage, for SOME (stupid!) reason hearing aids of any kind are not cover.

Obviously you need teeth and eyes according to insurance, but you don't need ears, according to insurance.

Stupid !

There are also plenty of Bluetooth headsets that could work as amazing "assisted hearing devices" but again their usually $500-3000 and most are really lacking in the app department to really be useful.

Even Apples Air Pod Pro's offer some assistance using the phone as a microphone that you can put anywhere. But there is no customization of balance, frequencies, or default settings for geo location. Would be simple enough to program and benefit even people using it with no hearing issues.

 

[jerry33]

Even Apples Air Pod Pro's offer some assistance using the phone as a microphone that you can put anywhere. But there is no customization of balance, frequencies, or default settings for geo location. Would be simple enough to program and benefit even people using it with no hearing issues.

There are a couple of hearing Apps, but they're worse than nothing because they tend to do high pitched feedback through the external speakers, and even when that doesn't happen, they don't work all that well.