Musk is going to implant a chip into your brain.
Controlling a computer with your mind, this seemingly crazy idea, is actually not far away from us.
In 2022, Musk's Neuralink will conduct the first human experiments to implant chips into the human brain.
Just last April, Neuralink, Musk's brain-computer interface company, showed a stunning video of a monkey with a chip implanted in its brain playing an electronic table tennis game through its mind.
In the video is a monkey named Parger whose brain is implanted with Neuralink's electronic chip.
In the first half of the video, Pager learns how to move the cursor using the joystick and drink a banana shake through the metal straw in front of him as a reward.
During the learning process, the chip records Pager's EEE signals and transmits them to a computer to learn, analyze, and predict the next steps of the monkey's brain.
Starting at 2:17 in the video, the researchers removed the joystick and found that Payer could still use his mind to continue to control the computer, and played smoothly.
As soon as the video was released, it immediately triggered a heated discussion among netizens, and some people believed that it would bring a gospel to paralyzed patients and allow human beings to communicate with their minds in the future.
But there are also those who fear the consequences: "If you think about it, the prospects are simply terrifying and subvert everything." "If you can control the human brain, you are one step closer to destruction."
In early December last year, in a live interview with the Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit, Musk publicly stated that Neuralink will launch its first human trial in 2022 to implant chips into the human brain.
Developing a "human brain chip", what does Musk really want to do?
All of this should start with the "artificial intelligence threat theory".
As AI technology continues to grow stronger, more and more people are beginning to worry about its negative impacts — musk is one of them.
The privacy and security threats brought by face recognition, AI speech synthesis helps to scam crimes, and the moral turmoil caused by face-changing videos... In the future, perhaps artificial intelligence will completely replace humans, resulting in mass unemployment, invasion of privacy, loss of free will, and even the end of war and race.
Musk himself is a strong fan of the threat theory of artificial intelligence, and he has emphasized in public more than once: "Artificial intelligence will be the greatest threat to human civilization." ”
However, Musk is not opposed to the development of artificial intelligence, and the way he chooses to deal with it is to transform humans, transform the brain, and let humans have the same capabilities as machines.
That's why Musk co-founded Neuralink.
It's a startup dedicated to brain-computer interface technology, co-founded by Musk in 2016 with a group of Silicon Valley scientists. To date, Neuralink has raised three rounds of funding totalling $363 million.
In addition to Musk's early investment of more than $100 million, Neuralink has also attracted entries from Dubai-based venture capital firms Vy Capital, Google, Craft Ventures and others.
At the same time, Musk is also keen to "stand" for Neuralink and brain-computer interface technology, in addition to daily promotion of his company's technology on social media, Musk also personally hosted the annual conference held by Neuralink.
In 2019 and 2020, Neuralink demonstrated the results of its technology in mice and piglets, respectively.
Neuralink's 2019 mouse experiment
Source: Neuralink
In his 2019 mouse experiments, Musk demonstrated the effects of implanting electronic chips in mouse brains.
Through a USB interface connected to the head, the chip can transmit electrical signals from the mouse's brain to the computer and analyze the activity of the brain through software records.
In the 2020 Piglet experiment, Neuralink not only upgraded the laboratory animals, upgraded the surgical robots used to implant the chip, but also upgraded the customized chip.
The new chip "Link 0.9" has a more refined and compact design, with a diameter of 23mm, about the size of a coin, a thickness of 8mm, which will be implanted in the small hole of the human skull when used, and support wireless transmission, with a signal range of 5-10 meters.
Through neuralink's surgical robot, the machine will first insert 1,024 ultra-thin electrodes 5 microns wide into the surface of the cerebral cortex, through which the signal will be transmitted to the "Link 0.9" chip and then wirelessly transmitted to the computer.
Musk said at the scene that the entire time it takes to install the chip is less than an hour, and the process is reversible and harmless to human safety.
