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Elon Musk Promises Demo of a Working Neuralink Device On Friday (theverge.com) 51

Posted by BeauHD from the get-ready dept.
Elon Musk has said that his secretive neurotech firm Neuralink will demonstrate a working "device," presumably a brain-machine interface, at 6PM ET on Friday. The Verge reports: Musk has spoken repeatedly about his belief that BMI devices are needed to help humans keep up with AI by supplementing our brainpower, but right now, his goal is much simpler: to create an implantable device that lets people control phones or computers with their mind. Musk initially announced the August 28th "progress update" back in July, and has now offered more details on what will be shown. He says the update will include the unveiling of a second-generation robot designed to attach the company's technology to the brain, and a demo of neurons "firing in real-time," though it's not clear exactly what is meant by this.

Even compared to Musk's other ventures like Tesla and SpaceX, Neuralink is ambitious. The company wants to connect to the brain using flexible electrodes thinner than a human hair that it calls "threads." Current BMI devices use stiff electrodes for this job, which can cause damage. But inserting flexible electrodes is a much more delicate and challenging task, hence the company's focus on building a "sewing machine" like robot to do the job. Eventually, Neuralink hopes to make the installation process for BMIs as non-invasive as Lasik eye surgery, even removing the need to use general anesthetic. Musk has previously spoken about the need for an automated Lasik-like process for BMIs to overcome the constraints and costs involved with needing to use highly trained neural surgeons. But this isn't ready to be shown off yet, according to Musk. "Still far from LASIK, but could get pretty close in a few years," Musk tweeted in response to a followup question about the event. Keep your eyes on the company's YouTube channel, where Neuralink will likely stream Friday's event.
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Elon Musk Promises Demo of a Working Neuralink Device On Friday More

Elon Musk Promises Demo of a Working Neuralink Device On Friday

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  • Here is your ProTip/Life Hack for the day (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @06:43PM (#60444563)

    If you're getting crap implanted into your brain, it would be advisable to not get the first one.

    • Yes, hopefully we've all seen enough anime and Apple products to know by now to wait for at least the 3rd gen. release.

      • The first ones are designed to stop epileptic seizures and such. If it promises to improve my quality of life, Iâ(TM)d try it. Iâ(TM)d review it to the beet of my laymanâ(TM)s ability obviously, but... someone always has to go first.

        • The first ones are designed to stop epileptic seizures and such. If it promises to improve my quality of life, Iâ(TM)d try it. Iâ(TM)d review it to the beet of my laymanâ(TM)s ability obviously, but...

          That's the first time i've seen anyone have an epileptic seizure in the middle of posting aâ(TM) message.

    • "If you're getting crap implanted into your brain, it would be advisable to not get the first one."

      Not even for a free ticket to mars?

      • "If you're getting crap implanted into your brain, it would be advisable to not get the first one."

        Not even for a free ticket to mars?

        More likely a free (0ne way) trip in a Boring Company Tunnel. Once one is finished.

      • A free ticket to Mars? There's no way you could pay me to go to Mars to live in a Musk-owned colony. He's liable to throw a tantrum one day and vent all the air.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Greyfox ( 87712 )
      I'll be pretty impressed if Elon is the guy with the brain implants. Takes a lot of balls to eat your own dogfood when it comes to sticking things in your brain.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Plus it's an Elon Musk demo. He has a long history of fake tech demos, e.g. all the "full self driving" ones that turned out to be nothing of the sort.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Myrdos ( 5031049 )

      Pretty sure that anyone with ALS would be happy to get the first one. Or with paralysis from the neck down. Or missing arms or hands?

  • "Secretive" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @06:45PM (#60444575)
    Something implanted in my brain requires ***FULLL*** and utter disclosure, not secrecy.
  • ... I don't feel comfortable having my brain raped by a robot sewing machine.
  • Makes me think of the BrainPal in Scalzi's "Old Man's War."
  • I mean c'mon. Brain implants. That will eventually be required. If Bill Gates was doing this you would freak out.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Can self-driving cars be far behind?

    • Step 1: Figure out how to interface a brain with technology.
    • Step 2: Figure out how to grow a brain in a jar.

    There's no step 3.

    • Sure there is:
      Step 3: Figure out how to keep insane brain-in-a-jar from committing suicide and or mass-murder at the first opportunity.

      You might also need
      Step 4: Convince customers that enslaving a brain-in-a-jar to be your chauffeur is morally acceptable.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Meh. If the brain in a jar has only learned how to drive a car, how could it ever know that it is being enslaved? :-D

        Yeah, it's ethically bordering on horrible, but I just couldn't resist the thought experiment.

