Jul 17, 2019 19:11:00

Eron Mask announces details of 'Neuralink', which embeds electrodes in the brain and operates smartphones directly

The ' Neuralink ' startup, founded in 2017 by businessman Elon Musk, whose theme is 'fusion of AI and human beings,' is 'technology that enables people to control computers directly from the brain' I made a presentation about The chip will be available from the smartphone app, and clinical trials are expected to begin by the end of 2020.

Elon Musk's Neuralink Says It's Ready to Begin Brain Surgery-Bloomberg

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-17/elon-musk-s-neuralink-says-it-s-ready-to-begin-brain-surgery

Elon Musk unveils Neuralink's plans for brain-reading 'threads'-The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/16/20697123/elon-musk-neuralink-brain-reading-thread-robot

Neuralink, founded in 2017 by Mask, is a startup that develops technology to connect AI to the human brain. Mr. Mask has long been concerned about rapidly evolving AI becoming a human threat, and has proposed a method of 'boosting the brain by incorporating AI into the human brain and confronting the computer' as a countermeasure. You are

Eron Mask establishes new startup 'Neuralink' aiming to connect AI to human brain-GIGAZINE

In 2017, there was no specific explanation on what kind of technology will be developed, but after two years, Neuralink released some of the technologies under development. You can see the presentation by Mr. Masuka et al. Who is streaming on YouTube from the following movie.

Neuralink Livestream-YouTube


According to Mask, Neuralink's goal is to embed the device in a person with mahi, and use the device to make the phone or computer available.

To make this technology a success, Neuralink creates more flexible “threads” that do not damage the brain more than any other device used in 2019. Threads, which are smaller than human hair and are 4 to 6 micrometers in diameter, can transfer huge amounts of data, and 96 threads contain 3072 electrodes per array. In addition to the development of threads, Neuralink has the task of 'developing a machine to embed threads automatically'.

Mr. Mask explained that the purpose of this presentation is 'Recruit'. Scientists, including Neuralink's president

Max Hodak , intend to use a laser beam instead of a drill to drill a hole in the skull, and have already finished their initial experiments with Stanford researchers . Mr. Mask explained that monkeys have already succeeded in operating computers directly from the brain, and said, 'I want to start clinical trials by the end of next year.'

In his presentation Hodak stated that Neuralink is '

standing on the shoulder of the giant ', while any existing technology 'reads the spikes of nerve directly in a non-invasive way as much as possible' Does not meet Neralink's goals. As existing technology, there is research that operates a tablet with a brain implant called BrainGate , but BrainGate has a drawback that damage is likely to occur because it uses a solid needle called “Utah Array”, and little data can be obtained from the brain I had

On the other hand, Neuralink's technology uses a much more flexible material than Utah Array, which makes it difficult to port. For this reason, it was necessary to develop a surgical robot capable of implanting 6 threads with 192 electrodes in 1 minute.

This is the image of the operation.

In addition, Neuralink has developed a custom chip that can read and amplify signals from the brain. At the time of writing this chip can only exchange data via threads and USB connection, but eventually it will be possible to connect wirelessly. Wireless communication is expected to be achieved by the following products, which Neuralink calls 'N1 sensors':

Four N1 sensors embedded in the brain connect with devices attached to the back of the ear, which will be controlled by the iPhone app.