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Neuroscientists Weigh In On Elon Musk's Mysterious 'Neural Lace' Company (ieee.org)
the_newsbeagle writes: Elon Musk has set out to change the world with SpaceX's reusable rockets and Tesla's electric cars, and now he plans to change your brain. His new company, Neuralink, will reportedly build delicate brain implants called "neural lace" to help people with neuropsychiatric disorders and to give healthy people strange new mental abilities. But the news announcements about the company contained scant details about what kind of hardware Neuralink might actually build, and what engineering challenges the company will have to overcome in pursuit of miniaturized and safe brain implants. Here, five neuroscience experts describe those challenges, and give hints on what to expect from Musk's neural dust. One of the neuroscientists is Mary Lou Jepsen, founder of the Openwater startup, which is looking for ways to develop a noninvasive BCI for imaging and telepathy. Jepsen was also "an engineering executive at Facebook working on its Oculus virtual reality gear; before that she spent three years at Google X, running advanced projects on display technology," reports IEEE Spectrum. She says that Neuralink will likely face many medical hurdles, even if their process doesn't require splitting open patients' skulls. "The approach as I understand it (not much is published) involves implanting silicon particles (so called "neural lace") into the bloodstream. One concern is that implanting anything in the body can cause unintended consequences," says Jepsen. "For example, even red blood cells can clog capillaries in the brain when the red blood cells are made more stiff by diseases like malaria. This clogging can reduce or even cut off the flow of oxygen to the parts of the brain. Indeed, clogging of cerebral capillaries has been shown to be a major cause of Alzheimer's progression. Back to neural lace: One concern I would have is whether the silicon particles could lead to any clogging."
Consulting for several large companies, I'd always done my work on Windows. Recently however, a top online investment firm asked us to do some work using Linux. The concept of having access to source code was very appealing to us, as we'd be able to modify the kernel to meet our exacting standards which we're unable to do with Microsoft's products.
Although we met several technical challenges along the way (specifically, Linux's lack of support for some things and the fact that we were unable to defrag some stuff), all in all the process went smoothly. Everyone was very pleased with Linux, and we were considering using it for a great deal of future internal projects.
So you can imagine our suprise when we were informed by a lawyer that we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. It was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available. Unfortunately for us, this meant that the great deal of time and money we spent "touching up" Linux to work for this investment firm would now be available at no cost to our competitors.
Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released. This was simply unacceptable.
Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult position. We could either give away our hard work, or come up with another solution. Although it was tought to do, there really was no option: We had to rewrite the code, from scratch, for Windows 10.
I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive with Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually guarentee that no business will ever be able to use it. After my experience with Linux, I won't be recommending it to any of my associates. I may reconsider if Linux switches its license to something a little more fair, then maybe. Until then its attempts to socialize the software market will insure it remains only a bit player.
Thank you for your time my friends.
If anybody funds this shit, they should have their head examined. What is it about this d-bag that people keep falling for it? He's a psycho.
Just smoke weed and it'll fix most illnesses, including cancer. No need for this evil and scary shit.
The moment he consents to undergo the repurcussions of any of his outlandish caca himself. He's a coward, and probably insane.
.....series Continuum, you need to. This crap's (story that is) is crazy stuff. It should be banned before it's too late for us. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The problem with any direct connection to the brain is variability with neurons networks, entirely unique. Whilst broad cerebral manipulations are certainly doable, fine work is not, think waking and sleeping, happiness and sadness, really broad and dangerous brush strokes because you have no real idea the consequences on fine neuron networking detail. Then there is the extreme danger of hacking, whether corporate or government or just the idiot kid down the street with the wrong software. Even something as relatively safe as a sleep inducer can become very dangerous when triggered at the wrong times ie driving a car.
Easier to tap nerve bundles than the actual brain ie eyes, ears, spinal cord and they are also quite dangerous ie stimulation of data input versus extremes of pain stimulation.
For actual brain input, it would really have to be grown and the user and the system aligned, think useful brain tumour, with the tumour creating the communications links but the tumour also the idea representing the real risk involved.
