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over the last few decades life has increasingly resembled the inspiring worlds of science fiction
we can rapidly access information and make global connections using devices that fit in our pockets
innovator and futurist elon musk hopes to elevate technology to the next level with devices that we
wear not on but inside our own bodies producing perfect symbiosis between humans and computers
neuralink began in 2016 with musk fronting over a hundred million of his own money to get the
project up and running like many of most ventures nur linked her inspiration from science fiction
this particular endeavor directly references neural lace the device from lane bank series
the culture just as with most other projects the goal of neurolink are focused and wildly
ambitious to connect the human brain to computers for the most part musk and his team have remained
highly secretive about product development since its launch however in august 2020 musk hosted
a live stream event where he unveiled some of the company's breakthroughs the event starred
three little pigs who on the outside resembled three happy healthy but generally ordinary swine
however one of the pigs gertrude actually had the company's device implanted in her brain
which recorded signals from her snout each time her snout touched something an array of dots and a
series of noises indicated when more neurons were firing the feet may seem small but the reality
represented a major accomplishment for the company what's more must disclose that gertrude had been
wearing the implant for two months with no signs of any impact to her health or cognitive function
with neuralink musk and his team have set out to develop a fully integrated brain machine interface
or bmi bmi technology isn't new in fact its roots began in the mid-20s when scientists first
discovered electrical brain activity in humans since then both technology and our understanding
of the brain have grown significantly typically bmis have been used to replace or restore function
to people with neuromuscular disabilities such as cerebral palsy stroke or spinal cord injury so far
researchers have used bmi technology to achieve a number of accomplishments
from allowing people with paralysis to walk to battling various neurological conditions such
as depression and even connecting human brains to computers to control machine interfaces and move
robotic prosthetics in many ways neuralink isn't necessarily creating something new but building
upon and improving current bmi technology making it more widely available and easily accessible
in the process the device neuralink is working on which musk has called a fitbit for your brain
has three major components first the link has hundreds of micron scale high bandwidth threads
each about 20 millimeters long and about a quarter of the diameter of a human hair
each thread links my new electrodes and sensors resembling a strand of pearls the threads are
arranged in an array consisting of between 48 and 96 threads each and up to 3 000 electrodes
per array neuralink threads are smaller and more flexible than those typically used in bmi devices
making them less likely to cause any damage to the brain they also contain more electrodes than
other interfaces allowing them to extract more brain information the electrode arrays are housed
inside small circular devices that are surgically implanted into the patient's skull the data
collected by the threads is processed by a chip inside the device which can be tuned to detect
particular types of brain information transmitted by specific neurons within the brain this
information is then transmitted to an external device via bluetooth to enable wireless monitoring
of course if you've ever worked with computers you know as a process data they tend to heat up
while an overheated laptop may not feel great on your lap it would feel even worse inside your head
fortunately the link also has an internal temperature sensor to monitor overheating
if the device starts to heat up as it processes data it will automatically disconnect to prevent
any damage to brain or skull tissue finally the link includes an external compact inductive
charger which connects wirelessly to the implant so that the device can be charged
from the outside alignment lights help users track when the charger is aligned with the device in
general the link is designed to be smaller and safer than any other available bmi technology
with more communication channels than any clinically approved device ultimately neurolink
hopes to create a product that can become wildly accessible not only for medical applications but
for the general population because these threads on the neural link are so fine and flexible they
can't be inserted with the human hand in order to safely and successfully implant the devices
neuralink is also developing an advanced surgical robot that neurosurgeons can use to reliably and
efficiently place the threads exactly where they need to be without risking damage to blood vessels
or brain tissue the robot laces the threads into the desired location much like an old school
sewing machine and can place up to six electrode threads per minute using the robot musk envisions
an outpatient procedure that can simultaneously remove the skull fragment place the electrodes and
implant the device into the space where the skull fragment was removed within a relatively short
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goal of neurolink is to build off and simplify the current bmi technology mostly for medical purposes
musk and his team have cast vision far beyond current applications and into the world of science
fiction while the capability to read and interpret brain activity has existed for at least a decade
much broader vision includes allowing the device to successfully write information into the brain
using electrical impulses imagine the famous scene from the matrix where in order to learn kung fu
neo simply inserts a plug into the spinal cord and allows the information to upload remember watching
that scene and imagining how it would be to learn new knowledge or skills at the speed of a computer
