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Nandor Ludvig follow up comment: > I did watch this presentation for an hour -- but it was so painful for me to experience this scene of incompetence and mocke

Nandor Ludvig follow up comment: > I did watch this presentation for an hour -- but it was so painful for me to experience this scene of incompetence and mockery of neuroscience getting worldwide attention simply because of Musk's money (while true scientists lose their jobs because of the lack of NIH or NSF grants for their quality research) that I add some sentences here and just leave. They did not show how their robot-controlled microelectrodes actually penetrate into the cortex and find cells -- because, as every single-cell recording expert knows, this is the difficulty: not just to move each microelectrode close enough to the targeted neuron but to make sure they can be kept there for long periods while not damaging the cell either. To do this, as claimed by Musk with 1,000 microelectrodes within an hour with "surgery without anesthesia", in the pulsing brain with no neurosurgeon present is not just impossible but even its proposal is an outright embarrassment for people with more education than the Twitter-audience encouraged to send their questions. Enough. Carl Sagan's prophetic 1996 book "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" predicted an America sinking in "superstition and darkness". This time has arrived. -- ---Nandor Ludvig, MD, PhD I must say, it does feel like history repeating itself. It seems that anyone who is an expert in a field that Musk enters ALWAYS bets against Musk. And then, in the fullness of time, they are often proven to be wrong because Musk finds another way they couldn't imagine - probably because he works as a multi domain expert and from a viewpoint of first priciples. It will be interesting to see if that is how this one plays out.

