6 ms·

I was excited for Neuralink, then I watched the demo

40 points by two_almonds 6y ago

miked85 6y ago
The "tech demo" was less than impressive. 3 pigs all acting normal, one (supposedly) had the implant and then had it removed, one (supposedly) had the implant and made a lot of beeping sounds, and one was, well, just a normal pig.
- emteycz 6y ago
  Interestingly, all the neurologists and bioengineers I know were very excited by the demo.
  - jansan 6y ago
    Did they have dollar signs in their eyes?
    - emteycz 6y ago
      We're from a country where research or medical work is not really well rewarded and you think of it as a sort of charity, so no, no dollars and no Czech crowns too. They're excited that a man was able to do that within just a few years, while the sensory capabilities are not new (we used to have a lot less channels, though), the extreme miniaturization, the surgery procedure and the development speed are very exciting.
  - hehebbssjj 6y ago
    As in, medical doctors who have done brain surgery? Or random dudes who like to inject RFID chips into their hand to pay for coffee
    - emteycz 6y ago
      A), my friends are young though, so brain surgery only under supervision probably. I count body modification as something else.
waihtis 6y ago
These various networked computer components being attached to our bodies make me very nervous. See: hackers control pacemaker shock cycles with malware. [1] Software will always be vulnerable and it’s just a matter of time until someone gets eliminated by this vector - or worse, think about a wormable exploit aimed at mass adopted Neuralinks to mass fry people.. [1] https://www.wired.com/story/pacemaker-hack-malware-black-hat/ https://www.wired.com/story/pacemaker-hack-malware-black-hat...
- rocqua 6y ago
  It is scary, but what is the actual incentive? Terrorism, and that is it as far as I can see. In cyber up until know, criminals and espionage seem like much bigger threats than terrorism. We are introducing a new attack surface here, and it makes sense to consider whether we want to. But it is not an attack surface that seems likely to attract many attackers.
  - SiempreViernes 6y ago
    Really invasive ads is the main one I'd say. Imagine scammy supplement ads appearing on your phone whenever your hearth beat got a bit unusual. Heck, maybe messing with the rate for a short while is harmless but scary, and a good time to show ads for some pills...
    - blackflame7000 6y ago
      Sort of like a Smart watch?
      - SiempreViernes 6y ago
        Good point, though people with pacemakers and people with smartwatches don't overlap very well.
  - titzer 6y ago
    Ransom.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
djohnston 6y ago
one feature i dont understand about neuralink is the promised transmission of thoughts. lets say i have a device that can encode activity of every neuron in my brain simultaneously. i think some variation of the thought "elephant," and the neuralink creates some digital representation of these signals. then i send that digital encoding to your brain's neuralink. how on earth are you going to think of ANY elephant, let alone my elephant? the structural nature of our brains is certainly different, the network of activated neurons aren't isomorphic, certainly not identical, right? i am by no means an expert, but i dont see how you can ever take a digital signal and turn it into a conscious meat thought. motor signals seem somewhat more tractable
- sudhirj 6y ago
  There will likely need to be translation layer. Motor signals aren't necessarily tractable either, people can learn to walk again after even if the parts of the brain that govern walking are damaged. The promise seems more that ideas can be transmitted with higher bandwidth. My signals -> word1, send word1 to you, word1-> your signals for word1 would be likely. Both of us would have to the system for word1, but if we could exchange it much faster than speaking, maybe even reading. My issue with the system is that the line between reading and writing signals is very thin, and this these are hackable devices. Once the device learns a person's brain signals to make the legs run, it's easy to replay them on a bridge when facing sideways. There's no technology right now that's foolproof, and I'm not sure how any company can boast that it's secure enough — even if encryption is strong laws can still be enacted to force companies to hand over keys or install backdoors.
- visarga 6y ago
  > how on earth are you going to think of ANY elephant, let alone my elephant? Both brains sensors are calibrated on the same images, then a common representation can be found as intermediary. It has been done with neural nets translating into a common intermediary language, thus needing N encoders/decoders instead of (N-1)^2 separate networks. In the easiest case it can be a simple linear transform to map one vector space into another.
  - 6y ago
peteretep 6y ago
> Elon Musk preys on the hopeful and optimistic Yes but he also launches rockets into fucking space; that is to say, he may be selling snake oil, but he’s also selling legitimate magic beans.
