7 ms·

I think they're a cool company and I even thought about applying. However the limiting factor here isn't the implant technology. Lots of groups have been buildi

I think they're a cool company and I even thought about applying. However the limiting factor here isn't the implant technology. Lots of groups have been building really great stuff for years (groups around the world have been recording from neurons in living animals for decades). The issue is there are ethical implications for performing such an invasive brain surgery on a healthy person. Right now the limit factor is finding suitable candidates. The ECoG implants are usually done to pinpoint where seizers start in the brain. The surgeons already have a good idea of the rough area from EEG but to zero in on the exact locus they need ECoG. So to find a candidate for a study you need someone who has epilepsy, their epilepsy needs to be bad enough to merit brain surgery, and the epileptic center cannot be the brain region you care about but it needs to be close enough to your target region that the same ECoG will cover both brain areas. So again I'm all for pushing this science forward. The more we learn about how the brain works the more we'll understand what makes us human. However, this isn't a technology problem right now. Its an ethical and medical one.

Ajedi32 7y ago
> However, the limiting factor here isn't the implant technology. [...] The issue is there are ethical implications for performing such an invasive brain surgery on a healthy person. That sounds like a limitation of the implant technology to me. The reason there are ethical problems with performing invasive brain surgery on a healthy person is because the risks and downsides of currently available implant technology are significant. If getting a brain implant were as cheap, easy, and safe as getting a tattoo, the ethical problem would be largely solved.
- jawns 7y ago
  > If getting a brain implant were as cheap, easy, and safe as getting a tattoo, the ethical problem would be largely solved. But how realistic is that? Your brain is a vital organ. It's encased in a hard skull. There is very little margin for error. It just doesn't strike me as the sort of procedure that could ever be made as cheap, easy, and safe as getting a tattoo -- at least not in our lifetime.
  - Ajedi32 7y ago
    I intentionally picked an extreme example to illustrate my point, which is that most of the ethical concerns with giving people brain implants are function of the drawbacks of currently available implantation technology; not fundamental issues with the concept itself. Obviously we won't be getting things quite to the level of cost and safety as tattoos anytime in the near future. Even Elon Musk's goal with Neuralink is somewhat less ambitious; he only wants it to be as safe and convenient as LASIK.
- BickNowstrom 7y ago
  There are quite a few ethical problems. On the reading side, there is interrogation (of suspected spies or terrorists), which is already decades underway with fMRI, and brainjacking (a keylogger for your thoughts). As for deep brain stimulation, this is researched to create fearless soldiers, change sexuality, extremely painful torture, radio control movements, and alter emotional states. Even for patients who suffer from severe health conditions such as OCD, depression, or tremors, the treatment can be very disruptive and emotional well-being may decrease, even with successful treatment of the condition (the doctor is happy, the patient less so). The dual use possibilities of this technology are extremely scary, and the involvement of Facebook (supposedly for VR) and DARPA (supposedly to treat anxiety and PTSD in soldiers) does not bode too well.
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    Got some references for "decades" of fMRI interrogation (or, really, anything else)? As far as I know, decoding is challenging with totally cooperative subjects doing simple tasks. Wiggling just a few mm is enough to completely destroy a run.
    - BickNowstrom 7y ago
      The brain can't lie (2003) > Brain scans can reveal how you think and feel, and even how you might behave. No wonder the CIA and big business are interested. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/nov/20/neuroscience.science https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/nov/20/neuroscience... Technology vs. Torture (2004) > Indeed, a Pentagon agency is already funding Functional MRI research for such purposes. https://slate.com/culture/2004/08/how-technology-will-eliminate-torture.html https://slate.com/culture/2004/08/how-technology-will-elimin... The Legality of the Use of Psychiatric Neuroimaging in Intelligence Interrogation (2005) > For example, an interrogator could present a detainee with pictures of suspected terrorists, or of potential terrorist targets, which would generate certain neural responses if the detainee were familiar with the subjects pictured. U.S. intelligence agencies have been interested in deploying fMRI technology in interrogation for years. It now appears that they can. https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3008&context=clr https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti... Zero-Shot Learning with Semantic Output Codes (2009) > As a case study, we build a SOC classifier for a neural decoding task and show that it can often predict words that people are thinking about from functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) of their neural activity, even without training examples for those words. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/theo-73/www/papers/zero-shot-learning.pdf https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/theo-73/www/papers/zer... Anecdotal hearsay: I first heard of a brain reading helmet able to successfully reconstruct a numerical password on subjects where the helmet was not trained on (but who consciously had to think about the keycode) in 2001. I also heard this technology was used extensively in Guantanamo Bay and black sites, possibly as a cheap trick to intimidate prisoners into speaking the truth / making them visibly anxious to lie, such tricks dating back to the world wars where they used sedatives and/or uppers disguised as "truth serums", and even the threat of administering these caused subjects to crack. As for unethical deep brain stimulation research see: - Assessment of Soviet Electrical Brain Stimulation Research and Applications (1975) https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00792R000600340001-4.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00792... - Robert Galbraith Heath (1953+) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Galbraith_Heath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Galbraith_Heath > Dr Heath's work on mind-control at Tulane was partly funded by the US military and the CIA. Dr Heath's subjects were African Americans. In the words of Heath's collaborator Australian psychiatrist Harry Bailey, this was "because they were everywhere and cheap experimental animals". Following the discovery by Olds and Milner of the "pleasure centres" of the brain [James Olds and Peter Milner, "Positive Reinforcement Produced by Electrical Stimulation of the Septal Area and Other Regions of the Rat Brain," Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 47 (1954): 419-28.], Dr Heath was the main speaker at a seminar conducted by the Army Chemical Corps at its Edgewood Arsenal medical laboratories. Dr Heath's topic was "Some Aspects of Electrical Stimulation and Recording in the Brain of Man." Details of Dr Heath's own involvement in the MK-ULTRA project remain unclear; but Tulane University continues to enjoy close ties with the CIA. Dr Heath also conducted numerous experiments with mescaline, LSD and cannabis.