The biggest problems are; Would the government hack it if they could, yes. Would Corporation hack it if they could, yes. Would individuals hack it if they could, yes. The temptation to hack if for total control, is far to great for it to be done, apart from very limited medical actions, sleeping being the obvious target for simple manipulation and a real warning about the risk ie putting someone to sleep when they are driving a car.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I don't think anyone, well maybe aviation software developers, are capable of programming such devices. It must be efficient, secure, fault tolerant... the list goes on. By contrast, today commercial software is expected to fail and security updates are routine that nobody minds. This would be disastrous when applied to such tech. Just imagine someone figuring out how to crash your visual cortex, inducing seizures and such.
As seen on Continuum, the CMR implant was used to remote-control soldiers who refused to follow illegal orders to kill civilians. That's the future Alec Musk is trying to impose on us.
It's a good point about the capillaries - at their narrowest points they are 2 microns in width, and even if the neural lace particles are smaller they can clump and clog the capillaries and kill brain cells. Of course that can be replaced by the cloud and mind control perhaps...
I'm more of a neural leather guy.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Elon Musk is betting no one read Excession, in which Grey Area positively identified the neural lace as a mind rape device, and in which the neural lace was exhibited in a museum of torture.
Grey Area was an expert judge of evil and had a hobby of torturing Nazis to death.
Musk is worse than Hilter.
He was the author of "The Culture" series of sci-fi novels. Which is *easily* the greatest science-fiction series ever written. It's everything you ever wanted from sci-fi. If you haven't read them, do so immediately.
Start with "The Player of Games", or even better, "Use of Weapons" if you are an "andvanced" reader.
Time travel is physically impossible in the cosmos containing the Culture. Automatically disqualified as "everything you ever wanted from sci-fi."
Fuck off and die, fanboy.
I won't touch it; brains aren't deterministic, and consequently, this bullshit is completely antithetical to airworthy software design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtIa8c7gSCg
His ideas are neat, but his style is plodding.
Play Command HQ online
Clean energy is so important and so impossible to compete in and succeed in, 100% of the company's resources should be dedicated to it. Instead they want to go to space which is one giant money sink. Now there's this nonsense. There's only so much investor money available. This is dangerously stupid. Don't even get my started on the Hyperloop or as I like to call it, Dook Nukem Forever-loop.
I had the same reaction when reading this. It is uncannily similar to the series. Corporations have been running congress for years already, the president is a business man and a rich dude is selling technology with alternative power sources, neural implants, and AI.
Change the default password is one of the oldest pieces of advice for security with new computing devices.
We've see the importance of this advice underlined with IoT devices such as CCTV being added to BotNets.
Today we see this advice is relevant Digital Assistants, with TV advert using the activation phrase to trigger Goggle Home.
Today we also learn that Elon Musk is developing Neural Laces, digital to neural interface.
We need to see security designed into these from the bottom up.
Are any of them more than just venture-capital-millionaire-wannabes?
#DeleteChrome
Yeah let's ban something based on what a TV show has speculated. Bulletproof reasoning.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
"Its components wouldn’t necessarily require brain surgery for implantation; instead, the hardware could be injected into the jugular and travel to the brain through the bloodstream."
Been watching too much STNG, eh, Elon?
Mary Lou Jepsen is not a neuroscientist, I have met her. She is a tech/optics entrepreneur.
Such a technology could be applied without consent in many cases. For example convicts might be implanted in such a way that they could no longer commit crimes. Some of the mentally ill would fight like crazy any attempt to actually cure their mental illness. For some of these folks the illness and the person are the same thing. Remove the illness and their universe would simply cease to exists. For example a person with paranoia may feel that he is such a mess in life as that mysterious enemy has forced him into doing things. Blast that fantasy away and he will be forced to admit he is the one that failed, did wrong etc.. That could leave a man with no paranoia but an overwhelming urge to commit suicide. Changing people might have terrible consequences. A priest once told me that when dealing with some nasty, angry and bitter old folks that one had to be careful not to take away that bitterness as sometimes it was all that person had.
Time travel is physically impossible in the cosmos containing the Culture. Automatically disqualified as "everything you ever wanted from sci-fi."
You're right. It's everything I ever wanted from science fiction. Time travel is fantasy, or skiffy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There's a version being developed for Trump supporters that will use cattle excrement to build "Neural Disgrace" networks.