- PanosJee 6y ago
  This is a physics problem (well constrained) versus biology and even worse consciousness where we are pretty much at ground zero. His claims/promises about what will be possible are absurd eg being able to store and replay memories. Snake oil territory. A marketing event for his messianic persona so fanboys buy more Tesla stock.
  - diffeomorphism 6y ago
    It is only rocket science, which is as we all know very easy /s.
    - jansan 6y ago
      It may actually be relatively easy compared to what he is trying with Neuralink.
- yabai_yatsu 6y ago
  And cars.
- mseidl 6y ago
  Also , which has been done for decades.
  - genidoi 6y ago
    ...by governments motivated to have launchable nuclear weapons, not by private citizens creating profitable companies through venture capital. Reusable rockets put his companies work way ahead of government rocketry capabilities.
moontear 6y ago
I am not an expert, but what I thought was remarkable is the 12000 channels Musk talked about. New cochlear implants have 120 channels - one channel is one neuron (AFAIK) - more neurons is better results. I would love some expert take on this, but my first reaction was „12000 sounds like a lot - they all work? That’s cool“. Also check out this wait but why article which I think explains the resolution pretty well: https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- thornjm 6y ago
  I’m very much not an expert. I think the state of the art for measuring brain activity is the functional MRI. fMRIs have limits on their spatial, temporal and ‘activity’ resolution. I think they also measure ‘only’ blood flow and not electrical activity. My guess is that if Neuralink does nothing more than provide a more sophisticated tool for investigating the brain than the current state of the art then it will have been a success. A quick google suggests the highest resolution fMRIs currently have about 1 million voxels of spatial resolution at a sample rate of about 1/sec. EEGs can measure electrical activity but only at very low resolution and on the surface.
  - hprotagonist 6y ago
    It depends on what you mean by "measuring brain activity". fMRI has a spatial resolution on the order of the summed activity of tens of thousands of neurons and a temporal resolution of 2-4 seconds, so it's often very imprecise if you want to know what one neuron in particular is up to. I've seen single-unit recordings done with electrodes and simultaneous Ca2+ imaging with a 2-photon microscope. You trade real-time speed and single unit specificity for a loss of knowledge about the population. MEG can give you real-time summed behavior, but the inverse problem is indeterminate so you're less sure of _where_ that activity is coming from. "what's the good tool to measure brain activity" is very often a function of "what do i want to find out about the brain?"
- 6y ago
ansible 6y ago
The demo was impressive. Did the author not see the part where they were predicting the body position of the walking pig? I don't see how that is going to be done with stick on sensors. And yes, some implantable BCI devices have better capability. The point is to make this as cheap as possible... so that it doesn't require a brain surgeon to install. Because brain surgeons are expensive.
- shatnersbassoon 6y ago
  If he can't get cars to drive around a city autonomously, who is going to let him drive electrodes around their brain using automation? Brain implant surgery is incredibly invasive and risky even with brain surgeons.
  - visarga 6y ago
    They start with animal tests, then impaired people and finally public at large. It's stupid to get implanted with a work-in-progress device yet, except if your life quality requires it.
- Balgair 6y ago
  Researchers have been doing movement prediction for a few years now (among other things). It's open source too: http://miniscope.org/index.php/Main_Page http://miniscope.org/index.php/Main_Page
two_almonds 6y ago
They stated explicitly that this was a recruitment event, so personally I feel like some of the hype can be forgiven. The tone of this article is negative and I instinctively want to defend Neuralink because I hope that we can eventually achieve all of those sci-fi ambitions. But I think that's the wrong approach, and possibly insulting to researchers who have been working on these problems for decades only to be overshadowed by what I have to admit was not the most impressive demo. However, this event does attract attention, so what I'm really hoping for is an influx of long-read articles and in-depth analyses coming from experts in the various fields surrounding Neuralink's aims as a result of the hightened interest in the topic.
swiley 6y ago
If they handle the software for this in any way like the Tesla I wouldn’t want it near my head.
- soco 6y ago
  On the other hand, SpaceX runs rather professionally. It also has to, of course. My point is, they CAN deliver. Probably with Tesla they're just trying to get by with the least acceptable effort.