Ajedi32 7y ago

> However, the limiting factor here isn't the implant technology. [...] The issue is there are ethical implications for performing such an invasive brain surgery on a healthy person. That sounds like a limitation of the implant technology to me. The reason there are ethical problems with performing invasive brain surgery on a healthy person is because the risks and downsides of currently available implant technology are significant. If getting a brain implant were as cheap, easy, and safe as getting a tattoo, the ethical problem would be largely solved.

jawns 7y ago
> If getting a brain implant were as cheap, easy, and safe as getting a tattoo, the ethical problem would be largely solved. But how realistic is that? Your brain is a vital organ. It's encased in a hard skull. There is very little margin for error. It just doesn't strike me as the sort of procedure that could ever be made as cheap, easy, and safe as getting a tattoo -- at least not in our lifetime.
- Ajedi32 7y ago
  I intentionally picked an extreme example to illustrate my point, which is that most of the ethical concerns with giving people brain implants are function of the drawbacks of currently available implantation technology; not fundamental issues with the concept itself. Obviously we won't be getting things quite to the level of cost and safety as tattoos anytime in the near future. Even Elon Musk's goal with Neuralink is somewhat less ambitious; he only wants it to be as safe and convenient as LASIK.
BickNowstrom 7y ago
There are quite a few ethical problems. On the reading side, there is interrogation (of suspected spies or terrorists), which is already decades underway with fMRI, and brainjacking (a keylogger for your thoughts). As for deep brain stimulation, this is researched to create fearless soldiers, change sexuality, extremely painful torture, radio control movements, and alter emotional states. Even for patients who suffer from severe health conditions such as OCD, depression, or tremors, the treatment can be very disruptive and emotional well-being may decrease, even with successful treatment of the condition (the doctor is happy, the patient less so). The dual use possibilities of this technology are extremely scary, and the involvement of Facebook (supposedly for VR) and DARPA (supposedly to treat anxiety and PTSD in soldiers) does not bode too well.
- mattkrause 7y ago
  Got some references for "decades" of fMRI interrogation (or, really, anything else)? As far as I know, decoding is challenging with totally cooperative subjects doing simple tasks. Wiggling just a few mm is enough to completely destroy a run.
  - BickNowstrom 7y ago
    The brain can't lie (2003) > Brain scans can reveal how you think and feel, and even how you might behave. No wonder the CIA and big business are interested. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/nov/20/neuroscience.science https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/nov/20/neuroscience... Technology vs. Torture (2004) > Indeed, a Pentagon agency is already funding Functional MRI research for such purposes. https://slate.com/culture/2004/08/how-technology-will-eliminate-torture.html https://slate.com/culture/2004/08/how-technology-will-elimin... The Legality of the Use of Psychiatric Neuroimaging in Intelligence Interrogation (2005) > For example, an interrogator could present a detainee with pictures of suspected terrorists, or of potential terrorist targets, which would generate certain neural responses if the detainee were familiar with the subjects pictured. U.S. intelligence agencies have been interested in deploying fMRI technology in interrogation for years. It now appears that they can. https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3008&context=clr https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti... Zero-Shot Learning with Semantic Output Codes (2009) > As a case study, we build a SOC classifier for a neural decoding task and show that it can often predict words that people are thinking about from functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) of their neural activity, even without training examples for those words. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/theo-73/www/papers/zero-shot-learning.pdf https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/theo-73/www/papers/zer... Anecdotal hearsay: I first heard of a brain reading helmet able to successfully reconstruct a numerical password on subjects where the helmet was not trained on (but who consciously had to think about the keycode) in 2001. I also heard this technology was used extensively in Guantanamo Bay and black sites, possibly as a cheap trick to intimidate prisoners into speaking the truth / making them visibly anxious to lie, such tricks dating back to the world wars where they used sedatives and/or uppers disguised as "truth serums", and even the threat of administering these caused subjects to crack. As for unethical deep brain stimulation research see: - Assessment of Soviet Electrical Brain Stimulation Research and Applications (1975) https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00792R000600340001-4.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00792... - Robert Galbraith Heath (1953+) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Galbraith_Heath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Galbraith_Heath > Dr Heath's work on mind-control at Tulane was partly funded by the US military and the CIA. Dr Heath's subjects were African Americans. In the words of Heath's collaborator Australian psychiatrist Harry Bailey, this was "because they were everywhere and cheap experimental animals". Following the discovery by Olds and Milner of the "pleasure centres" of the brain [James Olds and Peter Milner, "Positive Reinforcement Produced by Electrical Stimulation of the Septal Area and Other Regions of the Rat Brain," Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 47 (1954): 419-28.], Dr Heath was the main speaker at a seminar conducted by the Army Chemical Corps at its Edgewood Arsenal medical laboratories. Dr Heath's topic was "Some Aspects of Electrical Stimulation and Recording in the Brain of Man." Details of Dr Heath's own involvement in the MK-ULTRA project remain unclear; but Tulane University continues to enjoy close ties with the CIA. Dr Heath also conducted numerous experiments with mescaline, LSD and cannabis.