Elon Musk and the hubris of Neuralink

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Elon Musk, the world's richest man, is the co-founder of Neuralink, a company that plans to connect the human brain with computers. But in the six years since it was founded, has it lived up to the Musk hype? Well, it seems like it's starting to dawn on Elon that the brain isn't as simple as it seems and that the creation of brain-computer interface technology can only get you so far. But let's explore the concept of brain chips in depth and what we can reasonably expect in the next decade or so.
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[@Bizarro69]

Ads in our dreams would be a thing. Sounds like hell.

[@teteteteta2548]

That’s beyond hell, never able to escape consumerism

[@devadutsbalan9135]

it only have adc not an dac

[@AdrieKooijman]

I don't have any add blockers or other smart solutions. Sometimes KZbin asks me if I have seen advertiser A, B or C. Usually I - really, honestly - have no idea. Either my memory is really bad, or I have a built-in spamfilter in my brains. 😂

[@brianarbenz1329]

Worse yet, requests that we like, subscribe click that bell.

[@shivanshiasthana]

This is why science communication as a field is so important. It is not only important to do science in ivory towers or in academic institutions, it must be brought to the masses so that they don't fall for this kind of grift. We face grifters since the dawn of time, and every time it establishes the profound relevance of making science a social good in the truest sense of the word. :)

[@MrMikkyn]

There’s a lot of misinformation about everything. A lot of myths in the pop science world.

[@deksam86]

I'm confused science is a thankless service except amongst the scientific community. I mean picking a losing battle doesn't seem very scientific. Behind every great invention or engineering feat is an unthanked scientist but if scientists wanted fame and gratitude they become engineers. Just my two sense. Oh and lastly I don't think anyone would confuse Elon Musk as a scientist because we all know his name with the exception of Nobel Prize winners common people don't know scientist name hence Elon can't be a scientist. 😁😂

[@zaibian7]

​@@deksam86 Behind every Thomas Edison there is a Nikola Tesla. Elon is a modern Edison, taking credit for the work of others. Elon barely understands the technology he's promoting and probably underestimates the progress being made and where it's going. Also, all scientific progress is called dystopian these days, a cure for cancer or the common cold would be called dystopian. Too many people have a hard-on for the apocalypse. I think that's why shows like the Walking Dead and The Last Of Us are so popular. Mobile phones were going the give us all brain cancer, computers are going to take our jobs, automobiles are going to kill us all, reading will melt our brains, man was never meant to fly, satellites will fall on our heads, TV will turn us into zombies, video games will turn our kids into killers... I could go on for days. The atom bomb was supposed to have made us extinct decades ago, I was almost looking forward to it. It's a Gen-X thing, don't worry about it.

[@deksam86]

@@zaibian7 Wait did you just rip my post off. I said the exact same thing in my intro, I said common people are idiots, and I gave an implied apology with (it’s just my two sense). Yep you definitely Edison-ed me. It’s cool I don’t do it for the fame.😁😂

[@ernestopreciado4895]

About his sci-fi pitches I was thinking he was talking about the future, one where he isn't alive to see it. But then the clip with Joe Rogan saying telepathy will be a thing in 5 years had me like 👁👄👁

[@terranovarubacha5473]

He does hedge a bit at the end, so maybe he isn't completely nuts but the tight deadlines edge us back in that direction again

[@chrislawuk]

I think even 10 years is completely mental. MAYBE, if true AI (AGI) was created in the interim, the AI could work out how to do it. But I personally think that has a basically 0% chance of ever actually happening, so yeah… 10 years is absolutely nuts.

[@gentlemandemon]

People really don't see how much work goes into the smallest progress in scientific research

[@rosehipowl]

Something that I have a problem with is the idea of switching bodies and just transferring thoughts between them. Like not for any spiritual reasons or scientific reasons; I'm disabled and the idea promotes the feeling that someone who is disabled doesn't have a life worth living. You can only live well and have value if you are healthy, if your limbs work perfectly, if you can hear and see and speak. It says that you need to adapt to society rather than society remembering disabled people exist. I'm not saying that there aren't people who would like this because there are, but disabled people really don't have much value in the world. There is very little representation of people who have disabilities in the media, and when there is it's either sob stories about bitterness and poor little disabled person (Me Before You is the example I always go to and it kills me a bit inside that that film hasn't just been erased from the world) or as inspiration porn, like the Paralympics where we're used to inspire able bodied people and to remind them that they could have it worse. But anyone can become disabled - I did, I wasn't born in a wheelchair, I only got there recently - and what happens when you're told by the world that you don't matter, that you need to be fixed? You struggle a lot with your new life and you become the bitter disabled person who refuses to accept their reality. It's difficult. I would've seriously considered a new body when I was younger, but now I would never, even though I have chronic pain and chronic fatigue. I would rather try and make society better for all disabled people as I am right now than change myself and let everyone else fight for themselves. I also don't like that it is borne out of religious thinking, this idea that the "mind" and the "body" are separate things and your body is just a vessel for your mind. That's from religion but people don't think of it as religious or spiritual anymore because it's just become a part of language and culture. You *are* your body. Every single cell is you. Your tongue is you. Your liver is you. They all work together to keep you who you are, keep you alive and thinking. You cannot exist without your body because you are the same thing. I don't believe - and science hasn't shown - that there is some special soul thing in you that is "you", like your personality, your beliefs, the spark that keeps you alive. These people, like Elon Musk but also like some other scientists and researchers I'm not going to name, talk about religion like it's nonsense or unnecessary but also use the language of religion and base their theories and research on ideas that has come from religious thinking. You are not some incredible soul, some brilliant brain or mind trapped in this useless meat vessel. They are *both you*. I think people need to start realising that soon because this is not going away. The idea of uploading your memory and trading bodies isn't going to stop being talked about, but people aren't going to think about the reality: that this isn't just the theory of uploading a mind or consciousness, this is based on religious beliefs and is not congruent with what reality shows. It's all you, from the bottom to the top. And as most people know now, there's a lot of research that's being published lately about how much your gut microbiome could influence your thoughts and decisions. What happens when you separate a brain from its intestines? Has Elon Musk even considered that? Does he care that it could cause irreparable harm? I think this is nonsense funded by billionaires and old men who don't want to get old and sick, they want to regenerate like Doctor Who. Us plebs can die and age and get disabled and useless, but they're too important, their thoughts and finances are too important to just die and disappear! They have money, no ethics, and a fear of death. Something is going to come out of this because they can keep pouring money into it until they've forced the square peg into the round hole. Like cryogenics. But I don't think we are ready for it until we've had discussions as a species about why we are doing this, who is going to benefit, and why is this something that money should be spent on and not, say, dealing climate change and food insecurity globally for the same amount of money. Unless we can think about this critically, sans religious thinking, sans ideas of "fixing" people, I don't think this should progress. I'm talking strictly about swapping bodies and uploading minds here, not about the prosthetics and accessibility equipment. I think that is important work and I think learning about neurology and the profession/treatment of diseases is vitally important. But the other bits...not so much.

