Neuralink Update — January 2022
Welcome to Neura Pod- a series about all things related to the Elon Musk founded company, Neuralink. (Not formally affiliated).
In this update:
- Lex Fridman Interview w/ Elon Musk- Tesla Bot
- Future of War w/ Neuralink- Casual Conversation
- Babylon Bee Interview- Metaverse
- Dual Neuralink Implants- Neural Shunts
- Elon Changed His Mind About Brain Transplants- Twitter
- Time Magazine Person of the Year- Elon Musk
- Neuralink Data
Lex Fridman Interview w/ Elon Musk
During the Lex Fridman interview, Elon and Lex discuss the neural networks being used to drive Tesla’s Autopilot functionality. They compare the camera sensors on the Tesla vehicles to our own human eyes, and then move on to discuss how our brain works. I find these clips particularly interesting because of the potential for our Neuralink-implanted brain to connect with various sensors, such as full-light spectrum visual sensors and advanced prosthetics:
“The brain is doing a crazy amount of post-processing on the vision signals from your eyes… Your brain is constantly trying to forget as much as possible. So human memory is perhaps the weakest thing about the brain is memory. So because memory is so expensive to our brain, and so limited, your brain is trying to forget as much as possible and distill the things that you see into the smallest amounts of information possible. So your brain is trying to not just get to a vector space, but get to a vector space that is the smallest possible vector space of only relevant objects.”
Later in the conversation, they continue with discussion of the Tesla Bot. While listening, I urge you to consider what a fully functional Tesla Bot would be able to do if it were connected remotely to someone’s brain?
“I think the possibilities are endless. Yeah, I mean, it’s obviously… It’s not quite in Tesla’s primary mission direction of accelerating sustainable energy, but it is an extremely useful thing that we can do for the world which is to make a useful humanoid robot- that is capable of interacting with the world and helping in many different ways…”
Taking my earlier thought a step further, I’d be surprised if Elon hasn’t already considered the possibility of Neuralink developing an artificial brain to pair alongside Tesla Bot. With enough knowledge and data of how brains work, I don’t see what would stop something like this from being built in the very long term.
The Future of War w/ Neuralink
Elon did another interview- this time, with Dan Carlin from the Hardcore History podcast. This pretty casual conversation was quite different from many other Elon interviews. Despite having tremendous respect and knowledge of Elon’s public statements, I was surprised to learn of the breadth and depth of Elon’s recall of historic events.
The conversation centered around Elon’s primary message which is that:
“Engineering is underrated in its impact on the outcome of wars.”
However, the part most related to Neuralink in my view is the discussion of what the future of war might look like.
Listen to this clip, and consider what might happen if you have countries developing Tesla Bot-like armies that are fighting on the ground, or Tesla drone-bots in the air and sea:
“Yeah so there’s an interesting thing that happened- obviously once we developed nukes, wars between superpowers became a decision to destroy humanity or not, or destroy civilization…”
I dream of the day wars are simply not fought, but would be perfectly content with wars that have no casualties. If things play out this way, the war winners would primarily be determined by which country or countries have the best engineers. So it looks like we’ve come full circle on Elon’s message: “Engineering has historically been underrated in its impact on the outcome of wars.”
Babylon Bee Interview
In this clip, the CEO of Babylon Bee asked Elon what his thoughts are on the Metaverse:
“What are your thoughts on the Metaverse which takes technology to the next level, and puts us in a virtual world. Do you see that as being dangerous- hopeful for humanity?… Elon: “Maybe we’re in the Metaverse right now… I don’t know if I necessarily buy into this Metaverse stuff… Web 3…Sure you can put a TV on your nose. I’m not sure that makes you in the Metaverse. It’s weird- when I grew up, they said, “don’t sit too close to the TV- it’s gonna ruin your eyesight. And now we got the TV literally right here… Is that good for you?”
I recently tested the Oculus Quest 2. Omar and I even held a meeting in Meta’s Horizon Workrooms. I personally felt the experience was moderately fun, solely because of the novelty factor. However, after playing around with it for several minutes, I began to feel more annoyed by the bright screen immediately in front of my eyes. Additionally, I experienced the motion sickness that Elon goes on to describe here:
“I mean have you tried these games? You know, the Oculus stuff?”
“I think we’re far from disappearing into the Metaverse…”
Neuralink is developing a surgically implanted brain-machine interface. I have a tough time thinking any non-invasive wearable brain-machine interface is going to even try competing with Neuralink in the VR space in any meaningful way.
After half an hour of discussing other Elon ventures, they eventually come back to discussing Neuralink:
“So like how fast can you communicate with your phone using two thumbs? You know 10 bits per second- it’s very low- the data rate. And if computers can- and which they can- communicated at you know a billion bits per second or more, and we’re communicating with them at 10 bits per second, then that’s just an extremely slow communication link.”
Elon then went on to add that he thinks Neuralink achieved a new world record:
“We recently got what we think is a world record in bits per second from any neural device- We’re starting to approach 10 bits per second- which is not actually- well not that big, but it’s more than anyone else has achieved in a useful way- close to 10 useful bits per second is where we are- and we’ll increase that dramatically over time.”
He then goes on to discuss the importance of safety. Like Tesla goes beyond the regulatory standards for safety of vehicles, Neuralink’s standards also exceed the regulatory standards for safety. He then continued discussion of dual Neuralink implants.
“I’m increasingly confident that we can implant a second Neuralink device so one that accesses the motor cortex in the somatosensory cortex and then a second one that is past where the injury is- so if you’ve got a severed- you know basically where are the neurons still functional- and implant a second Neuralink device and have the two devices talk to each other and just transfer the signals across wherever it broke.”