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    SpaceX is somewhat less impressive as a company than you might imagine. They don't really have that much competition apart from Soyuz at the moment. There is huge support in US to have a alternative to Soyuz. Also NASA is prisoner of government corruption to the point where NASA operations are crippled in their capabilities - ie you get funding only if you keep unnecessary bureaucracy running for sake of some governor who won by promising space jobs. SpaceX took all motivated and knowledgeable people gave them money to do what NASA was not allowed to do. I am not trying to take away from their successes. The reusable modules landing in sync are amazing feat of engineering. And SpaceX has actually working 'product', even more solid than Tesla (as a car its expensive, low volume, with a lot of issues compared to what we come to expect of a car). Other stuff that Musk is trying to push are fairy tales, hyperloop is bad idea from the ground up. Boring company is boring. Its just bad implementation of a subway. And this neurolink is so far away from being anything usable, they are not even clear what it suppose to be. "Stick in some wires we will see what happens revolutionary tech TM." But SpaceX business was waiting to happen. Musk was smart enough to throw money at it. So I wouldn't use spaceX as example of some godlike Musk abilities to create something out of nothing.
    - soco 6y ago
      I agree. That's why I said "runs profesionally" not choosing other fancy wording...
arijun 6y ago
I think the author calling Musk a conman is too strong a reaction to what goes on. I think Musk has a tendency to oversell already great technology with science fiction. Teslas are amazing cars but full self driving has been 6 months away for years now. Like the author, I would also be upset if I believed Musks promises of a brain-computer interface, only to see them dashed. But Neuralink is already an amazing improvement, and I am still excited to see what will come of it.
- H8crilA 6y ago
  A tendency you say? https://elonmusk.today/ https://elonmusk.today/
- CJefferson 6y ago
  As you say, Musk has been claiming self-driving is 6 months away for years now, yet whenever a crash happens they claim drivers must keep full attention. How is that not the definition of a con-man?
  - mseidl 6y ago
    Plus the horrible quality of of the cars too.
    - arijun 6y ago
      I imagine that for people who bought the cars, the other characteristics outweigh build quality. Separately, you might be interested to know that apparently the build quality has gone up quite a bit recently: https://youtu.be/TOrrdqje9Og https://youtu.be/TOrrdqje9Og
  - arijun 6y ago
    I’m not sure I follow... you and Musk agree FSD isn’t here now, so of course drivers must keep full attention. As to him making claims about the future, perhaps he believes it. In any case, there is a history of his companies doing “the impossible”; economical reuse of rockets was considered by many to be hot gas by him. Conmen don’t usually deliver to that level.
vansul 6y ago
To me (neuro undergrad, comp sci masters), the demo seemed underwhelming but encouraging. As far as I can tell the tech was not doing anything particularly novel and the 'fitbit in your skull' analogy was personally uninspiring. [edit: the volume of reads /form factor is a step forward] That said, the demo was mostly for attracting talent - lots of money and a great team will likely get them somewhere. In terms of their long term goals I expect the area that will give them the most trouble is reading/writing interesting stuff on the cortex. Neural coding is really hard and poorly understood.
- frisco 6y ago
  > the tech was not doing anything particularly novel Where are all these people apparently doing long term, low latency wireless 1024 channel ephys with stim capability?
  - vansul 6y ago
    Apologies I spoke too soon, you're absolutely right that the volume is an impressive achievement.
- nabla9 6y ago
  I have problem with the two different narratives. Neuralink has two goals: 1) short term. better BMIs to to treat serious brain diseases with more bandwidth and more and better electrodes. I can see this happening. 2) long term. Invasive BMI for something other than treating diseases. Better electronics is not going to make invasive brain implants safe for consumer use, they just reduce certain risks. To solve (2) Neuralink must solve fundamental issues in medicine related to body implants and brain surgery. It would be groundbreaking and probably revolutionize medicine even outside brain implants. Neuralink researchers might get Nobel in Medicine. Breakthrough in brain surgery. To get FDA to approve brain surgery (making holes in the dura mater) even brain surgery to open and close the brain for no good medical reason would be insanely hard. Any form of brain surgery has lots of risks. Bleeding in the brain, seizure, scarring of the brain, immediate infection risk and late infection risk. Inserting lace with thousands of electrodes is huge operation even if you could do with with endoscope. Breakthrough with implants. With the BMI ther are issues with coagulation and constant low level inflammation. It's both health risk and gradually degrades the effectiveness of electrodes. Electrode must be in contact with tissue and interact with it. There is risks even with teeth implants, artificial knees and hips. They collect bacteria around them and they are just inert objects.