[@my_name_is_rhyme]

You need to update this

[@CodeWithDasun]

Watching this after first Nuerolink human trial, kind of funny ;)

[@stevebuss69]

Experts said he couldn’t reland and reuse rockets , experts said he couldn’t develop electric vehicles on a mass scale ….

[@my_name_is_rhyme]

@@stevebuss69 and he still can't.

[@my_name_is_rhyme]

@@CodeWithDasun him having one success, built on others' brains and ingenuity, doesn't negate all the lies and ponzi scheming he's done to get where he is.

[@my_name_is_rhyme]

@@stevebuss69 only blowing up billions of dollars.

[@neurotransmissions]

Let's see if this video holds up after Musk's Neuralink presentation on October 31st! 😬 EDIT (10/31/22): Lol, it's been delayed by a month. Now it's on November 30th! EDIT 2 (11/30/22): This video has held up. That was a pretty underwhelming presentation. More promises about human testing (already 3 years delayed). Supposedly it'll happen "in about 6 months", but no firm date. Knowing how slow the FDA moves, that seems unlikely. The coolest thing they showed was a monkey "typing with its brain", which is not new and not as impressive as they made it out to be. It's mostly just retreading the same ground, but with new tech. Anyway, maybe we'll do a reaction video to it soon. EDIT 3 (12/11/22): Yikers, a string of new articles came out this week showing that, in only 4 years of operation, Neuralink has killed 1500 animals, including 280 sheep, pigs, and monkeys. That is a very very high number of losses for higher-order research animals. Who knows whether it's due to research being "rushed" or purely negligence, but this level of animal death indicates needless cruelty and it appears that Neuralink is now under investigation. I now have far less faith in them qualifying for human trials anytime soon.

[@chaosvii]

Hope springs eternal

[@dannii_L]

Musk is just a snake oil salesman. He says whatever he needs to to get eyeballs and money on a project without any consideration for whether his proposal is even possible.

[@Buddy1530]

I feel like there's just straight up hate you have for them. Like sure he is being disingenuous but you're also being a bit too much and playing a lot into the politics of what people think. I hope I don't need to remind you, this is science... Not your narrative.

[@charliem5254]

He said "Show me human the depths gullibility" and the computer went "dodòdōdódó".

[@h0mewrecker]

Memories are stored in the balls

[@hobermaas4166]

I'm glad people are starting to dissect Neuralink's bogus claims. Hearing Musk talk about this project makes it painfully obvious that he has no grasp on neural physiology and biochemistry. As you've pointed it out, he's watched that Black Mirror episode and decided that he wanted that, like a child.

[@OldManShoutsAtClouds]

Ah, so you think Elon is the one sound the research himself? 😂😂 he's the spokesperson, not the scientist. They just had their first human trial, where's all that smack talk now?

[@MadsterV]

@@OldManShoutsAtCloudsthey just hate him cause Twatter told them to :)

[@Pushing_Pixels]

Wireless charging generates quite a lot of heat. Given the device is right next to the brain, and has metal filaments running deep into it, how much of that heat will be transferred into the brain? What effect will that have? Will having a strong magnetic field right next to the brain for hours every night (overnight charging) have any negative effects? To what extent will leaving a permanent hole in the skull weaken its structural integrity? If there is a battery failure, what happens? Li-ion batteries can fail in pretty spectacular ways. Will the wireless radio transmitter being right next to the brain, without the protection of a cranium, have any predictable negative effects? The wireless system seems to be off-the-shelf mobile phone parts. Genuinely interested if you know the answers to any of these questions.

[@subhasish661411]

I spoke about this 6 years ago, he made some outlandish claims about AI which isn't true. I have been in this field many years now and it isn't true now as well. He is a car salesman.

[@wouterdevlieger1002]

And the leader in rocket launches and satellite production by a wide margin.

[@OldManShoutsAtClouds]

Lmao have you paid any attention to where AI is at now? So many blind people laughing at a seeing man's description of the sunset.

[@subhasish661411]

@@OldManShoutsAtClouds my designation is senior machine learning engineer. In this field for last 8 years. Still saying there is lot more marketing hype.

[@kainickname]

@@subhasish661411 how do you think AI will impact the job market for programmers? I'm a little worried

[@RunItsTheCat]

The next meaningful step for neural prosthesis would be an improvement to the neural signal translation algorithm. Hopefully they are at least working on it at the backend.