Neuralink's Link 0.9 chip
At the scene, Neuralink showed three piglets, one without a chip, one with a chip, and one implanted with a chip and then removed, all three piglets are healthy and living normally.
By implanting the piglets in the chip, the computer can observe the piglets' living conditions in real time. For example, when a pig smells a smell or moves and walks, the brain produces specific signals.
Of course, all this is still a certain distance from the "armed human brain" that Musk really wants. Currently, Neuralink's phased goal is to help people with disabilities, as well as people with epilepsy, anxiety, depression, etc., control prosthetic limbs or repair sensory defects.
From Mars settlement to deep-sea tunnels, like musk's other fancy ideas, Neuralink's plan for a human brain chip has also been widely debated.
But in fact, the technology that implants brain electrodes and reads brain signals is not neuralink's original venture.
The technology, which connects the human brain directly to external devices, is called Brain Computer Interface (BCI). The concept dates back half a century and was first proposed in 1973 by Professor Jacques Vidal of the University of California, Los Angeles.
Through the machine to record the nerve signals of the physiological activities of the brain, the brain-computer interface spans the command and control functions of the human body, and the machine directly collects, decodes and generates control instructions to realize the direct communication between the human brain and the external world.
Subsequently, in 1988, L.A. Farwell and E. Donchin proposed the "P300 speller", a widely used brain-computer interface paradigm.
In 1998, American neuroscientist Philip R. Kenned implanted a special electrode into a paralyzed patient, successfully allowing the patient to control the computer cursor through consciousness.
In 1999, the first experiment in humans proved that the population of neurons in the cerebral cortex can directly control the mechanical arm.
In 2005, the BrainGate team in the United States used brain-computer interface technology to make Cathy, who had been paralyzed for 15 years, successfully control the mechanical arm with his brain, hold a cup of coffee on the table and bring it to his mouth.
In 2014, at the opening ceremony of the World Cup in Brazil, the team of miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University School of Medicine in the United States, used brain-computer interface technology to make a paralyzed teenager "stand up" again, and kicked the football under his feet with his mind.
In May last year, the top scientific magazine "Nature" published a major breakthrough on the cover, patients only need to "handwrite" the desired letter in the brain, the system will automatically recognize the generated text, the average time is only 0.5 seconds.
As soon as the study was published, it received a lot of attention from the academic community, with Professor Tade Seok Moon of the University of Washington joking on social media: "Wow, I'm playing slower than it." ”
These sciences have progressed slowly, rigorously, and relatively niche. Compared with them, Musk and Neuralink are really too high-profile, which has caused a lot of controversy in the academic community.
Over-packaging, over-publicity, exaggerated facts... These are all academic questions that Musk and Neuralink have faced. At the same time, Neuralink's behavior of only showing results but never disclosing experimental papers and experimental data has also made the academic community more distrustful of it.
With nearly 40 years of brain-computer interface research experience, Professor Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University, who led the paralyzed teenagers of the World Cup in Brazil, has publicly stated that Musk's propaganda for brain-computer interfaces is too mysterious, "I don't agree with a word." ”
He said, "As the creator of brain-computer interface technology, I can say that it is impossible to fully achieve mind control through brain-computer interfaces, as mentioned in science fiction movies and novels, and there is no scientific basis for this." I'm sorry that Musk made such a wrong statement. This statement does not contribute to the scientific development of our field. ”
Han Bicheng, founder of brain-computer interface company BrainCo, also said in a media interview, "(Neuralink) is a huge breakthrough in engineering, but as far as the experiment itself is concerned, many brain-computer interface laboratories have been implemented more than a decade ago." ”
And Musk believes that "ideas can be exchanged through brain-computer interfaces", Han Bicheng believes that it will be difficult to achieve in another thirty years.
Even if the controversy is rife, it is undeniable that Musk and Neuralink have indeed greatly aroused public enthusiasm for brain-computer interface technology.