refresher 6y ago
>But that didn’t stop me from getting hyped up to the point of forgetting that Musk is a con-artist at worst and just some dude with a bunch of money and charisma at best. Seems a bit harsh.
nihil75 6y ago
This article is completely wrong and celebrates ignorance.
- nihil75 6y ago
  Innovations demonstrated: - Coin-sized brain implant, flush with skull, no external wires. - 1024 channels EEG - Electrode insertion with minimal brain-matter loss - Analysis and prediction of brain-activity (node-beep and motion joint positions)
dayaz36 6y ago
Why is this article even being shared on HN let alone end up on the front page within minutes of posting? Anyone with the slightest understanding of this topic can poke holes in every single sentence in this ridiculously uninformed article. I stopped reading half way as it was making me dumber. HN can be so demoralizing sometimes. You'd think this would be the last place to find innovators being smeared but here we are...
SiempreViernes 6y ago
Prof Andrew Jackson, Professor of Neural Interfaces, Newcastle University, said: > “Neuralink are progressing through the steps that have been taken with previous neural interface technology. They have moved from rodents to a large mammal (pigs), and are apparently seeking FDA approval for a human trial. I had some sympathy with Elon, having also had experience of animal experiments that don’t work perfectly the day we have visitors in the room! But proving the safety of new biomedical implants in animals is always a vital step towards a clinical trial. > “I don’t think there was anything revolutionary in the presentation, but they are working through the engineering challenges of placing multiple electrodes into the brain. In terms of their technology, 1024 channels is not that impressive these days, but the electronics to relay them wirelessly is state-of-the-art, and the robotic implantation is nice. > “But the biggest challenge is what you do with all this brain data. The demonstrations were actually quite underwhelming in this regard, and didn’t show anything that hasn’t been done before (e.g. decoding limb position during walking). There is a big difference between recording brain cells and ‘reading thoughts’, especially when it comes to higher-level cognitive functions that we don’t understand as well. The idea of ‘writing to the brain’ is even more questionable – there are fundamental limitations to targeting specific networks of neurons in a meaningful way using electrical stimulation. > “So in summary I would say this is solid engineering but mediocre neuroscience. Finally, I think it is unfortunate that they are presenting their work in this way, rather than publishing peer-reviewed papers that would allow their claims to be scrutinised, but I guess this is something that we will have to get used to as neural interfaces move from the academic to the commercial sector.” https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-elon-musks-neuralink-demonstration-involving-pigs/ https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-elon-m...
- kken 6y ago
  > “So in summary I would say this is solid engineering but mediocre neuroscience. Finally, I think it is unfortunate that they are presenting their work in this way, rather than publishing peer-reviewed papers that would allow their claims to be scrutinised, but I guess this is something that we will have to get used to as neural interfaces move from the academic to the commercial sector.” Well, and this is exactly what needs to be done to further this area as it is the part that's not completely addressed by academia. Any kind of academic research obviously focusses on generating one-time results for publication.
ykevinator 6y ago
This reads like a teenage girl rolling her eyes wrote it.
yholio 6y ago
Neuralink is not a startup, it is a research lab dabbling in a very speculative area. Something might come out of it in the very long run, or it might not. The demo showed essentially a tool they are using in this research, a miniaturized brain implant which is technologically superior to what competing researchers are using. They showed an application of that research tool, a recorded session (not included in the actual demo, probably hard to reproduce) where they claim to have "predicted" the movements of a pig. "Predicted" is probably a strong word since the brain controls motor functions. So they showed progress and proved they are actually a lab and actually perform research. That being said, there was absolutely nothing in the demo remotely related to a "brain-computer" interface, nor are they likely to get there for many, many years. That's the speed when doing hard science, and pumping more money only has a marginal efect.
ashildr 6y ago
> Elon Musk preys on the hopeful and optimistic. Drama queen.

