On August 6, news from Zhi Dong Xi revealed that in a deep podcast interview released by Musk on August 2, it was first disclosed that Neuralink Corporation successfully implanted a brain-computer chip in the second test patient. Currently, the second patient has 400 electrodes working in the brain (accounting for about 40% of the total number of implants), far exceeding the 10%-15% required for normal operation. If regulatory conditions permit, Musk plans to complete another 8 brain-computer chip implant surgeries before the end of this year.
Musk said that the progress of the second patient is "particularly good", and he expects that as the number of implant cases increases, the transmission effect of the brain-computer interface will make great progress, including a significant increase in the number of electrodes and an improvement in signal processing capabilities.
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In the future, the transmission rate of the brain-computer interface may reach the order of megabytes per second, which is more efficient than human typing or speaking. In Musk's view, this means that users of the brain-computer interface can communicate with other brain-computer interface users at 10 times or even 100 times the speed.
Ultimately, Musk hopes to increase human communication bandwidth through the brain-computer interface, help humans communicate faster and better with AI, and thus improve the symbiotic relationship between humans and AI.
The second brain-computer chip implant surgery of Neuralink Corporation was approved by the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) in May this year, and was originally scheduled to be officially carried out in June this year, but was postponed to July due to the patient's personal health issues. The details of this clinical experiment have not yet been disclosed on the official website of Neuralink, and we can only see the relevant information from this interview by Musk.
Senior executives and the first patient of Neuralink also participated in this podcast interview. Dongjin "DJ" Seo, the COO of Neuralink, revealed that they have been researching new products such as multiple implant technology and visual stimulation implants, and are communicating with regulatory agencies about the technology of manipulating mechanical arms with thoughts.
The first implanter, Nolan Arbaugh, was able to manipulate the computer with his thoughts and play complex games after the brain-computer chip implantation, but after a period of time, the implanted electrodes fell off, resulting in a decrease in control efficiency, which made him very frustrated. However, Neuralink quickly fixed this problem by improving the identification algorithm. Nolan has accumulated more than 200 pages of clinical reports for Neuralink, helping Neuralink significantly improve product performance.
First, the second implant effect has been greatly improved, and 8 more implants may be completed by the end of the year.The patient information for those who have undergone clinical testing of Neuralink's brain-computer interface has not been disclosed to date. Musk mentioned in a podcast that this patient's spinal cord injury is similar to that of the first patient. So far, the second implantation of Neuralink has been progressing smoothly, with about 400 electrodes providing signals. Neuralink's official blog states that their implant has a total of 1024 electrodes, which means that about 40% of the electrodes are providing signals in the second implantation.
The 400 electrodes far exceed the number of electrodes required for the system to function normally. In the first implantation case, the brain-computer interface ultimately only had 10%-15% (about 100-150) of the electrodes that could successfully send signals. However, the Neuralink team improved the sensitivity of the brain chip to neural population signals by modifying the recording algorithm, while also improving the technology to convert these signals into cursor movement information.
These adjustments allowed the 100-150 electrodes in the first patient's brain to achieve a communication bandwidth of up to 8 bytes per second (which can accommodate the amount of information equivalent to 4 Chinese characters or 8 English letters), breaking the world record for human use of brain-computer interfaces to manipulate cursor communication bandwidth.
Musk predicts that with the increase in the number of implantation cases, the effectiveness of the brain chip will make great progress, including a significant increase in the number of electrodes and an improvement in signal processing capabilities. In the next few years, Neuralink will significantly refresh this record, reaching a communication bandwidth of 100 bytes per second or even 1000 bytes per second. Perhaps in 5 years, it may even expand to a speed of megabytes per second, which is faster than anyone's speed of communication through typing or speaking.
After the second implantation surgery, Neuralink will accelerate the promotion of other clinical trials. They have already planned to recruit new patients in Canada and the UK, and have received applications from more than 1000 quadriplegics worldwide, of which more than 100 people are eligible. Musk plans to promote Neuralink to complete another 8 implantation cases before the end of this year, but whether this goal can be achieved still depends on whether the regulatory authorities approve.
II. Brain-computer interfaces or rapid channels for human-machine communication, similar technology will be used in the future to help the blind see again
In fact, the information density (i.e., the amount of data transmitted per second) when humans communicate in natural language is very low. Musk said that the average amount of data transmitted per second by humans may be less than 1 byte. In addition, when expressing and receiving information in natural language, people must actively compress and decompress information, which is bound to cause loss in information transmission.
In Musk's view, the brain-computer interface may become a new channel for efficient communication between humans. If both parties of the communication are equipped with brain-computer interfaces, they may be able to communicate efficiently and clearly at a speed of 10 times or even 100 times the normal speed, which is like watching videos or listening to podcasts at 2x speed. He believes that the information transmitted by the brain-computer interface is not just simple text, but a whole piece of information, containing rich text, images, and other content. This is like the emoticons we send in chat, where the pictures, actions, and text in an emoticon are combined, conveying extremely complex meanings. Musk believes that in a few decades, there may be billions of people using brain-computer interfaces.Brain-computer interfaces may also become a new way for humans to interact with AI. Currently, the communication speed of AI is about several megabytes per second, while humans only have 1-2 bytes per second, this huge gap greatly reduces the communication efficiency between AI and humans. Musk said that in the long run, he hopes to further improve the communication bandwidth of brain-computer interfaces, although this may also bring redundant information, but ultimately the increase in communication bandwidth can improve the symbiotic relationship between AI and humans.