[@lars_larsen]

Yeah, Elon Musk takes credit, and people happily give it to him for some reason... Its what he did with Neuralink, its basically what he did with electric cars(first one was built in 1888 but people act as if he invented them), its what he did with reusable launch vehicles, and its what he did with the Hyperloop( Previously known as Vactrain, first patented in 1799). He takes an old concept, slaps a new name on it, pours money on it, and acts as if he invented the idea until people think he did. The only thing I agree with that man about is that we should work to expand ourselves with an AI-cortex rather than build an independent AGI that just wants economic growth if those against all odds turn out to be our only two option for AI... but we definitely should not be directly hooking our brains up to the internet, people need to be able to be in physical possession and controll of every part of their brain to make sure nobody is poking it without their consent, artificial or not.. and we really should as quickly as possible restructure our society such that big companies and rich people no longer have so much controll over us of all anyway, if we want to avoid most of those potential dystopian futures we currently appear to be hurdling towards at a disconcerting speed.

[@humanperson8418]

The reason: People don't remember the first, just the best. Elon didn't invent anything new, but he does popularise them & make them successful.

[@LucasDimoveo]

If you want Neuralink without the marketing flash, check out Paradromics and Synchron. Additionally, if you're interested in the biomedical corrosion problem you should check out Mojtaba Barzegari's work. He doesn't focus on electrodes but it is still an approximation of how hard the problem is The announcement of Neuralink is the reason why I decided to go to school and attempt to get a college degree. Honestly, I dislike Musk and what he has pivoted to (the culture war stuff) and the constant focus on false promise for marketing sake. Either way, I've always wanted to help build BCI devices and the announcement of Neuralink kind of reminded me why I always wanted to be an engineer. It also helps that Neuralink is one of the only openly transhumanist organizations that I can think of

[@FinalFire77]

on the note of telepathic communication, I don't think she considered that the communication could be done through a secure or open chat channel using wifi or bluetooth as the basis of the connection. Traditional ideas of telepathy would require us to have a far better understanding of what a thought is, yes. But if the persons thoughts are separate from the actual communication channels that the neuralink uses then your own thoughts would still have the ability to be private as long as you are not using the chat channels at that time. What I am more curious about is how will the interface /HUD work with the people using them. Will there be something like a border that pops up on the bottom of the things you see, giving you options for what you want to do such as chat, apps, google search, etc. or will it end up being more thought derivative where you have to think about the function you want to use in order to use it. Maybe it will end up being something else entirely. Who could say for certain what sort of surprises the next generations of neuralink have in store for us.

[@watamatafoyu]

This video shows how Musk's goal is to boost his image, as opposed to other researchers trying to actually learn good things for humans.

[@leviturner1750]

Everything Musk has done can be described as: Take an old idea that other people dedicated their lives to, pretend he is the visionary on it, over-promise to the moon on what can be done with it, generate revenue off the hype, move onto the next project and hope people forget that you never delivered on those promises or even took the slightest bit of accountability for the problems it created. Rinse and repeat.

[@Haydenz11]

Good for him, he found a sustainable business model🤷‍♂️ god bless America

[@darkgaara112]

Strong valid point about Musk's Misunderstanding.. Fear shouldn't run decisions to escape blindness of the fear you create... AI integration with the brain does not seem like a solution to Escape his dystopian nightmares

[@CzAnimations]

Pretty sure he isn't really scared of AI. He's just using the PR for speculations.

[@tenshi6293]

Not seen the whole video, but something that feels kinda off from the start: it doesnt have to be verosimil, if science had only focused on that that seems posible, we wouldnt have so many things. either this works or not NOW, and if it doesnt now it might pave the way for tomorrows tech, even if its something different

[@8lec_R]

Very informative video. Thx

[@gputkaradze9873]

We don’t need this. We can forgive something, we remember something what we don’t want. This is part of life.

[@advithkrishnan9948]

@neurotransmissions I know im pretty late.. but great videoo :) also I had a question, i was wondering when you said that mapping of the human brain still has soo much to uncover, but what about the human connectome project?? from what ive seen, theyve claimed to have solved the problem of mapping the neural connections of the human brain and are focusing on other factors like different disorders and diseases like alzhiemers that can affect the connections of the brain... I hope im not confusing or misinterpreting stuff, but I just wanted to clarify this

[@CzAnimations]

It's a different kind of mapping. Connectome is anatomical mapping of neural connections. Arguably more important to BCI applications is mapping cognition and different senses to the brain. An example of these maps would be orientation preference map in visual cortex. If you use BCI based on electrical stimulation for let's say stimulating movement, you need to know which regions of the brain map to which muscles in order to "controll" them. Same goes for restoring vision. I believe this is the kind of mapping they mean.

[@advithkrishnan9948]

@@CzAnimations alright that makes much sense.. thanks for clarifying that for me :))

[@RT710.]

Listening to intelligent and well studied experts rag on elon musk is one of my favorite pastimes!!! Thank you for sharing your (actual) wisdom!

[@daphnebernues2624]

This is a very good video thanks so much for making it, I really hope Musk sees it one day.

[@susansmiles2630]

hanks so much! I so enjoyed your style of presentation, so articulate!

[@awhaleandadeer8785]

Niice! is so interesting to hear your point of view, i heard people talking about Elon Musk been a litle bit "Koo-koo" or similar to Doctor Doom from Marvel (in a bad way), is nice to hear your arguments and the explanation of what Elon Musk is doing with NeuraLink, it seems like he is a huge sci-fi fan that thinks he is powerfull enough to make all those fantastic things become real, or at least he uses those ideas like a boost (image company boost) to gain more power, great video!

[@JustWojtek]

It's funny how much accessible knowledge and books about brain science are out there and how the knowledge of Platonian and industrial myths still persists.