40 points by two_almonds 6y ago

The "tech demo" was less than impressive. 3 pigs all acting normal, one (supposedly) had the implant and then had it removed, one (supposedly) had the implant and made a lot of beeping sounds, and one was, well, just a normal pig.

emteycz 6y ago
Interestingly, all the neurologists and bioengineers I know were very excited by the demo.
- jansan 6y ago
  Did they have dollar signs in their eyes?
  - emteycz 6y ago
    We're from a country where research or medical work is not really well rewarded and you think of it as a sort of charity, so no, no dollars and no Czech crowns too. They're excited that a man was able to do that within just a few years, while the sensory capabilities are not new (we used to have a lot less channels, though), the extreme miniaturization, the surgery procedure and the development speed are very exciting.
- hehebbssjj 6y ago
  As in, medical doctors who have done brain surgery? Or random dudes who like to inject RFID chips into their hand to pay for coffee
  - emteycz 6y ago
    A), my friends are young though, so brain surgery only under supervision probably. I count body modification as something else.

waihtis 6y ago

These various networked computer components being attached to our bodies make me very nervous. See: hackers control pacemaker shock cycles with malware. [1] Software will always be vulnerable and it’s just a matter of time until someone gets eliminated by this vector - or worse, think about a wormable exploit aimed at mass adopted Neuralinks to mass fry people.. [1] https://www.wired.com/story/pacemaker-hack-malware-black-hat/ https://www.wired.com/story/pacemaker-hack-malware-black-hat...

rocqua 6y ago
It is scary, but what is the actual incentive? Terrorism, and that is it as far as I can see. In cyber up until know, criminals and espionage seem like much bigger threats than terrorism. We are introducing a new attack surface here, and it makes sense to consider whether we want to. But it is not an attack surface that seems likely to attract many attackers.
- SiempreViernes 6y ago
  Really invasive ads is the main one I'd say. Imagine scammy supplement ads appearing on your phone whenever your hearth beat got a bit unusual. Heck, maybe messing with the rate for a short while is harmless but scary, and a good time to show ads for some pills...
  - blackflame7000 6y ago
    Sort of like a Smart watch?
    - SiempreViernes 6y ago
      Good point, though people with pacemakers and people with smartwatches don't overlap very well.
- titzer 6y ago
  Ransom.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

djohnston 6y ago

one feature i dont understand about neuralink is the promised transmission of thoughts. lets say i have a device that can encode activity of every neuron in my brain simultaneously. i think some variation of the thought "elephant," and the neuralink creates some digital representation of these signals. then i send that digital encoding to your brain's neuralink. how on earth are you going to think of ANY elephant, let alone my elephant? the structural nature of our brains is certainly different, the network of activated neurons aren't isomorphic, certainly not identical, right? i am by no means an expert, but i dont see how you can ever take a digital signal and turn it into a conscious meat thought. motor signals seem somewhat more tractable

sudhirj 6y ago
There will likely need to be translation layer. Motor signals aren't necessarily tractable either, people can learn to walk again after even if the parts of the brain that govern walking are damaged. The promise seems more that ideas can be transmitted with higher bandwidth. My signals -> word1, send word1 to you, word1-> your signals for word1 would be likely. Both of us would have to the system for word1, but if we could exchange it much faster than speaking, maybe even reading. My issue with the system is that the line between reading and writing signals is very thin, and this these are hackable devices. Once the device learns a person's brain signals to make the legs run, it's easy to replay them on a bridge when facing sideways. There's no technology right now that's foolproof, and I'm not sure how any company can boast that it's secure enough — even if encryption is strong laws can still be enacted to force companies to hand over keys or install backdoors.
visarga 6y ago
> how on earth are you going to think of ANY elephant, let alone my elephant? Both brains sensors are calibrated on the same images, then a common representation can be found as intermediary. It has been done with neural nets translating into a common intermediary language, thus needing N encoders/decoders instead of (N-1)^2 separate networks. In the easiest case it can be a simple linear transform to map one vector space into another.
- 6y ago

peteretep 6y ago

> Elon Musk preys on the hopeful and optimistic Yes but he also launches rockets into fucking space; that is to say, he may be selling snake oil, but he’s also selling legitimate magic beans.