refulgentis 6y ago
It makes me sad that a technical comment from someone in the field thats widely echoed somehow compares to funding an EV and space travel startup. No one claimed Musk couldn't do that...
- maneesh 6y ago
  You don't think that Musk had any naysayers thinking SpaceX would fail?
  - nine_k 6y ago
    Certainly there were: https://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2011/05/31/the-case-against-spacex-part-ii/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2011/05/31/the-case-aga... A quick googling probably will find early naysayers for any significant today's success.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Of course they had naysayers. But launching rockets is not impossible. Recovering them is hard. But it's a bounded problem. This is another one or two orders of magnitude harder.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      But they were people loudly claiming that landing and recovering the rocket is impossible. And uneconomical. All the way past first demonstrations, and it was only until SpaceX started doing it as a matter of course that these voices finally stopped.
      - raverbashing 6y ago
        You had people saying that trains were impossible and that passengers would suffocate once they started moving (in the 1800s) There are always going to be delusional people at every occasion in history.
- camjohnson26 6y ago
  Musk’s current wealth is higher than the total revenue of all the companies of which he was CEO, combined. Not profits, revenue. I don’t get why people are impressed that he sent astronauts into space when he’s been funded by equity markets and subsidies to the tune of billions of dollars. His feats are impressive in the same way building a skyscraper is impressive, but the trick is to find a way to do it sustainably and honestly. Musk has failed at both. That being said, Tesla is currently bigger than the 4 biggest auto makers in the world combined. Remains to be seen if they can justify that valuation.
  - foota 6y ago
    What does his wealth have anything to do with the companies revenues?
    - camjohnson26 6y ago
      Nothing apparently.
      - spoopyskelly 6y ago
        Musk will drive his Tesla on Mars and you'll still be calling him a failed huckster because you don't like him.
        tsimionescu 6y ago
        He won't.
        TeMPOraL 6y ago
        His Tesla is already in the general area of Mars, so he's half-way there :P.
        fault_lines 6y ago
        No, it isn't.
e_y_ 6y ago
I vaguely recall from the first Neuralink presentation that the cameras used on the robots are fast enough to take the pulsing of the blood into consideration and compensate for it. Personally I think even though it's an amazing technical accomplishment, the robotic electrode installation might be the simplest part of this whole thing. Once you have the electrodes installed, you might be able to pick out certain patterns, and maybe even restore motor function to people who have lost it. But the part about being able to replay memories seems incredibly far-fetched. We have no idea how to really interface with the brain. We can only really talk to a small fraction of the neurons, because you can only fit so many electrodes and threads compared to the billions of neurons. It might end up being incredibly challenging to connect a new interface, like if you suddenly grew a tail and had to learn how to control it.
- cromwellian 6y ago
  Consider that advances in decoding how memory and other aspects of the brain work isn't going to be possible until you can read from neurons in real time with high enough temporal and spatial resolution. Neuralink may be the enabling factor in massive advances in neuroscience, not actually a consumer product, but a microscope.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    That's not necessarily useful. Trying to understand the brain starting from the neuron level is arbitrary and certain to be an extremely difficult problem, because of the incredible scale of the brain. However, computation doesn't happen solely at the inter-neuron communication level, but also inside each neuron itself. Finally, trying all of this in mammals and even humans, instead of trying to first do it on something like a nematode or even simpler organism is such an obvious way of putting the cart before the horse that I can't take it seriously. There is 0 chance that this approach will have any kind of success in understanding memory and thought. I am extremely hopeful they will do some extremely good work in helping give people with various spinal chord injuries some amount of control over their limbs, including the ability to sense, which would be a tremendous life improvement and would make the whole thing worth it. But it's much, much easier to reach half the speed of light with chemical rockets than it is to understand software by studying individual transistors in a running processor.
kelnos 6y ago
I think the main difference here is that Musk's other ventures are all about technologies that already existed, but were prohibitively expensive or difficult to sell to a mass audience. He and his companies have done great things to promote these technologies, and to refine the tech to make it cheaper and more sustainable, not to mention fighting entrenched players who have a financial interest in seeing him fail. But figuring out how the brain works and how to interpret its signals using a computer is in a completely different league. Maybe he'll prevail nonetheless -- he's assembled some really smart people in the field to tackle the problem -- but I think it's reasonable to remain skeptical at this point.
- paulyacoubian 6y ago
  Yes exactly! He prefaced his presentation by saying the purpose of it is to attract the more talent. That’s the right move but by definition it will be very promotional in order to convey a vision for engineering things that are physically possible but face significant engineering hurdles. To get this technology to work as envisioned will require hundreds of technical breakthroughs across many fields.
  - pxtail 6y ago
    > by definition it will be very promotional in order to convey a vision I think that this is where Musk's endeavors are different and why Tesla stock prices are constant source of disbelief. He is able to successfully sell grand vision - and moreover - support it by showing results. Sure there is good old Toyota, it makes good reliable cars but it's just a car, there is no vision - I think that some people may want to buy Tesla or other Musk's company product just to indirectly support other projects. > true scientists lose their jobs because of the lack of NIH or NSF grants for their quality research Advertising and marketing is important. Doing things in the open does matter, live streaming double booster landing, pointing out that small steps here and there lead to big grand dream of landing on other planet does matter.
- newyankee 6y ago
  I am skeptical but hopeful as the technology can make a big personal difference for me. However i think one must be happy that someone is tackling the problem in the way Elon is doing.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nine_k 6y ago
As somebody said, if a old and renowned scientist says something is possible, he's most likely right; if he says something is impossible, he has a very serious chance of being wrong.
- amacbride 6y ago
  Clarke’s First Law: “ When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
- petejames 6y ago
  "If an expert says something can be done he is probably correct, but if he says it is impossible then consider getting another opinion." — Richard Hamming
- andbberger 6y ago
  If it is possible, it's possible in the sense that it's possible to approach lightspeed with a chemical rocket. The predominant method in modern neuroscience for recording from a large number of cells is fluorescent microscopy with genetically encoded fluorescent sensors. Whole brain imaging is now routine (at least for drosophila, and albeit probably not at cellular resolution), afaik ephys tops out at 1000s of cells. Gotta keep in mind that there are already several extant well-funded and highly motivated organizations devoted to studying the brain... and they're not doing whole-brain ephys.. they're doing advanced fluorescent microscopy
- KKKKkkkk1 6y ago