  • Morbidly intersted (Score:3)

    by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @07:58PM (#60444849)

    Outside of the ethical concerns anything like this carries, as well as Musk's involvement, which is both terrific and concerning in all his ventures, I am interested to see if this is a real deal and what can actually be accomplished with this tech. That said I can see a strong case for mandating open-source requirements for all software that interfaces with a human brain for obvious ethical reasons (I don't expect those interests to be stronger than the appeal of future billions unfortunately).

    I some strange way though, I for one welcome our new cyberpunk future.

    • I'm usually a Musk skeptic, but the research behind Neuralink I'm familiar with and this is pure quack science. The brain is just way too complicated; we barely understand even the simplest functions of mice brains or fish brains or the neurology of how insects even function. The human brain is quite simply the most complex biological system found anywhere. They have literally no idea what they're doing.

      At best they're going to show a robot that can implant thin electrodes. What those electrodes do

      • Mod parent up.

        Quoting: "The brain is just way too complicated; we barely understand even the simplest functions of mice brains or fish brains..."

        A major problem: Elon Musk does not put enough time and energy into communicating. There is often a lot of good thinking and research in what he is doing, but the limited or sloppy communication makes people skeptical.

      • Actually there's a long track record of neural interfaces working very effectively after training.

        The thing is, you don't actually need to understand the details of how the brain works to make cybernetics effective - the brain is incredibly flexible and will rapidly figure out how to use your primitive cybernetics. Just as, even without a neural interface, people can learn to see using an electrode array stimulating their tongue (I believe that was a military project to allow thermal vision without impairi

  • Needles and stuff poking around in my brain? Yeah, that's a hard pass from me. Also, just about every late-90s/early 2000s sci-fi movie where the plot involved interfacing technology with brains has shown this shit typically ends badly for all parties involved.

  • Do you want me to auto-correct your vote? I think you're saying yes!

  • Skynet has entered the chat.

  • It is well known Elon Musk's brain is traveling at nearly the speed of light and thus is influenced by relativistic effects, most notably time dilation.

    He promised big ramp up of Model 3 production in 2017, it did not happen till about 2019.

    He promised short burn of the century and that did not happen till 2020 August.

    So the neuralink demo promised for Friday might not happen till some Friday in 2021 July. By that time the market cap of Tesla is expected to exceed 50% of all other stocks in SP500 index.

  • I don't remember the part in the LASIK procedure where they saw your skull open. How exactly is a brain implant going to get in there without doing that? Without anaesthetic?

    Ugh. Now I'm gonna have nightmares of a spider-looking robot crawling up my nose or worse around my eyeballs, temporary pulling the eyeball out a little so it can squeeze past. *gasp*

    • Presumably they're not planning to saw your head open for this. More like, shave some of your hair off and then use something thinner than a tattoo needle to insert the threads into your thought pudding right through the skull. Numbing your skin will be enough to keep you comfortable through it. Whether the electrodes will be useful for anything at all is another question.

      LASIK is pretty invasive, or at least was when I had it done 13 years ago. The part where they sliced off the top of my corneas with a mi

      • I just want to say that seeing the words "thought" and "pudding" slapped together in that way gave me quite the chuckle. Bravo!

      • I would assume they'd have to drill a tiny hole through the skull to thread the fibers. And then there's the external interface - I'd assume it's some sort of non-contact technology, with an external tranceiver magnetically mounted to the skull that communicates through unbroken skin. But you're still going to have to cut back the skin to anchor that to the skull - you definitely don't want to risk external forces being transmitted to your carefully positioned electrodes - especially since you probably wa

  • I'm really hoping one of these days Elon will append one his ridiculous predictions/promises with a John McAfee-style promise to eat his dick live on television, and then follows through with it, unlike McAfee.

  • ... if it wasn't for the fuckin ultra-creeps from the for-profit-data-kraken psychopath "industry".

  • I'm sure Arnie tried a version of this - how it worked out for him, I can't recall...

  • Can we stop with the Elon Musk mania ? He is just backing financially this project with his infinite wealth, he is not designing anything and hopefully he doesn't, this dude has no taste.
  • Is there any way this *won't* lead to the problem of men constantly pulling up porn sites by total accident in very inappropriate situations?

    • You expect me to believe the "by total accident" bit?

      That said, they haven't even solved it for cell phones, so I'm going with "No"

      On the plus side, nobody else can actually see what's on your cyber-screen, which pretty much eliminates it as a problem.

      • You expect me to believe the "by total accident" bit?

        Look, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

  • but a viral, lip synced Max Headroom video said the voluntary participants were all doing well, are of good spirits, and are powering his batteries nominally.

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