So, if we really could have an interface with a
computer, with an artificial intelligence that
could read our minds, you can imagine a case in
which we could be immortal.
But that would completely change humanity and
what it means to be human.
Merging the human brain with a computer would
truly change our species forever.
Researchers are developing technology that can
transfer data between computers and our brains,
and even read people's minds.
For now, we have the power to detect brainwaves
and track electrical pulses within the neurons in
our brains, and researchers are using this
information, however vague, to aid the
differently abled and make life easier for
everyone. Among these researchers is 16-year-old
Alex Pinkerton.
Really, all that we're working on is
a brain-computer interface that utilizes
graphene, and hopefully if our math is correct,
it'll be sensitive enough to read the magnetic
fields of human thought.
It was in the 1970s that the Department of Defense
first started funding brain-computer interface
research. That market is expected to reach a
value of $1.72
billion by 2022.
Big players like Elon Musk and Facebook have
teased their entrance into the market, while
other companies are showing their work in
action, like CTRL Labs, who created a wristband
that measures electrical pulses from the brain to
the neurons in a person's arm allowing them to
control a computer.
New and exciting research is pouring out of
universities like MIT and the University of
California in San Francisco.
So, what is a brain-computer interface?
It's a way in which a computer can take
information directly from the brain without you
having to type or speak it in and translate that
into some kind of action.
That's what Pinkerton is working on; a connection
between the brain and a device, like your phone
or a prosthesis.
He was first inspired by his dad who works on
clean energy.
My dad came in to talk to our class when I was in
third grade about graphene, just to give a little
presentation. I'm not sure why, but that sort of
sparked my interest and I had just been thinking
of like, why isn't this being used everywhere if
it's like the perfect material?
And so I started thinking of applications, and at
first it was mainly, like, for the military or
something. Now, it's sort of focused away from
that and to, well, the brain-computer
interface and, like, VR maybe, super immersive
VR. Obviously it could help the disabled.
Pinkerton is the co-founder and CEO of Brane
Interface. For the past few years, he has been
spending his holiday breaks and the occasional
weekend in his dad's lab working on his graphene
brain-computer interface.
I was just at my dad's office after school and we
used a program called Math CAD just to type in a
bunch of numbers to fit the characteristics of
graphene for a brain interface.
And at first it wasn't working, and so we just
kept tweaking and tweaking and tweaking until it
finally was able to get to the low magnetic
fields of human thought.
Graphene is an almost impossibly thin layer of
carbon only a single atom thick.
We've finished two prototypes that haven't
utilized graphene, it's just Mylar, which is
basically just Saran Wrap.
The first prototype can reach 10 to the minus
three Tesla, second type 10 to the minus 6.
So, really nowhere near.
But this new graphene prototype that's about
halfway done, if our math is correct, we'll be
able to reach 10 to the minus 15, which is the
level of human thought that we need to have for a
successful brain interface.
The goal is to have a computer-brain interface
that is small enough to fit in an earbud or the
inside of a hat that will allow users to use
thoughts to control physical devices, like
playing music on their phones or to control a
prosthesis.
People know that it could be used for all these
amazing things, but they really haven't found the
killer application and I think that's what we've
done.
His goal is to keep the costs down so the
technology can be available to anyone.
Right now, a lot of brain interface technology is
super cumbersome, inefficient or expensive, so
we're hoping to get all three of those things
sort of out of the way.
It's basically, it can fit in earbud, it can read
the magnetic fields of human thought with no
problem and it's relatively inexpensive.
You can imagine how good that could be for
disabled people.
They could move robotic arms just by wearing the
earbuds and thinking about it, instead of having,
well, basically their skull opened up and
electrodes put on their brain.
Elon Musk's version of this technology might be
one of those skull-opening options.
Neuralink, a company co-founded by Musk, is
working to add a digital "third layer above the
cortex that would work well and symbiotically
with you."
The purpose of Neuralink is to create a
high-bandwidth interface to the brain such that
we can be symbiotic with A.I.
The Neuralink website has been little more than a
list of job applications for a while, and it
update has been teased as "coming soon" for
months. But this technology would supposedly
require invasive surgery.
What is seems that they've done is they've taken
rats, and they've implanted this kind of grid of
electrodes, but they've done it using a technique
that they call, like, a sewing machine which
seems to, like, put these electrodes in really,
really quickly, because you have to be really
specific when you plant these electrodes.
But ultimately, what it seems to be for is a way
of, sort of linking brain activity in these rats
to some kind of a computer and possibly to each
other.
And the envelope keeps getting pushed further.
A recent breakthrough at the University of
California in San Francisco showed how
researchers can read the brain's signals to the
larynx, jaw, lips and tongue, and translate them
through a computer to synthesize speech.
And in 2018, MIT revealed their Alter Ego device,
which measures neuromuscular signals in the jaw
to allow humans to converse in natural language
with machines simply by articulating words
internally. But how can you recognize certain
brainwaves? How can you filter out the "play
music" command over the constant noise of
thoughts and brainwaves?
So, when someone says they have a tool measuring
brainwaves, the first thing I want to ask is,
"how do you know they're actually brainwaves, as
opposed to just some electrical changes that
happen from the head and neck?"
Like, for example, from the cranial nerves, the
nerves that innervate the head and neck and help
you blink, or, you know, feel your face, because
the signals from deep inside the brain are harder
to get at.
See, in the examples from the University of
California in San Francisco and MIT, both studies
focused on computers working out a person's
intentions by matching brain signals to physical
movements that would usually activate in a
person's vocal tract or jaw.
They're using signals that would usually trigger
muscles to simulate what the body would do.
The deep, internal thoughts and processes within
our brain are still quite elusive.
Let's say that we're trying to create a device
that allows us to play music from our Sonos or
some speaker system in our house, right?
So, how I would imagine telling the Sonos to do
that versus how someone else would might be
pretty different. But
you could train me to do it.
And that is exactly Pinkerton's intent.
And you can kind of teach, almost teach the brain
to do specific things over and over again.
Now, this is not entirely new information.
We've been hooking brains up to machines to read
electrical activity since the 1920s.
And brain-computer interfaces?
These are tools that people been working on since
the 1970s and, you know, there are still a lot of
hurdles in terms of making them commercially
available. For a lot of these tools, you actually
need to sit very still and you to keep very
still. And so that doesn't have a lot of real
world applications, so I think that that
limitation is something that a lot of engineers
really are facing, is how do you continue to
distinguish signal from noise when the person is
moving? That's a major problem, but I feel like
in the last 10 years, there's been a lot more
interest in terms of commercial companies trying
to create a product that allows this to happen.
So, you know an example is virtual reality, I
think that is a pretty clear way in which a BCI
might be helpful.
Brane Interface said it has been approached by
several technology and investment companies, but
plans to finish its prototype later this year
before seeking those opportunities.