  On February 25, a director at the CDC held a White House press briefing in which she said that the CDC anticipates that lockdowns will be necessary to contain COVID-19 [0]. In response, President Trump held a press conference on Feb 26 in which he said that the number of US COVID-19 cases is going to be 0 within a couple of days [1]. What I'm saying is that you can ignore and disparage the experts all you like and sometimes get away with it. But then sometimes reality sets in. [0] https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/cdc-expects-community-spread-of-coronavirus-as-top-official-warns-disruptions-could-be-severe/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/cdc-expects-community-sp... [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-pres...
m0zg 6y ago
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it. Even if it doesn't work for stimulation, this is _HUGE_ for capture. Nobody has captured anywhere near this much data non-destructively before.
- salawat 6y ago
  It still isn't clear those will end up non-destructive in the long-term. biological processes surrounding physical brain health are far from fully understood, and it is possible there could be long-term maladaptive outcomes.
  - m0zg 6y ago
    That's why they're testing on pigs first. But even if this is not viable in humans, this will be HUGE for neuroscience and our understanding of the brain. Because right now our understanding of the brain is limited to a large extent by the inability to capture information from it in realtime, and inability to selectively stimulate it. That neuroscientist quoted upthread should be in awe of these new capabilities. It's like he's working with stick and twine and someone showed him a rocket engine. Instead they just sound like sour grapes - Neuralink is doing something an academic has no ability to do and will never have the ability to do because he's in academia and he can't build surgical robots or microscopic tungsten carbide wires.
newyankee 6y ago
I have a hunch this will take longer but it will lead to interesting science and applications nonetheless. Also i believe the existence of a publicly discussed company like this increases the speed of research and nowadays people are much more responsive to accepting that not everything will work perfectly right out of the gate, the journey of Tesla is actually a great example.
raverbashing 6y ago
So, Theranos for brain science?
tsimionescu 6y ago
Well, that's if you ignore Hyperloop, The Boring Company, Tesla auto-pilot - many failed experiments as well, or over-promising and under-delivering.
- sekai 6y ago
  > Tesla auto-pilot Huh? It's being improved constantly. Nothing like it in the car industry.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    It is not, and will not become in the next 20 years, a self-driving mechanism, as it has been designed to be.
    - est31 6y ago
      IDK about the 20 years claim, but he's definitely consistently said that full autonomy is just around the corner and that when you buy a new Tesla the hardware is already fit for full autonomy and just needs a software update with the algorithms to enable it... Both are bold claims and at least the first claim is consistently being proven wrong. I guess it creates more enthusiasm than "we are working on it", and saying that the hardware of a new Tesla is fit for autonomy means that fans buy a new one and not a second hand Tesla. I think that given enough dedication and investment, it's certainly possible that we'll have fully autonomous cars one day, and it's likely that Tesla will be one of the first companies with such a car, but I'm just annoyed by their constant "it will be around in 6-12 months" that they repeat year after year.
      - tsimionescu 6y ago
        Right now Tesla may literally be the last company likely to get there: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/self-driving-study-navigant-research-tesla-waymo-cruise/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/self-driving-study-naviga... And those are not 'bold claims' as much as 'outright lies'. There is no known path right now to full autonomy, so to claim your hardware is ready for it is nothing but a fantasy.
anchit63 6y ago
Musk said that they feel confident to achieve the implant of the link in under an hour and without general anesthesia. Is their any difference between anesthesia and general anesthesia when working on the brain?
- Jedd 6y ago
  What do you mean by the qualifier 'when working on the brain'? Typically avoiding GA is a laudable goal -- it's expensive (even in countries with public health cover), there's a lot more risk, and it would usually involve an overnight stay in a hospital (which might just come under the cost and added risk categories). In the case of this process, it would also involve a human (anaesthesiologist), so on top of risk and cost, you then have resource constraint issues compared to avoiding GA and letting a robot do application of LA and the operation. Open brain surgery often involves keeping the patient conscious as a good way of verifying nothing wrong and/or something right is happening during the operation -- this is probably less of an issue with this kind of repetitive, relatively low-risk, procedure.
  - est31 6y ago
    > Open brain surgery often involves keeping the patient conscious Many times they aren't fully conscious but still heavily drugged, just in a state of "not asleep" enough for basic tasks/communication needed to perform the surgery.
chpmrc 6y ago
Also he doesn't explain why most universities lose funding. Unlike private companies (especially managed by Elon) most research teams are either incredibly inefficient or have to deal with an incredibly inefficient bureaucracy machine. Companies like Neuralink or SpaceX bring brilliant, efficient teams together with an efficient "machine" (the company), which is a winning combination.
tim333 6y ago
>getting worldwide attention simply because of Musk's money It's not though. A bit the money but more his track record of building cool high tech stuff that works - rockets, cars etc.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cs702 6y ago
> To do this, as claimed by Musk with 1,000 microelectrodes within an hour with "surgery without anesthesia", in the pulsing brain with no neurosurgeon present is not just impossible... The not-so-secret secret sauce that will make it possible is AI. I'm certain it will be possible, in the not too distant future, to build AI models that can successfully control microelectrodes to penetrate into the cortex and find cells with superhuman precision. Consider that we now have "dumb" AI machines like GPT-3 that can model the statistical structure of human language. And note that there's nothing new or interesting about GPT-3's design except its size. GPT-3 is just a sequence of really large transformer layers. I can imagine a robot with the scale of a GPT-4 or GPT-5 successfully controlling those microelectrodes.
KKKKkkkk1 6y ago
I must say, it does feel like history repeating itself. It seems that anyone who is an expert in a field that Musk enters ALWAYS bets against Musk. And then, in the fullness of time, they are often proven to be wrong because Musk finds another way they couldn't imagine - probably because he works as a multi domain expert and from a viewpoint of first principles. And that's exactly what Musk said to himself when he told people to take their hands off their Tesla's steering wheel. [0] [0] https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-autopilot-60-minutes-interview/ https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-autopilot-60-min...
twirlock 6y ago
That's pretty stupid since it's the one thing he actually demoed.
vwat 6y ago
What an idiot. This has all the hallmarks of being wrong. It’s highly emotional. Lacks specific details. Best of all, it reveals a total lack of understanding of what is going on, which might have something to do with the fact that he freely admits he doesnt even bother to watch things all the way through because it’s... embarrassing? Pegging Elon as some fool with lots of money, the biggest indicator that this guy is just another academic idiot. I just checked this guy out. He made yet another comment on tc about how musk is just another Theranos (obviously wrong, go watch the next booster landing if you disagree) and how his own device was much better, but couldn’t reach production because of evil venture capital culture, which musk is a part of. He really emphasized that his device was much better. Looking at the patents he filed, it was a sub-dermal drug delivery device with some electrodes to sense. So nothing to do with neuralink, not better than it in any way except maybe one could argue that the much simpler and practical device would be of more benefit overall in the short term. This guy is a liar on record as I have just shown. Academia is filled with these kinds of people. Loud mouths who are good at squawking the loudest to get grant money and brown nose all the necessary people to move upwards. Typical academia in 2020...

