◆Xu Xunlei
A
Technological breakthroughs from 0 to 1 are more difficult than technological advances from 1 to 10.
On May 25, 2023, American entrepreneur Elon Musk's brain-computer interface company "Neural Connections" announced that it has obtained approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to start human clinical trials of brain implant devices. (According to Xinhua News Agency, Los Angeles, May 25)
Chinese people are not very familiar with Musk's "neural connection" company (Neuralink), and even the relevant translations are varied, some translated as "neural connection", some translated as "neural link".
CCTV Finance reported on May 27 that "Neural Connection" was founded in 2016 and is currently developing a brain-computer interface device called "Link", which has 64 extremely thin wires and 1,024 electrodes. The device, implanted in the brain, reads signals of brain activity. The researchers hope to use such implants to help treat memory loss, cervical spinal cord injury and other neurological diseases, and help paralyzed people walk again.
Musk also retweeted the message on Twitter and said "Congratulations to the Neuralink team." As soon as this news came out, the "Neural Connection" company has not yet begun to recruit volunteers, and many American netizens have volunteered and expressed their willingness to become "guinea pigs" and participate in the experiment.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has always been strict, and has been keeping its eyes on Musk's "neural connections" for 7 years; Musk has also repeatedly predicted that he will be approved to start human trials, in fact, the application of "neural connection" company was rejected in early 2022, of course, because of concerns about the safety of "human brain implant trials". Human research and development of Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology has been carried out for decades, and none of them have been approved for commercial use.
This approval is only a "trial" of "human brain implantation", but this is a key move to break through "0 to 1" and is a milestone. Once successful, the future is immeasurable, it will benefit mankind, bring good news to so many patients or disabled people, especially the paralyzed, if they can get up and walk again, it will be "reborn"! Compared with the invention of hearing aids, this is a greater scientific and technological innovation progress for human beings. Of course, the development and application of hearing aids are becoming more and more intelligent.
We know that the entire brain-computer interface system is a very complex system in the microscopic world, and its difficulty is probably no less than that of the heavy launch vehicle "Starship" that failed to launch last month; At that time, Musk still showed strong confidence in the face of failure.
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Previously, "neural connections" have been tested with monkeys and piglets. On July 16, 2019, "Neural Connection" held its first press conference and made a basic demonstration; On August 28, 2020, the press conference was held again, and Musk demonstrated the real-time neuronal activity of three piglets implanted with brain-computer interface devices through online live broadcast, demonstrating the practical application process of brain-computer interface technology. This time, the size of the brain-computer interface device has been greatly reduced, and the difficulty of implantation has also been greatly reduced. In the process of implanting and removing the equipment, the piglets performed healthy and normal, no different from ordinary piglets.
The implantable device, which contains a chip and can be charged wirelessly, wirelessly transmits the neural activity of the brain captured by the wires to an application, which "decodes" the brain's intentions. An image saying is: the brain-computer interface is a "bridge" between the human brain and external devices, and the bridge is not a car but a microcurrent, transmitting EEG signals.
The British scholar Beveridge once said: "Scientists must have imagination in order to imagine how things that cannot be seen with the naked eye occur and function, and to formulate hypotheses." He added, "For researchers, the two most basic qualities are a love of science and an insatiable curiosity." Although Musk is not a direct scientist and researcher, he really has extraordinary curiosity and imagination, yearning and love, so what others cannot see with the "naked eye", his "sky eye" can see.
The research of the human world in this field is certainly not limited to Musk's Neuralink team.
Two years ago, Synchron, a brain port company invested by Bill Gates and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, was the first to be approved for human trials. They call the tiny devices implanted in the brain that resemble vascular scaffolds "the natural highway that unlocks the brain." In December 2021, an Australian ALS patient, after implanting a brain-computer interface, successfully sent out the world's first thought-generated tweet, translated into Chinese: "Hello, world!" Short tweets. Huge progress. ”
Not long ago, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne published their research results in the journal Nature: they introduced a new, artificial intelligence-based algorithm that can capture the dynamics of animal brains with high precision through brain-computer interfaces. They had 50 mice watch a 30-second movie clip nine times, and then used a new artificial intelligence tool they developed to reconstruct what the mice saw and predict the next frame with up to 95 percent accuracy. This is not "mind reading", but it can be counted as "brain reading"!
In China, many units are also working hard in this "hardcore" technology field. On May 4, the team led by Professor Duan Feng of Nankai University conducted a successful experiment to allow monkeys to use their minds to achieve food through a domestic brain-computer interface, which became the world's first case: monkeys had their hands tied and had the urge to reach out when they wanted to eat food, and this idea (EEG signal) manipulated the robotic arm and successfully delivered food to their mouths. What is different is that the "interventional" brain-computer interface used does not need to drill the head, only need to prick the jugular vein with a small opening, send the device into the blood vessels in the brain area of the cerebral motor cortex through the catheter, and collect EEG signals through the inner wall of the blood vessels.
C
Brain-computer interface technology can be used in the fields of medical care and education, and may also be used in the military field and even in the field of outer space in the future, and its scientific and technological value and economic value are difficult to estimate. The "Brain-Computer Interface Standardization White Paper 2021" released by the China Electronics Technology Standardization Institute predicts that the potential market for brain-computer interface technology will soon reach tens of billions of yuan.
Some people even predict that the brain-computer interface industry will overfire ChatGPT, which is at the cusp of artificial intelligence.
Musk has said that brain-computer interface technology has great potential in treating a variety of neurological diseases, but his bigger dream is to develop a device that can achieve "symbiosis" between humans and artificial intelligence in the future, which is even more powerful.
Musk is actually quite worried about the "threat" of artificial intelligence to human beings, and the "source of power" for founding this company comes from the "fear" of the future development of artificial intelligence. He has predicted that by 2025, artificial intelligence will surpass humans, and if "human brain-machine" and "human-computer interaction" technologies cannot be developed, artificial intelligence may treat humans like pets in the future.
As early as the fourth World Internet Conference in 2017, Cook said in a speech: I am worried about humans thinking like machines, not worried about machines thinking like humans; We can't lose our humanity in doing things, and we must inject humanity into our products.
Unlike the general "either/or", Musk's thinking is: "Humans can't defeat artificial intelligence, then join artificial intelligence." "This is a very advanced concept and thinking. Let people's brains and computers fuse, become "cyborgs" and "quasi-intelligent people", let humans and artificial intelligence achieve symbiosis, and even become "real superhumans" - such Musk, can you not admire?
Of course, that's a future scenario that's hard to accurately imagine. Someone gave a simplest, figurative statement: "In the future, you don't need to read hard in the cold window, you can directly instill any knowledge into the brain; You can even store anything that is going on in your brain in a cloud disk to achieve 'consciousness immortality'. ”
Musk's brain is full of innovative ideas for humanity, using newly created external technology and machines to achieve his extraordinary goals. This is Musk who "changed humanity".
"I didn't do these things to make myself richer, and I didn't live a life of luxury." Musk once said frankly, "Doing these things is very important for the future, people are alive, and there must be inspiring things for you to remember." This reminds me of what the Chinese educator Tao Xingzhi said: "The mission of science is to benefit human society, not individuals." ”
The source of science, never exhausted; The capacity of science is always infinite; The goal of science never ends. We should look forward to the day when the "neural connection" will truly become the "connection of God" - the "connection of God" for the benefit of mankind!