I remember many years ago encountering an individual with a spinal cord injury. He had some assistive devices and used a "mouth stick." Another recollection is more recent of a person using a "tongue drive" that was somehow interpreting tongue movement to steer a wheelchair. At a conference in Florida recently, I watched a demonstration of a device that somehow allowed blind people to "see" and the connection to the brain there also involved the tongue. In each instance, I was astounded at the efficacy and more so the ingenuity. It is an amazing age in which we live. Few of us likely understand these marvels, but the technology surrounds us.
But, there are hopes on the horizon of a deeper nature. I was astounded to learn that last month (January 2024) a company called Neuralink has performed its first human "brain implant," according to Business Insider. The device "is about the size of a coin," and they "embedded (it) in a person's skull." it has wires of some description that are used to interpret, record, and "potentially stimulate" the brain.
Artificial intelligence scares you? Imagine a computer hard-wired to your neurons. Business Insider says "The tech has some potential near-term medical applications." That said, it is rudimentary still (it notes "1,024 channels is not that impressive these days"). It sounds to me like an 8088 processor when we first heard of computers. Sure, it is magical and mind-blowing, but how long will it take to double in capacity? Will Moore's law be implicated here?
The article describes an intriguing installation process in which those wires are "punched" into the brain, "a bit like a sewing machine." No worries, the attachment is accomplished by a robot. And I let AI scare me. in this instance, the brain can apparently control a computer directly.
For the astounding nature of this, and the potential implications, the BI article notes that some scientists could be more impressed. Some say this has all been done before (I never knew), and one says "arguably its origins go all the way back to the 1960s." Another critic says
"If you just watched this (Neurolink) presentation, you would think that it's coming out of nowhere, that Musk is doing this magic, but in reality, he's really copied and pasted a lot of work from many, many labs that have been working on this."
Well, that is part of it perhaps. Maybe today's science stands on the shoulders of yesterday's? Did anyone say such things about various computers, softwares, and applications over the years? Does anyone out there think there was "no imagination" in the Star Wars, underdog, overcoming evil storyline? We still loved it. And perhaps it is not new per se, but a fresh look even at an "old hat" might be productive in finding it a new purpose.
But as importantly, it turns out that one of the competitors of Neurolink, Synchron, involves a former "Neuralink president, Max Hodak." He departed in 2021, and Synchron "implanted its first device into a US patient" in July 2022.
What is more interesting is that there are multiple competitors in this space, and there seems to be a broad focus on developing innovative human interaction with information. It is perhaps unimaginable that we might forego keyboards and the mouse. If we are honest, perhaps even the screen becomes a novelty? Could the chip simply tell our eyes what to see? And as insane as it may sound, we have heard some whopper predictions from experts past.
Remember Ken Olson in 1977: “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Or, Robert Metcalf in 1995: "But I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” Or, Nathan Myhrvold in 1997: “Apple is already dead.” But, maybe Bill Gates was the most disappointing, in 2004: "Two years from now, spam will be solved.” Here I sit on my Apple iPhone pocket computer surfing the internet and fighting my spam addiction. You cannot make this stuff up.
Yes, it is easy to make predictions and it is easy to be wrong. Spectacularly wrong is achievable. And, beyond such glowing examples, there have been a multitude of failures and flops. But perhaps none are more imperative than Elon Musk's. Apparently, in 2019, he "said Neuralink could in future 'solve a lot of brain-related diseases,' and named autism and schizophrenia as examples."
The Business Insider article is critical of both examples. And perhaps those predictions will not come to fruit. Perhaps the controlling computers will not either. But, perhaps, both predictor and critics neither know everything there is to know about the human brain. Perhaps as these competitors delve more deeply into what the brain can do, then is it possible science might advance, improve, and evolve?