PanosJee 6y ago
This is a physics problem (well constrained) versus biology and even worse consciousness where we are pretty much at ground zero. His claims/promises about what will be possible are absurd eg being able to store and replay memories. Snake oil territory. A marketing event for his messianic persona so fanboys buy more Tesla stock.
- diffeomorphism 6y ago
  It is only rocket science, which is as we all know very easy /s.
  - jansan 6y ago
    It may actually be relatively easy compared to what he is trying with Neuralink.
yabai_yatsu 6y ago
And cars.
mseidl 6y ago
Also , which has been done for decades.
- genidoi 6y ago
  ...by governments motivated to have launchable nuclear weapons, not by private citizens creating profitable companies through venture capital. Reusable rockets put his companies work way ahead of government rocketry capabilities.

moontear 6y ago

I am not an expert, but what I thought was remarkable is the 12000 channels Musk talked about. New cochlear implants have 120 channels - one channel is one neuron (AFAIK) - more neurons is better results. I would love some expert take on this, but my first reaction was „12000 sounds like a lot - they all work? That’s cool“. Also check out this wait but why article which I think explains the resolution pretty well: https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
thornjm 6y ago
I’m very much not an expert. I think the state of the art for measuring brain activity is the functional MRI. fMRIs have limits on their spatial, temporal and ‘activity’ resolution. I think they also measure ‘only’ blood flow and not electrical activity. My guess is that if Neuralink does nothing more than provide a more sophisticated tool for investigating the brain than the current state of the art then it will have been a success. A quick google suggests the highest resolution fMRIs currently have about 1 million voxels of spatial resolution at a sample rate of about 1/sec. EEGs can measure electrical activity but only at very low resolution and on the surface.
- hprotagonist 6y ago
  It depends on what you mean by "measuring brain activity". fMRI has a spatial resolution on the order of the summed activity of tens of thousands of neurons and a temporal resolution of 2-4 seconds, so it's often very imprecise if you want to know what one neuron in particular is up to. I've seen single-unit recordings done with electrodes and simultaneous Ca2+ imaging with a 2-photon microscope. You trade real-time speed and single unit specificity for a loss of knowledge about the population. MEG can give you real-time summed behavior, but the inverse problem is indeterminate so you're less sure of _where_ that activity is coming from. "what's the good tool to measure brain activity" is very often a function of "what do i want to find out about the brain?"
6y ago

ansible 6y ago

The demo was impressive. Did the author not see the part where they were predicting the body position of the walking pig? I don't see how that is going to be done with stick on sensors. And yes, some implantable BCI devices have better capability. The point is to make this as cheap as possible... so that it doesn't require a brain surgeon to install. Because brain surgeons are expensive.

shatnersbassoon 6y ago
If he can't get cars to drive around a city autonomously, who is going to let him drive electrodes around their brain using automation? Brain implant surgery is incredibly invasive and risky even with brain surgeons.
- visarga 6y ago
  They start with animal tests, then impaired people and finally public at large. It's stupid to get implanted with a work-in-progress device yet, except if your life quality requires it.
Balgair 6y ago
Researchers have been doing movement prediction for a few years now (among other things). It's open source too: http://miniscope.org/index.php/Main_Page http://miniscope.org/index.php/Main_Page

two_almonds 6y ago

They stated explicitly that this was a recruitment event, so personally I feel like some of the hype can be forgiven. The tone of this article is negative and I instinctively want to defend Neuralink because I hope that we can eventually achieve all of those sci-fi ambitions. But I think that's the wrong approach, and possibly insulting to researchers who have been working on these problems for decades only to be overshadowed by what I have to admit was not the most impressive demo. However, this event does attract attention, so what I'm really hoping for is an influx of long-read articles and in-depth analyses coming from experts in the various fields surrounding Neuralink's aims as a result of the hightened interest in the topic.

swiley 6y ago

If they handle the software for this in any way like the Tesla I wouldn’t want it near my head.