The second product of Neuralink is the vision repair technology Blindsight, Musk believes this is the next node that can be unlocked in the development of Neuralink's technology tree. This product aims to restore the vision of blind people by directly stimulating the neurons in the visual cortex.
Musk believes that Neuralink's products are actually a general input/output device. All human sensations and manipulations of limbs are transmitted in the form of electrical signals. If the transmission "cables" are broken, it is impossible to complete these functions of the human body normally. The brain-computer chip can capture all these signals and transmit them to the designated recipient.
In essence, the brain-computer chip is repairing neuronal damage, so Musk also said that similar technology can be used to solve problems such as schizophrenia and epilepsy. He also took the late famous theoretical physicist Hawking, who was paralyzed all over the body, as an example, saying that if similar technology could be applied to people like him, it would have a very significant significance.
III. The first implanted patient spoke, Neuralink executives said that multiple implants have been tested on monkey brains
The first person to be implanted with a brain-computer chip, Nolan Arbaugh, also participated in this podcast interview. After a diving accident, Nolan was completely paralyzed below the neck. He was hesitant at first whether to participate in Neuralink's first clinical test, because the implant is likely to be continuously improved in the future.
Looking back at the feelings on the day of the surgery, Nolan said that he was still anesthetized after the surgery, but quickly regained consciousness. Before getting out of bed after the surgery, the brain-computer interface could record his neural signals. He found that when he thought about moving his fingers, a specific waveform would appear on the tablet responsible for displaying the signals. He ultimately helped Neuralink researchers discover more than 100 different waveforms, each of which corresponds to a command to control a certain part of the body.
A week after the surgery, Nolan was able to move the mouse with his thoughts, but he was not excited about it. He knew that this was the machine learning algorithm recognizing the electrical signals he sent when he wanted to move the mouse. This kind of action is called "Attempted Movement," which is to achieve mouse movement by imagining the trajectory of the mouse.
However, after a period of training, Nolan suddenly found that he could achieve "Imagined Movement." He just needs to stare at the end point he wants the mouse to go to, and the mouse will fly over quickly, without actually imagining the trajectory of the mouse. This qualitative change surprised Nolan very much.Nolan's control over electronic devices in daily use is achieved through an application. This program can "translate" the brain's signals into control commands for electronic devices. Nolan has accumulated over 200 pages of clinical reports in clinical trials, proposing issues encountered in his own use and the functions he hopes to add, which greatly helped Neuralink improve the performance of the brain-computer interface application.
Neuralink's COO, Dongjin "DJ" Seo, is the only one of the seven founding members of Neuralink who has not left. He is still serving as the CTO of the X platform. In this interview, DJ Seo revealed that they have already tested the implantation of two brain-computer interfaces in monkeys, one for each hemisphere of the brain, and they have also tried to implant specialized brain-computer interfaces in different functional areas of the cerebral cortex.
DJ Seo shared that the first-generation implant, N1, can already capture all the signals in the human brain, and now they are only focusing on the transformation of motor signals. When studying visual implants, they will pay more attention to stimulating the human brain to present images, but the underlying principles and product design are similar to the first-generation implant.
At present, the brain-computer interface can only help users move a 2D cursor. DJ Seo believes that similar operations can also be achieved on prosthetic arms and wheelchairs. However, operations that affect the physical world through thoughts still carry risks, and they are still communicating with regulatory authorities.
The potential of brain-computer interfaces is not limited to this. Human consciousness and ideas are also a series of electrical signals. In the future, DJ Seo hopes that Neuralink can use the implant to record these signals, thereby better helping humans understand the working principles behind their own brains and consciousness.
Conclusion: Neuralink technology is accelerating development, and safety issues are becoming a concern.
According to Musk's vision, if regulatory authorities approve, Neuralink will perform a total of 10 brain chip implant surgeries and related clinical tests within one year. However, many people in the academic community question whether Neuralink's approach to promoting related research is not transparent enough. The blog content of Neuralink only has a few articles, and it has not shared the details of the surgery in detail. Samir Sheth, a neurosurgeon in the United States who specializes in researching implanted neural technology, said in an interview with the academic journal "Nature": "Neuralink only shares the information they want us to know, and researchers have many concerns about this."
According to the correspondence information disclosed by the US FDA on its official website, Neuralink has been in close communication with the FDA since 2021, but it took more than two years to obtain the first clinical test permit. Currently, Neuralink's research in Canada and the UK is still at the stage of receiving potential patients, and there has been no news of approval from the local governments. The hesitation of regulatory authorities may also reflect the risks behind this technology, which cannot be ignored.