“I don’t wanna set unreasonable expectations, but I’d say I’m certain that it is possible and we will try to make it happen which would then enable people to walk again and use their hands and I think long term probably restore full body functionality to somebody who has none.”
Dual Neuralink Implants
This idea of implanting two Neuralink implants is nothing new for ardent Neura Pod listeners, but since it’s new to some folks, let’s refer back to a tweet from Elon in July of 2020. In a Twitter conversation, Elon was asked about Neuralink aspirations related to the spinal cord. He responded:
This idea of a neural shunt is the wireless re-establishment of a broken connection. It’s also likely one of the reasons Neuralink decided to highlight dual implantation during their summer update in 2020.
Similarly, they showcased dual implantation in the brain of this Macaque monkey last year:
I should point out this neural shunt concept is different from having two Neuralink brain-machine interface implants in the brain. Specifically, the neural shunt concept would probably include implantation of a different Neuralink product- maybe just microcontrollers, or maybe some sort of advanced prosthetic. Regardless, there are exciting times ahead for eventual product unveilings from the Neuralink team.
Elon Changed His Mind About Brain Transplants
Next Elon responded to a question posed by Tim Urban of WaitButWhy, (who by the way, has a very lengthy article summarizing Neuralink, which I highly recommend). The question was what’s something you’ve changed your mind about?
And although it’s a play on words, I predict Elon’s being serious as he speaks very literally. He’s changed his mind about “Brain transplants.”
It’s unclear if he’s now in favor or now not in favor of brain transplants, but this adds to the speculation that Neuralink could one day be able to actually make the decision of performing:
- Brain transplants
- Brain replication
- Artificial brain development
Time will tell.
Time Magazine Person of the Year- Elon Musk
More like person of the Millenium- Call me fanboy or whatever, but I respect him for the good he’s directly influenced and indirectly inspired. Elon Musk finally got a little more recognition this year as he won Time Magazine’s Person of the Year and also Financial Times’ Person of the Year.
I wanted to highlight comments from Elon on what he attributes some of the success of Tesla and SpaceX to. I believe this advantage will also come to light at Neuralink over the coming years. Here’s part of the article from the Financial Times:
“Musk’s own explanation for Tesla’s success turns on his passion for engineering.
“The thing that people who don’t work with me don’t understand is that I’m first and foremost an engineer,” he says. “How have Tesla and SpaceX succeeded when other companies have far more resources and money than I do? The problem is they can’t hire me.”
He also says a dedication to engineering excellence and a focus on important challenges has been critical to attracting top engineering talent.
“When you go after the hardest problem in the world, the best people in the world want to come and work for you,” says Gene Berdichevsky, a former Tesla battery executive. “For a full decade, Tesla was the only game in town.”’
I cannot reiterate this talent advantage enough. At Tesla, it was super clear, the team I was working with was top notch. Unfortunately the top engineering graduates at universities around the world are simply not busting their butts to work at General Motors. Likewise, once the field matures, if someone wants to work in the Brain-Machine Interface space, it’s going to be quite the challenge for companies to compete for talent in related fields.
Neuralink Data
We’ve been keeping track of Neuralink’s employee count and LinkedIn + Twitter followers.
As you might expect, the trends are up and to the right. Neuralink is continuing to look for talented people who are motivated by the mission of the company- to solve important brain and spine problems. They’re looking to hire in almost any department. Apply at neuralink.com if you’re interested.
Departments:
Animal Care; Biology; BMI Software; Facilities; Finance; Implant; Internships; Information Technology; People Operations; Quality Systems; Recruiting; Regulatory; Robot; Software; and Surgery
If you missed our December update episode on Neuralink, check it out here. Thank you for reading.
Written by: Ryan Tanaka.
References Below:
Lex Fridman w/ Elon Musk- The Brain: 1:11:40–1:12:25: https://youtu.be/DxREm3s1scA?t=4300
Lex Fridman w/ Elon Musk- Tesla Bot: 1:36:54–1:38:50 : https://youtu.be/DxREm3s1scA?t=5814
Dan Carlin w/ Elon Musk on Hardcore History- Future of War: 59:57–1:01:24: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0eM1clKYYL8HIZG1H0ilx0?si=xkL2EMIIQ1O-slOvjkxF9A
Babylon Bee w/ Elon Musk- Thoughts on Metaverse: 32:58–33:49: https://youtu.be/jvGnw1sHh9M?t=1978
33:49–34:39: https://youtu.be/jvGnw1sHh9M?t=2029
35:26–36:51: https://youtu.be/jvGnw1sHh9M?t=2126
Neuralink- Faster Communication: 1:12:59–1:13:25 : https://youtu.be/jvGnw1sHh9M?t=4379
Neuralink World Record: 1:17:43–1:18:09 : https://youtu.be/jvGnw1sHh9M?t=4663
Second Neuralink Implant: 1:19:02–1:20:38: https://youtu.be/jvGnw1sHh9M?t=4742
July 2020 Elon Musk Tweet- “Neural Shunt:” https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1288892543061487616?s=20
Neuralink 2020 Summer Update- 3 Pigs Demo: 17:18–17:50: https://youtu.be/DVvmgjBL74w?t=1038
Neuralink April 2021- Monkey MindPong Demonstration: 00:02–00:31: https://youtu.be/rsCul1sp4hQ?t=2
WaitButWhy Neuralink Article- Tim Urban: https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html
December 2021 Elon Musk Tweet- “Brain Transplants:” https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1468627585580126208?s=20
Financial Times’ Person of the Year- Elon Musk: https://www.ft.com/content/a7f75d25-d710-4aaa-9f57-49e24d67744d
Neuralink Jobs: https://www.neuralink.com/