soco 6y ago
On the other hand, SpaceX runs rather professionally. It also has to, of course. My point is, they CAN deliver. Probably with Tesla they're just trying to get by with the least acceptable effort.
- me_me_me 6y ago
  SpaceX is somewhat less impressive as a company than you might imagine. They don't really have that much competition apart from Soyuz at the moment. There is huge support in US to have a alternative to Soyuz. Also NASA is prisoner of government corruption to the point where NASA operations are crippled in their capabilities - ie you get funding only if you keep unnecessary bureaucracy running for sake of some governor who won by promising space jobs. SpaceX took all motivated and knowledgeable people gave them money to do what NASA was not allowed to do. I am not trying to take away from their successes. The reusable modules landing in sync are amazing feat of engineering. And SpaceX has actually working 'product', even more solid than Tesla (as a car its expensive, low volume, with a lot of issues compared to what we come to expect of a car). Other stuff that Musk is trying to push are fairy tales, hyperloop is bad idea from the ground up. Boring company is boring. Its just bad implementation of a subway. And this neurolink is so far away from being anything usable, they are not even clear what it suppose to be. "Stick in some wires we will see what happens revolutionary tech TM." But SpaceX business was waiting to happen. Musk was smart enough to throw money at it. So I wouldn't use spaceX as example of some godlike Musk abilities to create something out of nothing.
  - soco 6y ago
    I agree. That's why I said "runs profesionally" not choosing other fancy wording...

arijun 6y ago

I think the author calling Musk a conman is too strong a reaction to what goes on. I think Musk has a tendency to oversell already great technology with science fiction. Teslas are amazing cars but full self driving has been 6 months away for years now. Like the author, I would also be upset if I believed Musks promises of a brain-computer interface, only to see them dashed. But Neuralink is already an amazing improvement, and I am still excited to see what will come of it.

H8crilA 6y ago
A tendency you say? https://elonmusk.today/ https://elonmusk.today/
CJefferson 6y ago
As you say, Musk has been claiming self-driving is 6 months away for years now, yet whenever a crash happens they claim drivers must keep full attention. How is that not the definition of a con-man?
- mseidl 6y ago
  Plus the horrible quality of of the cars too.
  - arijun 6y ago
    I imagine that for people who bought the cars, the other characteristics outweigh build quality. Separately, you might be interested to know that apparently the build quality has gone up quite a bit recently: https://youtu.be/TOrrdqje9Og https://youtu.be/TOrrdqje9Og
- arijun 6y ago
  I’m not sure I follow... you and Musk agree FSD isn’t here now, so of course drivers must keep full attention. As to him making claims about the future, perhaps he believes it. In any case, there is a history of his companies doing “the impossible”; economical reuse of rockets was considered by many to be hot gas by him. Conmen don’t usually deliver to that level.

vansul 6y ago

To me (neuro undergrad, comp sci masters), the demo seemed underwhelming but encouraging. As far as I can tell the tech was not doing anything particularly novel and the 'fitbit in your skull' analogy was personally uninspiring. [edit: the volume of reads /form factor is a step forward] That said, the demo was mostly for attracting talent - lots of money and a great team will likely get them somewhere. In terms of their long term goals I expect the area that will give them the most trouble is reading/writing interesting stuff on the cortex. Neural coding is really hard and poorly understood.

frisco 6y ago
> the tech was not doing anything particularly novel Where are all these people apparently doing long term, low latency wireless 1024 channel ephys with stim capability?
- vansul 6y ago
  Apologies I spoke too soon, you're absolutely right that the volume is an impressive achievement.
nabla9 6y ago
I have problem with the two different narratives. Neuralink has two goals: 1) short term. better BMIs to to treat serious brain diseases with more bandwidth and more and better electrodes. I can see this happening. 2) long term. Invasive BMI for something other than treating diseases. Better electronics is not going to make invasive brain implants safe for consumer use, they just reduce certain risks. To solve (2) Neuralink must solve fundamental issues in medicine related to body implants and brain surgery. It would be groundbreaking and probably revolutionize medicine even outside brain implants. Neuralink researchers might get Nobel in Medicine. Breakthrough in brain surgery. To get FDA to approve brain surgery (making holes in the dura mater) even brain surgery to open and close the brain for no good medical reason would be insanely hard. Any form of brain surgery has lots of risks. Bleeding in the brain, seizure, scarring of the brain, immediate infection risk and late infection risk. Inserting lace with thousands of electrodes is huge operation even if you could do with with endoscope. Breakthrough with implants. With the BMI ther are issues with coagulation and constant low level inflammation. It's both health risk and gradually degrades the effectiveness of electrodes. Electrode must be in contact with tissue and interact with it. There is risks even with teeth implants, artificial knees and hips. They collect bacteria around them and they are just inert objects.

refresher 6y ago

>But that didn’t stop me from getting hyped up to the point of forgetting that Musk is a con-artist at worst and just some dude with a bunch of money and charisma at best. Seems a bit harsh.

nihil75 6y ago

This article is completely wrong and celebrates ignorance.

nihil75 6y ago
Innovations demonstrated: - Coin-sized brain implant, flush with skull, no external wires. - 1024 channels EEG - Electrode insertion with minimal brain-matter loss - Analysis and prediction of brain-activity (node-beep and motion joint positions)

dayaz36 6y ago

Why is this article even being shared on HN let alone end up on the front page within minutes of posting? Anyone with the slightest understanding of this topic can poke holes in every single sentence in this ridiculously uninformed article. I stopped reading half way as it was making me dumber. HN can be so demoralizing sometimes. You'd think this would be the last place to find innovators being smeared but here we are...

SiempreViernes 6y ago

Prof Andrew Jackson, Professor of Neural Interfaces, Newcastle University, said: > “Neuralink are progressing through the steps that have been taken with previous neural interface technology. They have moved from rodents to a large mammal (pigs), and are apparently seeking FDA approval for a human trial. I had some sympathy with Elon, having also had experience of animal experiments that don’t work perfectly the day we have visitors in the room! But proving the safety of new biomedical implants in animals is always a vital step towards a clinical trial. > “I don’t think there was anything revolutionary in the presentation, but they are working through the engineering challenges of placing multiple electrodes into the brain. In terms of their technology, 1024 channels is not that impressive these days, but the electronics to relay them wirelessly is state-of-the-art, and the robotic implantation is nice. > “But the biggest challenge is what you do with all this brain data. The demonstrations were actually quite underwhelming in this regard, and didn’t show anything that hasn’t been done before (e.g. decoding limb position during walking). There is a big difference between recording brain cells and ‘reading thoughts’, especially when it comes to higher-level cognitive functions that we don’t understand as well. The idea of ‘writing to the brain’ is even more questionable – there are fundamental limitations to targeting specific networks of neurons in a meaningful way using electrical stimulation. > “So in summary I would say this is solid engineering but mediocre neuroscience. Finally, I think it is unfortunate that they are presenting their work in this way, rather than publishing peer-reviewed papers that would allow their claims to be scrutinised, but I guess this is something that we will have to get used to as neural interfaces move from the academic to the commercial sector.” https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-elon-musks-neuralink-demonstration-involving-pigs/ https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-elon-m...

kken 6y ago
> “So in summary I would say this is solid engineering but mediocre neuroscience. Finally, I think it is unfortunate that they are presenting their work in this way, rather than publishing peer-reviewed papers that would allow their claims to be scrutinised, but I guess this is something that we will have to get used to as neural interfaces move from the academic to the commercial sector.” Well, and this is exactly what needs to be done to further this area as it is the part that's not completely addressed by academia. Any kind of academic research obviously focusses on generating one-time results for publication.

ykevinator 6y ago

This reads like a teenage girl rolling her eyes wrote it.

yholio 6y ago

Neuralink is not a startup, it is a research lab dabbling in a very speculative area. Something might come out of it in the very long run, or it might not. The demo showed essentially a tool they are using in this research, a miniaturized brain implant which is technologically superior to what competing researchers are using. They showed an application of that research tool, a recorded session (not included in the actual demo, probably hard to reproduce) where they claim to have "predicted" the movements of a pig. "Predicted" is probably a strong word since the brain controls motor functions. So they showed progress and proved they are actually a lab and actually perform research. That being said, there was absolutely nothing in the demo remotely related to a "brain-computer" interface, nor are they likely to get there for many, many years. That's the speed when doing hard science, and pumping more money only has a marginal efect.

ashildr 6y ago

> Elon Musk preys on the hopeful and optimistic. Drama queen.