refulgentis 6y ago

It makes me sad that a technical comment from someone in the field thats widely echoed somehow compares to funding an EV and space travel startup. No one claimed Musk couldn't do that...

maneesh 6y ago
You don't think that Musk had any naysayers thinking SpaceX would fail?
- nine_k 6y ago
  Certainly there were: https://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2011/05/31/the-case-against-spacex-part-ii/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2011/05/31/the-case-aga... A quick googling probably will find early naysayers for any significant today's success.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Of course they had naysayers. But launching rockets is not impossible. Recovering them is hard. But it's a bounded problem. This is another one or two orders of magnitude harder.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    But they were people loudly claiming that landing and recovering the rocket is impossible. And uneconomical. All the way past first demonstrations, and it was only until SpaceX started doing it as a matter of course that these voices finally stopped.
    - raverbashing 6y ago
      You had people saying that trains were impossible and that passengers would suffocate once they started moving (in the 1800s) There are always going to be delusional people at every occasion in history.
camjohnson26 6y ago
Musk’s current wealth is higher than the total revenue of all the companies of which he was CEO, combined. Not profits, revenue. I don’t get why people are impressed that he sent astronauts into space when he’s been funded by equity markets and subsidies to the tune of billions of dollars. His feats are impressive in the same way building a skyscraper is impressive, but the trick is to find a way to do it sustainably and honestly. Musk has failed at both. That being said, Tesla is currently bigger than the 4 biggest auto makers in the world combined. Remains to be seen if they can justify that valuation.
- foota 6y ago
  What does his wealth have anything to do with the companies revenues?
  - camjohnson26 6y ago
    Nothing apparently.
    - spoopyskelly 6y ago
      Musk will drive his Tesla on Mars and you'll still be calling him a failed huckster because you don't like him.
      - tsimionescu 6y ago
        He won't.
        TeMPOraL 6y ago
        His Tesla is already in the general area of Mars, so he's half-way there :P.
        fault_lines 6y ago
        No, it isn't.