At the July 2020 press conference, Musk said that Neuralink has been awarded the "breakthrough device status" by the US FDA and is preparing for the first human experiment.
In addition to the heavy application of implanting chips into the brain and allowing paralyzed patients to control the machine with their minds, there are many other uses for brain-computer interface technology, and some products only need to be worn on the head like a hat, and even you can buy it online now.
Brain-computer interfaces can be divided into "invasive" and "non-invasive".
Neuralink, for example, uses invasive techniques that require surgical implantation of electrodes into the brain. This method can directly record the electrical activity of the brain, the signal is clear, the noise is small, and the long-term stability is stable.
Non-invasive technologies include EEG caps, near-infrared helmets, magnetic resonance head coils and other wearable devices attached to the scalp, which collect more signal interference, but the advantage is that they do not require surgery, are safe and non-invasive, and are suitable for ordinary people.
▲EEG cap
For example, tsinghua university Tsinghua University's brain-computer interface laboratory of the "mind typing" project, is to collect brain activity information through the brain cap.
According to the application effect of brain-computer interface technology, it can be divided into two categories: "reading" and "writing".
Current research focuses on "reading", which "translates" the brain's electrical signals into a language that machines and humans can understand, and then detects brain activity and even controls external devices.
The more "crazy" technology is "writing", writing and stimulating the brain through external devices, treating depression, anxiety, epilepsy and other conditions, and even conducting research on human brain enhancement in the future.
In recent years, the research scale of brain-computer interface technology is growing rapidly.
According to Allied Market Research, the global brain-computer interface market size has reached $1.46 billion in 2020.
At the same time, as of 2020, there have been more than 2,000 patented technologies related to brain-computer interfaces worldwide, and the top 4 countries in terms of related patent applications are China, the United States, South Korea and Germany. Among them, the number of applications between China and the United States accounted for 39.4% and 34.7% of the world' applications, respectively.
In addition to the application of bionic prosthesis, paralysis control, mind typing, disease treatment and other medical applications, some companies are also exploring the non-medical application of brain-computer interface.
For example, the domestic enterprise Brainland Technology launched the home sleep-assisted intelligent brain-computer interaction head ring BrainUp, BrainCo launched the children's education concentration improvement system Focus, and the Australian SmartCap company monitored the user's fatigue status in real time by implanting electrodes in the baseball cap.
Although the number of patent applications is relatively large, the mainland brain-computer interface technology is still in its infancy, and the overall level of development is lower than that of developed countries such as Europe and the United States.
Among them, the United States has a very obvious leading edge in theory, method, practice, etc., and the vast majority of invasive brain-computer interface research is concentrated in the United States.
▲Major research institutions at home and abroad on brain-computer interface technology Source: White Paper on the Application of Brain-Computer Interface Technology in the Field of Medical Health (2021)"
The U.S. government spearheaded the Brain Science Program in 1989 and named the last 10 years of the 20th century the "10 Years of the Brain."
In 2013, the Obama administration announced the BRAIN Initiative to advance brain research into innovative neurotechnology, announcing a total of $4.5 billion in research and development over the next 12 years.
In the mainland, the "China Brain Project" has also been launched since 2016, and the main directions of attack include: brain science research oriented to exploring brain secrets and conquering brain diseases, and brain-like research oriented to the establishment and development of artificial intelligence technology.
In the 14th Five-Year Plan and the outline of the long-term goals for 2035, artificial intelligence and brain science are also added as national strategic scientific and technological forces.
The brain, as the most wonderful organ of the human body, has never stopped exploring it.
Perhaps echoing Bill Gates' famous quote, "People always overestimate the changes in the next year or two, but underestimate the changes in the next decade." ”
Thanks to the efforts of Musk, Neuralink, and a host of other scientists, the "human brain chip" may soon become a reality.
If human beings really live with machines, the concepts of "fairness", "morality", "freedom" and "equality" may be redefined.
Author 丨 Nan Lai
Image: Network, Figureworm Creative
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