[@hoolegan_9237]

Great video 👍 I don't think I'll completely shy away from the crazy technological advances that come our way in the next few years. I don't want to end up the teacher who can't use the smart whiteboard. 😅 But I agree, anything farther than my current addiction to my smartphone is scary to me.

[@neymow2242]

Nice video! Also, that hairstyle really suits you :)

[@CzAnimations]

Can we get a reference for the mouse brain mapping?

[@neurotransmissions]

Here ya go! www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02208-0

[@CzAnimations]

@@neurotransmissions Thank you!

[@Jeal0usJelly]

Only 11 minutes in but already I can see a strange dissonance between how you interpret Musk's actions related to Neuralink and how I do it. From my POV he just owns a neuroscience company which doesn't make him a neuroscientist, therefore any PR he does is as if I was reading a popular science magazine - I don't see him taking credit for other people's work, I see him making it interesting to the masses. I understand that he's rich and powerful and could approach complex matters more thoughtfully but purely in terms of marketing, what he does makes 100% sense to me, not only neuroscience but pretty much all of science is just not that interesting to an average person, even news about space discoveries and tech don't easily grab people's attention the way they used to. I firmly believe that people like Musk are necessary, people who use their money, power and influence to bring science-fiction closer to us and force us to keep thinking about issues related to all that. Better than having such breakthrough tech developed secretly in some military lab. Disclaimer: I don't follow Musk's exploits 24/7, I'm not natively English and don't live in USA or its sphere of influence so I might not be getting the whole picture.

[@neurotransmissions]

The issue with Musk is not that he focuses on marketing. The issue is that he is essentially trying to sell a fantasy. He is a snake oil salesman. It's easy to make something sound really interesting if it isn't grounded in reality. So yes, he grabs people's attention, but I don't applaud someone for doing that if they're lying.

[@brindlebucker4741]

@@neurotransmissions Exactly, well said! You have to remember, he's taking people's investment dollars with his BS. It's not benign. It's not HIS money he's putting in it, but the mutual funds', the investment firms', the private investors'. And when it doesn't pan out, that's THEIR money gone. To me, it seems Musk's game is to simply keep as many plates spinning as he possibly can. He basically bombs the public with his constant presence on social media. He is the "hype" guy, and his legions of fans spread the word that he is literally 'saving humanity', so when he gets involved in whatever his latest fancy is, news presenters get positively giddy about it, and then you wind up with something like the Vegas Loop- a single tunnel with mood-lighting and major fire safety issues. Musk's Neuralink chips and demonstrations are nothing more than Dog and Pony shows to drum up investment dollars. They're not doing anything new or ground-breaking. That monkey scientists wired up to the mechanical arm way back in the early 2000s was much more impressive than anything coming out of Neuralink. Good video, btw. New subscriber here.

[@BooleanDisorder]

@@brindlebucker4741 I don't agree with Musk on many things, but just because of that doesn't mean what his companies do is bs. You need to separate his childishness from the science behind Neuralink. I dunno, maybe you're right and Neuralink is bs but I see no reason why it wouldn't work.

[@aruspice]

"Mr. Musk doesn't understand a bit of neuroscience and what is the brain, he barely knows where it’s located." - Miguel Nicolelis, 2021

[@ArgzeroYT]

Current MD PhD student working on neural engineering here. Great video. Subscribing today!

[@ArgzeroYT]

Unrelated, but I saw the image "It's not rocket surgery - it's brain science!" and laughed because I also build rockets as a hobby. Couldn't have picked a better top page image to catch my eye if you tried! xD

[@jvoidhuey3088]

Maybe you shouldn't. This lady is dumb, and biased.

[@michaelwerkov3438]

Video needs many more likes than 400some

[@kingsway731]

You have to take into consideration the exponential growth of information technology. It took one year to map 1% of the human genome and they finished it in seven

[@isladuporge5520]

This is a good point

[@petr-heinz]

It is my understanding that when Elon Musk speaks about existential danger, it's not really an immediate timeline he's worried about. Also, his more-than-optimistic time estimations are well known, but I guess he's just aiming for the shortest time imaginable in the hope it will result in the shortest time possible. Take the idea of Mars colonization - with this view SpaceX was able to become leader in transportation to space. Did he say everything will be done years before it has been really done? Yes. Red Dragon was originally meant to launch for Mars in 2018, 4 years ago and no launch is in sight (although the launch vehicle had undergone a major redesign a few times). I view Neuralink as a something similar. To be honest, I've never thought of his claims about neuroscience as something "he's invented" - I didn't study neuroscience but was aware of the progress in BCIs over the years. I felt that what Neuralink's supposed to bring to the table is comfort (with small size of the device, quick and precise robotic insertion, and wireless technology), and a massive read-write bandwidth. As in "let's make a really good invasive BCI". You're on the point about his claims about mind upload and saving memories being outlandish. However, I've learned to filter out his similar claims (like Tesla's plans for a bipedal robot)... Telepathic communication in 10 years? I think that might be possible, however it will not be sending exact thoughts or videos, just some simpler quasi-text messages. AI being a threat? I honestly think that might be one of the largest existential threats for humankind at the moment (in the time range of mere decades). And I view very good BCIs as maybe the only way how to get humankind though superintelligent AI scenario with a mostly positive outcome. Are there other BCIs that have more near-future potential? Synchron's Stentrode is much safer option utilizing a common procedure. Even though they will never get Neuralink's resolution and responsiveness due to the electrode placement, it is much better direction if your vision is to help paralyzed people as soon as possible. Neuralink's vision is just different, more long term and more controversial. I don't think your comments about the current Elon's tech demonstrations were really fair, as they are demonstrating a largely new technology. Of course it takes time.