e_y_ 6y ago

I vaguely recall from the first Neuralink presentation that the cameras used on the robots are fast enough to take the pulsing of the blood into consideration and compensate for it. Personally I think even though it's an amazing technical accomplishment, the robotic electrode installation might be the simplest part of this whole thing. Once you have the electrodes installed, you might be able to pick out certain patterns, and maybe even restore motor function to people who have lost it. But the part about being able to replay memories seems incredibly far-fetched. We have no idea how to really interface with the brain. We can only really talk to a small fraction of the neurons, because you can only fit so many electrodes and threads compared to the billions of neurons. It might end up being incredibly challenging to connect a new interface, like if you suddenly grew a tail and had to learn how to control it.

cromwellian 6y ago
Consider that advances in decoding how memory and other aspects of the brain work isn't going to be possible until you can read from neurons in real time with high enough temporal and spatial resolution. Neuralink may be the enabling factor in massive advances in neuroscience, not actually a consumer product, but a microscope.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  That's not necessarily useful. Trying to understand the brain starting from the neuron level is arbitrary and certain to be an extremely difficult problem, because of the incredible scale of the brain. However, computation doesn't happen solely at the inter-neuron communication level, but also inside each neuron itself. Finally, trying all of this in mammals and even humans, instead of trying to first do it on something like a nematode or even simpler organism is such an obvious way of putting the cart before the horse that I can't take it seriously. There is 0 chance that this approach will have any kind of success in understanding memory and thought. I am extremely hopeful they will do some extremely good work in helping give people with various spinal chord injuries some amount of control over their limbs, including the ability to sense, which would be a tremendous life improvement and would make the whole thing worth it. But it's much, much easier to reach half the speed of light with chemical rockets than it is to understand software by studying individual transistors in a running processor.

kelnos 6y ago

I think the main difference here is that Musk's other ventures are all about technologies that already existed, but were prohibitively expensive or difficult to sell to a mass audience. He and his companies have done great things to promote these technologies, and to refine the tech to make it cheaper and more sustainable, not to mention fighting entrenched players who have a financial interest in seeing him fail. But figuring out how the brain works and how to interpret its signals using a computer is in a completely different league. Maybe he'll prevail nonetheless -- he's assembled some really smart people in the field to tackle the problem -- but I think it's reasonable to remain skeptical at this point.

paulyacoubian 6y ago
Yes exactly! He prefaced his presentation by saying the purpose of it is to attract the more talent. That’s the right move but by definition it will be very promotional in order to convey a vision for engineering things that are physically possible but face significant engineering hurdles. To get this technology to work as envisioned will require hundreds of technical breakthroughs across many fields.
- pxtail 6y ago
  > by definition it will be very promotional in order to convey a vision I think that this is where Musk's endeavors are different and why Tesla stock prices are constant source of disbelief. He is able to successfully sell grand vision - and moreover - support it by showing results. Sure there is good old Toyota, it makes good reliable cars but it's just a car, there is no vision - I think that some people may want to buy Tesla or other Musk's company product just to indirectly support other projects. > true scientists lose their jobs because of the lack of NIH or NSF grants for their quality research Advertising and marketing is important. Doing things in the open does matter, live streaming double booster landing, pointing out that small steps here and there lead to big grand dream of landing on other planet does matter.
newyankee 6y ago
I am skeptical but hopeful as the technology can make a big personal difference for me. However i think one must be happy that someone is tackling the problem in the way Elon is doing.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

nine_k 6y ago

As somebody said, if a old and renowned scientist says something is possible, he's most likely right; if he says something is impossible, he has a very serious chance of being wrong.