Scientists say that in addition to vastly improving the thinking capacity of their subjects, using this exotic material ensures that rejection won't be a problem.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Judging by names of Musk rockets, he is a big fan of sci fi. They all come from The Culture, which has wide use of "neural lace". Clearly he is a Banks enthusiast.
Call me back when they do the first human clinical trial.
That'll be... what? 20-30 years from now?
At that point, they might be able to prove they can safely do things, and then they can get started on what they actually want to fix.
The rest of the Culture had a different name for Grey Area: MeatF*cker. For exactly the reason you mentioned: Taking justice into his own hands (metaphorically).
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
Time Travel wasn't something Ian Banks ever explored. Time Travel is really really hard to get right and has limited uses: Brootstrap problem, Be your own Grandfather problem, Kill Hitler scenarios, Predestination/Freewill scenarios. Which are all variations on closed loops or the butterfly effect from changing the past. Or time travel is used as a hand waving exercise to allow for other adventures (Doctor Who, The Voyagers, maybe Rick and Morty).
In the issues the Ian Banks was exploring with the Culture (cultural conflict and assimilation, what happens to societies when scarcity is no longer a driving impetus, What happens when the well intentioned dabble with "lesser" powers) didn't need Time Travel in order to explore them.
But back to your comment: Your dismissal of The Culture Series feels uninformed and shoot from the hip, let alone rude. On the flip side; while The Culture is well written I don't know if I would call it the greatest Sci-Fi ever written, there are plenty of contenders for that title (Look at all of the Hugo and Nebula winners for other choices).
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
I used to like Banks but after "Look to Windward" he started to go downhill rapidly for me. His non-culture novel "The Algebraist" was tough to get through and I barely managed to finish "Matter". Never got around to "Surface Detail" or "Hydrogen Sonata."
I guess you haven't heard of the problems with the F35. Not to mention all the avionics bugs that are quietly fixed in commercial airliners without knowledge of them ever getting out to the wider public. There's a good reason Airbus uses 3 seperate master computers with software written by 3 seperate teams.
Everyone using this will need Neuropozine injections after a few months when their bodies start rejecting the implants.
Even though he doesn't address time travel in his books, any FTL travel can result in closed-timelike curves. So he conveniently ignored the fact that time-travel would be occurring in those stories.
I'm sure her concerns are reasonable, but still ....
Imagine if you could artificial control your own mood without taking drugs. You could fall asleep when you want to and wake up quickly at a certain time. You could be happy, social, and less anxious when you want. You could turn on or off sexual desire. You could have the mental focus of a robot and feel bored. How about turning off pain in whole or selectively. Turn off anxiety and fear. These and a million other uses are guaranteed. How much would any of those be worth if you could control them? It's a guaranteed future for he that invests.
And we haven't even gotten to the point of discussing illegal wire-heads and simply do it to get a better drug free high.
It's true. After "Look to Windward", the quality went down. And "Matter" flat-out sucked. But "Surface Detail" is pretty good, and "Hydrogen Sonata" is alright, too.
Still, overall, I'd say it's the best sci-fi series ever. Though sometimes I feel like "The Vorkosigan Saga" might deserve the title, also. But that's not "hard" sci-fi.
I think Uncle Elon is on a pirate ship, walking out on a plank on this one.. Not too long ago there was a device that was inserted into the veins of a person and supposedly filtered out blood clots. Well the device detached itself and lodged itself in other places. Lawsuits started circulating in commercials against the device. I think he should have a "Wait and see." approach on this one.
It'd take some failsafes to make it work, or else people are just going to hit the orgasm button until they starve. For anyone mildly susceptible to addiction, I'd expect, anyhow.
There are plenty of other good writers, e.g.:
I'm bad with names, so I would need to check my bookshelf to find more.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
the female executive had a brain link to her supercomputer, which aided her high-tech corporation immensely. Pretty good yarn.
Alison Reynold writes great kids books. My daughter loves them.
She's not really much into Alistair Reynolds, I guess hard Sci-fi is a but too advanced yet. I love it though. I especially like Revelation Space.
Signature v3.0, now with 42% less memory usage.
* Alastair Reynolds
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Investment isn't enough. Lots of people invest in ideas that go nowhere until their investments are worthless. To win big, you have to invest at the right time with the right people.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes