This article is from the WeChat publicNumber:Xin Zhiyuan (ID: AI_era), edit : Meng Jia, Xiao Yun, the title picture comes from: YouTube@Neuralink
At 6:40 Beijing time, Musk conducted a live broadcast of the new brain-computer interface device. This long-awaited live broadcast carries the human fantasy of the AI world: human-computer interaction, brain-computer connection, human and AI symbiosis.
In an anxious wait, he came, he came! He came with a freshly baked brain-computer interface.
Musk was still not punctual. After anxiously waiting for 40 minutes, he finally appeared.
Just now, his net worth broke the 100 billion U.S. dollar mark, and Musk became the fifth richest man in the world. It seems that the higher the coffee position, the longer the waiting time.
How does it feel to put a coin-sized Fitbit into your head?
Musk mentioned that the most essential part of the brain-computer interface is the “connection” problem.
During the operation, take out a coin-sized skull and stick it with “super glue”. Then you can go everywhere after the operation.
The implantation method is also very simple, with special equipment, and you can leave the hospital on the day of implantation.
By bypassing the blood vessels during the operation, there will be no obvious damage.
How to use this device? Musk used a pig experiment to reveal the answer.
Musk showed theA healthy piglet that has been implanted with a Neuralink device for two months and is alive and well.
After the chip is implanted, the pig’s brain activity can be visually seen. When the demonstrator strokes its nose, the pig’s nerves start to excite. Under the action of 1024 electrodes connected to the device, the electric wave signal in his brain is clearly visible.
Now it is also possible to implant multiple Neuralink devices in piglets.
Through the brain circuit diagram, the position of the pig’s joints can be predicted, which almost coincides with the actual position, and the state of the organs in the pig’s body can be predicted.
The red electrical signal shown in the figure “writes” the activity in the brain:
In this way, if the experiment is performed on the human body, it can also perceive or even improve the brain activity.
First of all, Musk said that “everyone has more or less brain problems, implanting them in the brain will solve important problems in the brain or spinal cord.” The PPT lists various diseases that brain-computer interfaces can solve, including hearing loss, memory loss, stroke and so on.
“Your feelings and pain are all electronic signals. Correcting these signals can solve all these problems.”
In the Q&A session, the readers are even more interesting, and Musk gave the answers separately:
Q: Can I summon my Tesla through the brain-computer interface?
Musk: Of course!
Q: Can this be used to play games?
Musk: One hundred percent! Can play “Star Wars”.
Q: Can the memory be stored or replaced?
A: The memory can be uploaded, stored in the device, or downloaded to a new human body or robot.
Going deeper, Neuralink once said that brain-computer interface technology will allow people to communicate directly through the brain within 5 years without using language, and realize the true legendary telepathy.
And netizensMore concerned, there is Musk’s grand ambition, which is the symbiosis between humans and AI (symbiosis with artificial intelligence).
In Musk’s vision, there is also a magic word-digital immortality. “When a person dies, he already has his own computer expansion and online expansion, just like an online ghost, you are more in the ‘cloud’ than in your body.”
Human-computer interaction is realized, and the death of the body can no longer define the life and death of a person.
50 years of brain-computer interface, a leap from “animal brain” to “human brain”
In fact, the concept of human-computer interaction has been slowly developing.
A picture takes you to review important nodes:
That’s right! As early as 2008, the brain-computer interface has had a great breakthrough: the animal brain is directly connected to external equipment, and the external equipment is manipulated to perform specific functions, such as feeding.
The brain-computer interface researched by the University of Pittsburgh allows monkeys to manipulate robotic arms to feed themselves.Image source: motorlab.neurobio.pitt.edu
Neuralink, founded in 2017, is indeed not the earliest of the companies doing brain-computer interface, but it may be the richest and the most exposed.
The genius of Musk is that he can always be higher and farther than others imagined.
After performing at least 19 operations on animals, Neuralink said that the “wire” circuit successfully placed in the animal’s brain allows the animal to directly control the machine with the brain, and the system’s success rate has reached 87%.