amacbride 6y ago
Clarke’s First Law: “ When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
petejames 6y ago
"If an expert says something can be done he is probably correct, but if he says it is impossible then consider getting another opinion." — Richard Hamming
andbberger 6y ago
If it is possible, it's possible in the sense that it's possible to approach lightspeed with a chemical rocket. The predominant method in modern neuroscience for recording from a large number of cells is fluorescent microscopy with genetically encoded fluorescent sensors. Whole brain imaging is now routine (at least for drosophila, and albeit probably not at cellular resolution), afaik ephys tops out at 1000s of cells. Gotta keep in mind that there are already several extant well-funded and highly motivated organizations devoted to studying the brain... and they're not doing whole-brain ephys.. they're doing advanced fluorescent microscopy
KKKKkkkk1 6y ago
On February 25, a director at the CDC held a White House press briefing in which she said that the CDC anticipates that lockdowns will be necessary to contain COVID-19 [0]. In response, President Trump held a press conference on Feb 26 in which he said that the number of US COVID-19 cases is going to be 0 within a couple of days [1]. What I'm saying is that you can ignore and disparage the experts all you like and sometimes get away with it. But then sometimes reality sets in. [0] https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/cdc-expects-community-spread-of-coronavirus-as-top-official-warns-disruptions-could-be-severe/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/cdc-expects-community-sp... [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-pres...

m0zg 6y ago

People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it. Even if it doesn't work for stimulation, this is _HUGE_ for capture. Nobody has captured anywhere near this much data non-destructively before.

salawat 6y ago
It still isn't clear those will end up non-destructive in the long-term. biological processes surrounding physical brain health are far from fully understood, and it is possible there could be long-term maladaptive outcomes.
- m0zg 6y ago
  That's why they're testing on pigs first. But even if this is not viable in humans, this will be HUGE for neuroscience and our understanding of the brain. Because right now our understanding of the brain is limited to a large extent by the inability to capture information from it in realtime, and inability to selectively stimulate it. That neuroscientist quoted upthread should be in awe of these new capabilities. It's like he's working with stick and twine and someone showed him a rocket engine. Instead they just sound like sour grapes - Neuralink is doing something an academic has no ability to do and will never have the ability to do because he's in academia and he can't build surgical robots or microscopic tungsten carbide wires.

newyankee 6y ago

I have a hunch this will take longer but it will lead to interesting science and applications nonetheless. Also i believe the existence of a publicly discussed company like this increases the speed of research and nowadays people are much more responsive to accepting that not everything will work perfectly right out of the gate, the journey of Tesla is actually a great example.

raverbashing 6y ago

So, Theranos for brain science?

tsimionescu 6y ago

Well, that's if you ignore Hyperloop, The Boring Company, Tesla auto-pilot - many failed experiments as well, or over-promising and under-delivering.

sekai 6y ago
> Tesla auto-pilot Huh? It's being improved constantly. Nothing like it in the car industry.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  It is not, and will not become in the next 20 years, a self-driving mechanism, as it has been designed to be.
  - est31 6y ago
    IDK about the 20 years claim, but he's definitely consistently said that full autonomy is just around the corner and that when you buy a new Tesla the hardware is already fit for full autonomy and just needs a software update with the algorithms to enable it... Both are bold claims and at least the first claim is consistently being proven wrong. I guess it creates more enthusiasm than "we are working on it", and saying that the hardware of a new Tesla is fit for autonomy means that fans buy a new one and not a second hand Tesla. I think that given enough dedication and investment, it's certainly possible that we'll have fully autonomous cars one day, and it's likely that Tesla will be one of the first companies with such a car, but I'm just annoyed by their constant "it will be around in 6-12 months" that they repeat year after year.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      Right now Tesla may literally be the last company likely to get there: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/self-driving-study-navigant-research-tesla-waymo-cruise/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/self-driving-study-naviga... And those are not 'bold claims' as much as 'outright lies'. There is no known path right now to full autonomy, so to claim your hardware is ready for it is nothing but a fantasy.

anchit63 6y ago

Musk said that they feel confident to achieve the implant of the link in under an hour and without general anesthesia. Is their any difference between anesthesia and general anesthesia when working on the brain?