[@mcmoswane]

Also, Elon Musk setting outlandish sci-fi goals honestly captures people's attention. This leads to more people taking an interest in those goals. I honestly do not resonate with the beef here. He has a platform to draw interest, the worst he could do is not use it.

[@ThinusPrinsloo]

Thanks!

[@neurotransmissions]

Hey thanks friend! That's very kind of you

[@QlueDuPlessis]

Half of Musk's "innovations" look as if they were uplifted straight from Reader's Digest: Strange Stories & Amazing Facts The other half can be found in another Reader's Digest publication

[@stevengarrett5953]

I AM LOSING THE USE OF MY FEET AND IT IS MOVING UP MY LEGS. I WOULD VOLINTIER FOR THIS.

[@OldManShoutsAtClouds]

Are you sure? Internet lady said Musk bad, so therefore no one should like meaningful innovation... right?

[@laughingbuddha28]

Im a phd in management. During the big c lockdowns Em's nlk was being worshipped witha big W. I still was not convinced. Ur videos 👍🏼🙏🏻

[@idicula1979]

I think Elon Musk exist to blow the mind of one Galaxy brain Joe Rogan.

[@shankariab1687]

Thanks for putting the scientist's perspective of this in a video. I like Elon but his recent actions are getting him to be disliked by scientists. I would like to see him try though.. Recently found your channel ☺️ you earned a subscriber ❤️

[@nathan-498]

How? She showed one commenter who just talked trash but never explained himself.

[@Nzombii]

Maybe because I was aware of BCI ahead of Neuralink, or numb to silicon valley hype, but it wasn't as bothersome to me. Certainly Musk is ahead of his skis, but there is a need for innovation as you say with better electrode insertion and paring down devices. I would prefer a public University research approach but let's be honest, the progress over the last 10 years has been very minimal. After seeing Musk's hyperloop become a total sham I am discouraged for whatever they present, but I'm still glad there is another source working on innovation. I'm a quadriplegic and even modest innovations might quicken the entire field so that in my lifetime something, however limited, might be feasible.

[@Barrillel]

In the end, the more eyes on the problem, the better. Even if we have to filter Elon Musk bullshit.

[@brianarbenz1329]

Mark Twain said, "Great things can happen if you don't worry about who gets the credit." Musk's refusal to collaborate will slow down the achieving of great things.

[@sebyv9305]

Understand how complex multiple interactions take place and how they keep interacting to generate different patterns which results in different behavior or results is the next major breakthrough science needs be it in brain or other parts of human body. Understanding real time complex interaction of different systems is something that our ancestors have understood about human body via many different rituals and process by paying close attention to different feedback mechanisms though not at a molecular level. Maybe rather than peeking at molecular level and building from that we could start from ancient and modern understanding of how we behave and work as human beings at a broad physical-behavioral level using different feedback mechanisms and then break these patterns down and correlate them with patterns of biological using AI to make connections between what we understand about ourselves and what we know about biology and chemistry at a molecular level.

[@GamerSisters]

My man you are literally describing medical anthropology. This is something that has been worked on for decades and we still don't fully understand human behavior either which is also related to us not understanding the brain. And if we don't understand it, we won't know how it evolved from generation to generation. It doesn't help that we have very little to no data about our ancestors past a certain point.

[@HoneyDoll894]

yeah the most insane bit of tech these tech bros don't seem to really understand is that our current computers work with nanometer scale transistors. and neurons are from a few micrometers to a few dozen micrometers in length. but the synapses are only 20-40 nanometers, only a couple times bigger than transistors. and the neurons are much more complicated systems than transistors. but the neuralinks work with comparably huge wires and massive accuracy issues. like if you really wanted to get something like an actual computer in your brains, you'd need to at least match the neurons in size and complexity also the weirdest bit these people do is they insist on accessing the brain directly. iike with the internet bit, where they seem to think its a chip on your brain. like we already have systems built into our bodies to do things sort of like that. the visual nerve, auditory nerve etc. like if you really wanted to put internet into your brain, it'd be much easier through an audiovisual signal. but that wouldn't be cyberspace

[@smartjackasswisdom1467]

I don't care about ai and vr and connecting the brain to the internet. I just want to feel a robotic limb with a full spectrum of sensations, touch, humidity, temperature, etc.

[@coronabuster3611]

I was not a fan of Elon Musk when people treated him like a God. Now, it seems like people are out to get him. He's a human and seems to be involved in the creation of good things. Anyone who's been involved in real research knows it takes forever. Musk has a gift for getting the average person engaged in many things they would probably ignore. My concern isn't with Musk, my concern is that people don't research anymore. They go to one information source and are satisfied. These aren't people who want to be informed, they are people who want to have the same information as everyone else, to have conversations with like minded individuals, to feel smart, think they are cutting edge, but not to be any of those things.

[@Zajcooo]

Just in time when I'm watching Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.

[@bobmirror7164]

We, humans, are still on the learning curb and always will be. Musk is an example of a sales person looking for easy answers to con people into thinking science knows more than what we currently do. So yes, visionaries are important, however lets keep perception and reality in check.

[@Vopraan]

I'm wondering if, because of Musk's ability to make things "seem new" is his way of putting out information to the public so that they know how these things he's working on will work, and aswell how far technology has gotten. His ability to make it seem "brand new" brings all these technologies and human achievements back up to trend with a mass society who is oppressed and depressed, and feeling as if humanity isn't going anywhere. It's almost like, yes, he's taking the game of already preexisting things, but he's using those things to show human advancement, aswell as accumulate money to do greater. I have a feeling that a man who's this good at manipulating the masses has a bigger plan in mind. He could be working on the Neurolink, aswell as using preexisting technology to almost give humanity interest and hope for advancement, aswell as demonstrate what Neurolink will be working from. (Btw. I'm not saying his plans are good or bad. Based on how he acts I'd say they're bad. For all we know, he could be accumulating wealth for greedy reasons like most rich individuals do, and has no plans to finish his plans of creating Neurolink.) (Ps. To mimic the Kung Fu learning scene from Matrix, why don't scientists just make a device that shuts off the body's wakefulness, but keeps the brain alert; all while simulating in the mind an image or video, aswell as stimulate the parts of the brain for everytime you make an action occur? Pretty similar to, say, sleep paralysis. You know? I doubt it's that difficult to simulate movement and imagery when we have literal devices out there that can already stimulate the brains reflex responses and other stuff. But what do I know. I'm just an idiot over the internet in a comment section of people who are just as lost as me.)