This live broadcast is mainly for the expansion of the Neuralink team, looking for people to look after small animals, as well as electronics and robotics engineers, without the need for brain science experience. There are 100 people in the team now, and it may expand to 10,000 in the future.
The scary technical core: “sewing machine” implanted with 3072 electrodes densely arranged
Technically, Neuralink has also made many attempts before.
Since its establishment in 2016, Neuralink has considered many types of BCI, including invasive and non-invasive. The intrusive type has certain security risks. So asFor the safety of life, the requirements for this equipment are also quite demanding, such as miniaturization and wireless transmission and reception of data.
At the same time, it can perform signal amplification, analog-to-digital conversion and data compression, induction power supply, and most importantly, it is compatible with the human brain.
As early as last year, Neuralink demonstrated a technology called “thread” (thread). These “threads” are thinner than human hair and are a series of tiny electrodes and sensors that can transmit information.
And the one responsible for implanting these “threads” deep in the brain is a robot like a “sewing machine”. Musk said that this robot can also automatically avoid blood vessels.
The system consists of three components: an extremely fine polymer probe(inserted into the brain), a neurosurgery robot(Responsible for plugging in), as well as external chips and supporting solutions (Neuralink calls it For customized high-density electronic technology).
For this, Neural>
The core of the brain-computer interface is “transmitting high-fidelity information between the brain and the machine.” Although its role is not as sci-fi as using ideas to generate electricity or becoming superhuman, it allows people with quadriplegia to use their brains to control bionic prostheses and language It should be OK for the disabled to speak.
This is also reminiscent of the heroine Motoko Kusanagi in “Ghost in the Shell”. She survived an air crash. His body was 90% prosthetized. Only part of the brain and soul are his own, but he is more capable than any human being. Must be strong.
Helping people with disabilities is Neuralink’s short-term goal. Entering the medical field in the future, it is very possible to use brain-computer interfaces to combat epilepsy, severe depression, autism, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and other currently intractable neurological diseases.
In July this year, Twitter user Pranay Pathole asked Musk on Twitter: “Can Neuralink be used to improve the part of the brain that causes addiction or depression?”
Musk replied: “Of course, this is great and terrible.”
No drugs are needed, it can regulate the level of chemicals in the brain and directly control mood disorders. The world is so beautiful, I shouldn’t be so irritable…Neuralink can help you control it.
In addition to repairing brain damage and complex nervous system diseases, this thing can bypass your sensory organs and reach the brain directly.
Last month, Musk also revealed on Twitter that Neuralink can listen to music directly through the chip, which means that the brain-computer interface technology will be able to bypass the ears, without earphones and other equipment, and directly send music through the cochlear nerve. Served to the brain.
OMG! Really “intracranial orgasm”
At the same time, increasing the learning rate of humans is also one of Neuralink’s future goals. Just like in The Matrix, you can learn how to fly a helicopter by plugging into a machine.
Also, human-computer interaction can improve the reaction time of the human brain. For example, when you don’t have time to turn, a fleeting thought, the machine can help you quickly operate the steering wheel and achieve sudden braking within seconds.
Neuralink is undoubtedly revolutionary. This cyberpunk-style fantasy of the future will also bring a lot of hidden worries. The computerization of the brain has caused two obvious problems: First, the computer may crash; The concern is that the computer may be attacked by hackers.
What if the brain is also attacked by hackers? Unless the safety management in this field reaches a certain standard, the commercialization of this technology will still face numerous supervision and difficulties.
The live broadcast is over. Regardless of the future commercial prospects, we have reasons to shout: Human-computer symbiosis is really not far away!
Reference link:
https://www.guokr.com/article/442222/
https://www.thomasnet.com/insights/elon-musk-s-great-and-terrifying-brain-machine-interface-neuralink/< /p>
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6914248/
https://www.thomasnet.com/insights/elon-musk-s-great-and-terrifying-brain-machine-interface-neuralink/< /p>
This article is from WeChat official account:Xin Zhiyuan (ID: AI_era), editor: Mengjia, Xiaoyun