it's this type of human machine relationship that musk hopes to one day achieve through neuralink
short-term goals for the company involve creating a device that would allow you to control a phone
app or a computer mouse or keyboard directly using nothing but your brain activity
nerling's technology can even allow scientists more options for learning about how the brain
works an area of science that is still largely mysterious if musk and his team
are able to build out their current breakthroughs the applications could be endless imagine being
able to upload memories to the cloud or search for information just by thinking about it
access your favorite song from within your own mind these are only a few of the wild ambitions
musk hopes to achieve through neuralink of course to get there requires jumping through
major hurdles in terms of technology and understanding of how the brain systems work
unlike typical engineering the keys to understanding how the brain works
isn't just a matter of more channels or implants instead it's a code involving a deep understanding
of what parts need stimulation in one particular order in order to produce a particular behavior
to achieve its broader goals neuralink has a long way to go the company has effectively built
a metaphorical piano and has began smashing down on the keys but there is still a load of work to
be done before they can start composing melodies but as with many of their other ventures must sees
neuralink as something much bigger than just any tech business while the goals may seem wild and
ambitious they serve more than a mere practical entrepreneurial function they serve as a fuel
to spark the public imagination as to what can truly be achieved through human innovation with
neuralink as with spacex and tesla musk and his team hope to cast a vision for the future where
we as a species realize anything is achievable if we invest our resources and pool our ingenuity
in a recent tweet must said engineering is true magic what neuralink has already accomplished
is recharging the public with a sense of wonder and excitement about the future reassuring us
that it doesn't have to be scary or foreboding but that it can be truly inspiring and full of hope
i'm kind of torn about neuralink for one as an engineer i love this breakthrough i think the mind
is one of the final frontiers there's so much that we have yet to discover about how the brain
works the use cases are kind of endless for example imagine if you were injured in an
accident and paralyzed imagine a world where you could implant a chip in your brain the neurolink
and then a secondary one in your spinal cord and the two could communicate and reconnect those
severed ties to allow your brain activity and your thought process to then control your limbs
these are the kinds of things that would be made possible with neuralink as with everything elon
does he brings that first principles thinking and here you can imagine you know using smaller more
fine flexible threads he's going to have better results than maybe what we've had in the past
plus i think he's going to make it incredibly cool for new bio or doctors or phds to come and join
neurolink and do some of the most cutting-edge breakthrough technology research on earth and
that's kind of been his game tesla is probably the most premier location if you're an engineer if it
isn't spacex and this is just another example of a company that can inspire and motivate the
the drawbacks i think are about privacy and other considerations me personally i don't like the idea
of anything that would compromise my privacy to me privacy is paramount and far more important than
convenience for you that might not be the case but our last video was on starlink and since that time
i think there have been some reports that starlink is going to work with like the dod the department
of defense for contracts and use their technology and the same might be true for neurolink in the
future these are companies after all that want to make money and this is where imagine if the
government could come in and say you know here's a subpoena we want all the information from people
in this town who have the neurolink implant to figure out who was doing this at this time and
these companies might be forced under law to hand over this data even if they don't want to and
this is where anyone who knows me knows i'm a deep believer in very limited government because
i always understand and think that the next person who is elected might change things if you have a
drone program maybe the next president overuses it around the world the patriot act is still in
effect here and we don't even know how much of our personal text and phone calls are being surveilled
there's just a lot of privacy concerns and i think elon did kind of touch base on that
that there's a deep level of kind of privacy built in but again the subpoena if they come
from the government will require them to pass down data to them and also while he
was talking about this in the live stream one of my favorite parts is when he talks about how
this is sounding like an episode of the black mirror and that is exactly what i kept thinking
i think the medical breakthroughs are there this is technology that we should be investing in but
just as with any cutting edge tech like neuralink or artificial intelligence stem cell research we
have to also think about the philosophical and the psychological considerations in play
because because people might not be really ready or prepared for a world where these things take
foot i'm optimistic i think this is a really great technology i'm happy to see them working
with it but it's a bit scary this one i think warrants another video later on i think we'll
do that we'll we'll cover this again some point down the road when there's more news about it but
incredible stuff and of course elon musk why does it feel like every cool amazing thing happening
around the world whether it's self-driving cars or rockets or internet from space it's always elan so
elon make sure you eat healthy and drive carefully because uh we we need you pretty bad here so that
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watching i'm ricky with tibet davinci and i'll catch you guys on the next one