[@LegionOfWeirdos]

Wait. The twins with Zilis were from IVF? OK, that's super weird.

[@maythesciencebewithyou]

most of his kids are ivf

[@bravo90_]

I think solving the brain is where AGI comes into play. AGI is able to sift through data like nobody’s business. It’ll speed us up exponentially.

[@TheStephen23456]

I can already replay my memories…

[@matth9103]

You raise a lot of great points, and I largely agree with your take - another interesting video! One topic that I do diverge from your opinion seems to be on the topic of scale. Neuralink appears to be betting on the idea of 'big data' and having thousands of electrodes recording at high resolutions and frequencies. I believe comparisons can be drawn with Tesla and OpenAI in this regard, both of which are heavily involved in artificial neural networks, and have seen massive performance gains from simply scaling up the size and number of parameters involved (e.g. GPT-3 & Teslas latest FSD demos). These gains were actually quite a surprise to many in the industry, as the 'traditional' view was that we really needed better neural architectures in order to achieve any significant gains. I of course acknowledge that human biology & neurology is not at all the same as that in artificial neural networks, though there are certainly some fascinating correlations (and I know of at least a few neuroscience concepts that have made their way into AI development). Perhaps also relevant: At Teslas latest AI day, there was discussion on the way Tesla collects and analyses bulk data for its vision system. They have a crazy ecosystem of automated data requisition, labelling, and processing. This is connected into 'shadow mode' testing in their millions of vehicles on the road, where a simulated system continually live tests itself against real-world events, and reports on any inconsistencies/errors (which in a feedback loop requisitions further data and training for similar situations). This has led to their vision system achieving some amazing accuracies (e.g. velocity & acceleration estimations of nearby vehicles from only a few video frames), and many of these feats were generally considered impossible by industry experts, who insisted that lidar and/or radar were required. I wonder whether Neuralink may be betting on a similar system for analysing neural signals - perhaps rather than following a more traditional testing regime of limited data sets from carefully regimented experiments, Neuralink is planning to collect bulk (i.e. 24/7) data from many animals (and humans once approved), and apply big-data techniques to extract as many correlations as possible. In respect to humans, this obviously would get into ethical concerns - but I am excited by what such a sheer volume of data could help Neuralink and the wider community find, even in the case that Neuralink is unable to live up to any/many of their claimed use-cases. Anyways, if you've made it to here, thank you for reading :) * P.S. In the nicest of ways, I must however say that I was quite off-put by your take on Musk, which is rather counter to my own view. Overall I believe you were able to maintain a fairly neutral coverage, so I do thank you for your integrity. My greatest irritation though was right in the opening seconds, and I do wish you had fact-checked your statement of "Musk paid for the title of founder at ... Tesla and SpaceX" - which yes has some small element of truth for Tesla, but is utterly false for SpaceX. Honestly it did almost turn me away from the video (as did some of your ad hominem throughout), but I do respect you and your prior work and so wanted to hear your take on Neuralink itself. (For those who are interested, below is a quick summation of my reasoning as to my different opinion on Musk - feel free to ignore this if you so wish) I totally agree that Musk says many strange things that are outlandish and/or unrealistic, but I think it is less a case of him being malicious/manipulative and more that it's the way he naturally thinks. It's often said that he doesn't have much of a 'filter', and is a poor public communicator - both of which I believe are essentially true. And yeah, the whole 'memelord' thing just adds a bunch of confusion. If you've seen interviews with Musk touring SpaceX and/or his responses to Q&A at Tesla events, you'll notice he frequently frames problems in terms of 'first-principles'. Interviews with Gwynne Shotwell (SpaceX President & COO), Tom Mueller (ex SpaceX Propulsion CTO), etc also give a lot of insight into the way Musk thinks: Whenever dealing with an engineering problem, Musk is adamant that nothing should be ruled out as impossible until this is proven by a first principles analysis - which is critical in driving change in an engineering environment (i.e. not just doing the same old thing solely because 'it's always been done that way'). Musk seems to carry this same mode of thinking into his public appearances however, which can easily lead to misunderstandings. Essentially all of his speeches/answers are 'off-the-cuff', and he regularly devolves into speculation on mid- to far-future concepts without clearly stating as such; when he says that a technology is capable of something, what he generally means is that he can't currently see a clear engineering impossibility in its development. I'll definitely acknowledge that this can come across poorly, though honestly I do lay much of the blame on journalists spinning clickbait from this and further muddying the water on what he actually stated (personally I know that I'm continually frustrated by misquotes and mistakes in practically every article mentioning Musk or his companies, and especially when these articles are used as 2nd-hand sources for yet other articles). And yeah ... whenever Musk mentions a timeline, take it with a bucket of salt - I am fairly sure this is primarily Musk committing the planning fallacy of envisioning the easiest pathway as the most likely, and thereby not accurately accounting for the setbacks and complications inevitable with any cutting-edge technologies. Though to be fair, an inordinate number of his 'crazy' statements have indeed been achieved, just much later than claimed. This all said, I do wish to clarify that I do indeed condemn some of Musks statements as irresponsible and likely ignorant & malformed (particularly recently on twitter). I do hold separate his individual personality from his professional roles, though of course these can become very intermingled - especially on twitter, and by his so-called 'Musk Stans'.