Jedd 6y ago
What do you mean by the qualifier 'when working on the brain'? Typically avoiding GA is a laudable goal -- it's expensive (even in countries with public health cover), there's a lot more risk, and it would usually involve an overnight stay in a hospital (which might just come under the cost and added risk categories). In the case of this process, it would also involve a human (anaesthesiologist), so on top of risk and cost, you then have resource constraint issues compared to avoiding GA and letting a robot do application of LA and the operation. Open brain surgery often involves keeping the patient conscious as a good way of verifying nothing wrong and/or something right is happening during the operation -- this is probably less of an issue with this kind of repetitive, relatively low-risk, procedure.
- est31 6y ago
  > Open brain surgery often involves keeping the patient conscious Many times they aren't fully conscious but still heavily drugged, just in a state of "not asleep" enough for basic tasks/communication needed to perform the surgery.

chpmrc 6y ago

Also he doesn't explain why most universities lose funding. Unlike private companies (especially managed by Elon) most research teams are either incredibly inefficient or have to deal with an incredibly inefficient bureaucracy machine. Companies like Neuralink or SpaceX bring brilliant, efficient teams together with an efficient "machine" (the company), which is a winning combination.

tim333 6y ago

>getting worldwide attention simply because of Musk's money It's not though. A bit the money but more his track record of building cool high tech stuff that works - rockets, cars etc.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cs702 6y ago

> To do this, as claimed by Musk with 1,000 microelectrodes within an hour with "surgery without anesthesia", in the pulsing brain with no neurosurgeon present is not just impossible... The not-so-secret secret sauce that will make it possible is AI. I'm certain it will be possible, in the not too distant future, to build AI models that can successfully control microelectrodes to penetrate into the cortex and find cells with superhuman precision. Consider that we now have "dumb" AI machines like GPT-3 that can model the statistical structure of human language. And note that there's nothing new or interesting about GPT-3's design except its size. GPT-3 is just a sequence of really large transformer layers. I can imagine a robot with the scale of a GPT-4 or GPT-5 successfully controlling those microelectrodes.

KKKKkkkk1 6y ago

I must say, it does feel like history repeating itself. It seems that anyone who is an expert in a field that Musk enters ALWAYS bets against Musk. And then, in the fullness of time, they are often proven to be wrong because Musk finds another way they couldn't imagine - probably because he works as a multi domain expert and from a viewpoint of first principles. And that's exactly what Musk said to himself when he told people to take their hands off their Tesla's steering wheel. [0] [0] https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-autopilot-60-minutes-interview/ https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-autopilot-60-min...

twirlock 6y ago

That's pretty stupid since it's the one thing he actually demoed.

vwat 6y ago

What an idiot. This has all the hallmarks of being wrong. It’s highly emotional. Lacks specific details. Best of all, it reveals a total lack of understanding of what is going on, which might have something to do with the fact that he freely admits he doesnt even bother to watch things all the way through because it’s... embarrassing? Pegging Elon as some fool with lots of money, the biggest indicator that this guy is just another academic idiot. I just checked this guy out. He made yet another comment on tc about how musk is just another Theranos (obviously wrong, go watch the next booster landing if you disagree) and how his own device was much better, but couldn’t reach production because of evil venture capital culture, which musk is a part of. He really emphasized that his device was much better. Looking at the patents he filed, it was a sub-dermal drug delivery device with some electrodes to sense. So nothing to do with neuralink, not better than it in any way except maybe one could argue that the much simpler and practical device would be of more benefit overall in the short term. This guy is a liar on record as I have just shown. Academia is filled with these kinds of people. Loud mouths who are good at squawking the loudest to get grant money and brown nose all the necessary people to move upwards. Typical academia in 2020...