[@olliemoore11]

Wow, Did u get gpt to do this for u?

[@uzaircassim4373]

Well said Matt.

[@MrCardeso]

Tesla fully self-driving cars, the Hyperloop, the shatter-proof Tesla truck glass, the Tesla Bot, Twitter redesign, etc. I am starting to doubt that Musk can actually accomplish everything he brags about.

[@justanothernick3984]

You misspelled _anything_ . You are very welcome, sir 😄 It seems comparatively easy to get people hyped on concepts of futuristic nature when the visual industry has advanced so much that storytelling is believable and compelling, but in actuality to converge the vision with reality can be impossible to do without extremely high costs that we aren't willing to pay.

[@lemonbrothers3462]

wow, indeed a long one :) For me neuralink sounds like a bunch of bs, like you said, we barely know anything about the human brain for any of this to seem feasable in any short term - which is in a sense good since human kind has proved time and again that it's not mature enough to be given such power. It could be a new theranos if it wasn't so obviously overselling their promises lol

[@CodeWithDasun]

Watching this after first Nuerolink human trial, kind of funny ;)

[@WalkinEagle73]

was thinking the same thing this didn't age well

[@wowcplayer3]

Philosophically, I'm not convinced description can be described in natural language. It's simply not a creative contradiction to assume any genuinely useful insight wouldn't be totally incomprehensible and unpredicted, we will have to see just how alien AI is.

[@CzAnimations]

It's not alien, it's just clever maths...

[@wowcplayer3]

@@CzAnimations it's not "clever", that's also a metaphor.

[@wowcplayer3]

@@CzAnimations just replace alien with the sentence I gave as context right before I used that word. I wonder what your associative meaning is for that word.

[@wowcplayer3]

Lol he could also listen to that Negativland album The World Will Decide

[@mysterium364]

I like the subject matter of this channel, but I do not like the current informational film trends of zooming on the face for emphasis and overlapping clips such that the voice of a clip starts before the visuals of the previous clip end. They annoyingly break the fourth wall.

[@Strange3ntertainment]

I don’t want to be connected to the internet, but I would like cybernetic enhancements like a sandevastant spinal structurer titanium bones, and gorilla enhanced arms (shout out to cyberpunk edge runners)

[@JaidevChakka]

This can be short and engaging.

[@graphosxp]

Musk is "..the serious buffoon, who no longer takes world history for a comedy but his comedy for world history.”

[@TheEtrepreneur]

Signs and wonders.

[@AdrieKooijman]

Just like full self driving is solved by putting cameras on s car and shooting at the problem with AI and a lot of money, a brain interface can be solved by putting some electrodes in and throw money and AI at it. At least, in Elon's computer animations and PowerPoint presentations. In the real world, full self driving is just smart cruise control, and neuralink is at the level of a Furby. It's impressive from technological viewpoint but almost useless if you compare it to the promise.

[@garyhelland8150]

Tell your Buddy Elon to sign me up Period Thank you !!!

[@Micetticat]

The sheer complexity of even a single living cell is immensely higher than any electronic processing system currently in use.

[@jamesdunbar2386]

True, but a lot of that complexity is specifically to create the conditions for simplicity in a chaotic world.

[@dimmy1315]

DR. ASTROCYTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, YAASSSSSSSSSSSS

[@ivanastevens8056]

Can I just say, how much I appreciate this video? As someone who has previously worked in a few of the labs, and still has connections in them, shown in this video, I've always been skeptical of Neuralink for the reasons you mentioned. While I certainly believe the things we are presently capable of doing are super interesting in their own right, albeit limited, I worry the grandiose claims he makes won't help retain the high level of interest in the field in the long run, when they obviously don't come to pass in "5 years."

[@habibislam3924]

We are currently working on a paper that captures some of the negative implications of the "claims that are too bold" by Elon. I would love to pick your brain and collaborate.

[@habibislam3924]

@Crystal 🔮 Throne IMAX Theaters 🎭 Umm....

[@chaosvii]

@@habibislam3924 yeah it’s kinda strange to be subjected to vague suspicion by someone who named themselves some sort of obscure advertisement.

[@samuelharrod4329]

Elon never explicitly said he created any of the technology’s ideas, infact he states that he did not in fact create the technology but that he is pushing to advance it. To be specific he says he only create the best version of this technology available today. Elon isnt claiming he created anything, the same with Tesla he didn’t claim he made electric cars he only advanced them farther then any other company of its time.

[@justforplaylists]

I'm kind of curious, to what degree does neuroplasticity apply to this sort of technology?

[@brothercavil491]

You know how she said sensory feedback isn't always sent to the right location (e.g. a tap at the top of the thumb might feel like it's on the side of the thumb) in part because every brain is different? That's correct, but we're not completely on our own here- the brain is able to meet us halfway. Over time, and with enough visual feedback, a plastic brain will rewire itself so that those taps at the top of the thumb will actually start to feel like they're occurring at the top of the thumb.

[@orazha]

Great presentation. I love the ideas that Musk pursues but I do agree that the way he presents his ideas as "no big deal (my words)", is crazy. But, then again, he's done some spectacular things such as Tesla and SpaceX. These are no small feats. I know that he hasn't really started many of his businesses but he does seem to have a way of pushing people beyond what they believe they're capable of. If he does it enough, he may have more successes along with his failures. I'm with you on neurolink. I don't know much about the brain but have worked with people who might benefit from any discoveries. My short time with computer activated human motion wasn't very good but it was a long time ago.

[@mountainmover777]

Snake oil sure has changed in the 21st century..

[@kingsway731]

Brilliant cyberneticists have been experimenting on unconcenting patients for 70 years and they deserve the credit

[@kibrika]

Thank you for making this video! I'm definitely in the "would be cool to augment myself with tech" camp and had not forgot Neurolink, I am not delusional about it being easy or anything like that. And I'm really grateful for giving context to Musk's spin on things. He has damaged his credibility in all kinds of ways, but not being in neuroscience myself I did not know what it looks like from that side. I do find the "spinnach is greeen" comparison of the tweet a bit condescending since as a lay-person I am not at all aware ow what is currently doable, understood, etc., and what is cool and innovative. So instead of acting like it's all common knowledge, it'd be nice to have more neuro-pop-sci, so that it becomes more common knowledge. And in that sense, again, thank you for this channel and these videos!

[@brothercavil491]

Thank you for an excellent video- you know you're talking with an expert when she keeps telling you it's not that simple. I'm an engineer and I've worked on prosthetics myself, and everything you said was accurate and factual to the best of my knowledge. I don't get bothered by Musk because I understand that the CEO/Business Development role requires a lot of bluster and b.s. in order to secure funding, and that it's therefore (unfortunately) a necessary evil in our current society in order to support real research, but I certainly understand the frustration.

[@drsatyamupadhyay]

But but but Elon Musk is real life Tony Stark 🤡

[@jag12549]

I love when real professionals understand how bullshit his a claim of his is, and see behind the man in the mask for a minute. He is such a con man

[@SeeMeRolling]

He also treats his employees terribly and he didn't invent any of the things he took credit for. It does annoy me that he tries to act like a saint. Btw I have nerve damage and spinal cord injury and have survived a stroke/hemorrhage in the brain. I am very fascinated by science and I dream to one day get an education in biology or biochemistry and possibly contribute to the studies in neuroscience but otherwise there is always something important to do research on and basically I really dream to be a part of that one day

[@8lec_R]

The intro... Taught me a lot 🥶 I dunno why I'm surprised, this is what most rich people do. I guess I'm surprised at how Elon's fans look past that stuff and do all the hero-worship

[@WoLpH]

The one potential speedup to understanding the human brain is AI. I'm rather biased because it's my field of work/research, but AI has made incomprehensible progress over the last few years. While I don't think we'll understand the brain any time soon, given enough training data and computing power we could get a computer to give us something to work with very soon. Think of progression such as AlphaFold, GPT-3, Dall-E 2 and Imagen. You are probably subscribed to two minute papers that provides a small window into the field of AI, but if you are not, I can highly recommend it.

[@Hassan-se3vx]

Thank you. When I saw Elon talking about Neuralink, I was shocked by lies and by trying to get the credits of all neuroscientist and other works over decades.

[@michaelwerkov3438]

Elon musk being the richest man in the world while tesla is dwarfed by so many other companies says everything about the broken economic world

[@ChinaDragon-te2vk]

I'm Professor nimnul

[@Kenkire]

No. All no to the end questions. I hope Musk gets a clue soon.

[@tarickw]

dont forget that elon is the same guy that prevented working public transport from being implemented by saying he could do it better with his "futurism of transport"

[@joaquinillo_]

I hate hearing about this hack, yet I love seeing people dunk on him.

[@justtrolin]

I may have to consider starting my own channel at this point. She makes a good argument. The environment is complex. Fixate on the lightning, not the petabites of data the environment holds. The concept of tuning is not lost to us. I'm old enough to remember what radio is. Simple complexity, made harder by human encumbrance.

[@zozebee]

Even when Musk "acts normal" it appears to be forced 🤷‍♂️ he's just genuinely strange

[@gregsutton2400]

Video is actually about the video creator.

[@Baszihter]

I have just discovered one of my favorite yt channels, this one! :D

[@danielscrooge3800]

What we need is a big dataset of multiple human brains, plug it into an AI and let it decode how the brain works.

[@privateprivate1865]

That comes with consequences. Big ones

[@musicenthusiast19]

@@privateprivate1865can you talk about the consequences? I’m curious!

[@privateprivate1865]

@@musicenthusiast19 for example.. someone could control you and trap you in a simulation and make you believe you are actually living in that reality. Which is wjat has already happened to us. We are not in the year 2023

[@herrk.2339]

What AI? What training data would you use to produce it?

[@kreansimon1383]

👍👍👍

[@ninjaknight-jn9ky]

I prefer to think dune is more likely.

[@dantheman2907]

Was going to say "in before the weird nerds defending Elon Musk turn up" but it seems they're already here. Oh well. Hate views are still views.

[@lolaartemis]

Somebody tweet this video at Musk.

[@OldManShoutsAtClouds]

And he'll tweet back the first human using his chip... 🤡

[@PUNKMYVIDEO]

Resistance is futile

[@ArthurWolf]

See, you don't like Neuralink for "acting like" they did something that hasn't been done before (they really don't), but here's what you're not getting: most people don't know what the current state of these technologies is. We NEED people with marketting flair to actually talk about this stuff, and get the public excited about it. If the **reason** somebody does it is because it helps promote their startup: good! The more people know about this stuff, the easier it'll be to finance, both public and private, and the more progress will be done. Getting upset at this company (and so many others, this is common) for not starting every sentence with "this has already been done before but" is just not a good position, sorry. A company showing their progress, even if all they achieve is stuff that's been done before, is GOOD. A company talking about the sci-fi pie-in-the-sky stuff their product might lead to someday is a GOOD thing. Get people excited about science. None of this is a problem, and you're acting against a good thing here, with incredibly weak complaints... The scientists getting upset at these companies for not constantly mentionning this has existed before, are TERRIBLE at getting people to know about their stuff, and at getting people excited about science (at least they often are). It's a GOOD thing that companies fix that hole.