Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Tech & Science

Op-Ed: Musk, Neuralink, and garbling the message

“Yes! We can control minds!”
“Oh, swoon.”

Billionaire Elon Musk. — © AFP Sakis MITROLIDIS
Billionaire Elon Musk. — © AFP Sakis MITROLIDIS

Neuralink is being touted as a major breakthrough for giving vision to the blind managing motor impairment and other useful things. It’s a BCI, which is “Brain Computer Interface”. Elon Musk, however, is saying it will be ready for implantation into a human brain in six months, and maybe, his own brain.

The trouble with Musk is that when playing to the grandstands, he’s often more statement than substance. He’s in a great position to get attention, and he uses it on an hourly basis. Neuralink may be many things, but judging from its website, not too informative. The site provides a very general overview and not much else.

That’s understandable from the amount of high-value IP involved, but hardly new. BCIs have been around for quite a while. They’re the product of some good science and some utterly appalling, ancient cliché-level science fiction, like:

“Yes! We can control minds!”

“Oh, swoon.”

…Because that is the default image of anything put in someone’s brain. That sort of thing. In the 1940s and 1950s, was OK for drive-in movies. Now, not so OK. Add to this the apparent circus trick of being able to read online with your eyes closed, and that’s It? Hardly good enough, is it?

Implants are tough neurology. Neuralink puts a sizeable link right where the hair grows, and hardwires itself to specific neurons, giving what Neuralink says is a lot of area coverage for measuring “action potentials”. Action potentials are (excuse oversimplification) pretty much the circuits and circuit board(s) for neural activity.

Uh-huh. That’s a lot of trouble to go to for reading something online. Why? What actual use is it? You can access information without undergoing major surgery, too, you know.

Google tried this with optical interfaces. The market wasn’t interested. There are many biotech interfaces that have come and gone and generated nothing but apathy.

You can also hook this Neuralink thing up to Bluetooth? Ahh… Um… Meh, if any comment is necessary. I thought the Naughties were over, but not at this rate. Again, one must ask – So what? (We’ll leave out the security implications of someone being able to hack your head for now.)

If Musk is simply pushing more intrusive technology, it’ll be a very hard sell, what with the world going in the other direction. The world doesn’t want more intrusive technology. It wants less, and a lot less. This is Vox Realpolitik, not Vox Veg.

Worse, he’s not the guy to do it, particularly now. His own credibility is in the spin cycle with Twitter.  He’s seen as the guy letting in the vacuum, not creating breathing space, and it’s his fault.

You’d think he’d get it. The ultra-regressives have never been much of an asset for any of his ideas. So now he’s trying to push a new-ish idea while being the preferred platform for the “Let’s Bring Back The Stone Age” brigade? The market image is blurry enough without such a wide-angle tangent as brain interfaces.

People can get implants and spend a fortune just to watch the same crap online? At any sort of expense, presumably, because the cost of these things isn’t a subject, either.

Brain preserved in formaldehyde. — Gaetan Lee (CC BY 2.0)

Meanwhile back on the actually interesting and useful side of things, motor neuron management and optic nerve side of the equation, not much info is rattling around. These are major ongoing neuroscience projects. They may not fit in to a superficial press release, sure, but they’re far more important than that.

My advice, unasked as it is, is for Neuralink to get on with the non-gimmicky stuff, and Musk’s PR guys to start growing trees. They’ll need something to climb at this rate.

________________________________________________________

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.

Avatar photo
Written By

Editor-at-Large based in Sydney, Australia.

You may also like:

Life

Their stories are divided into before and after.

Social Media

Wanna buy some ignorance? You’re in luck.

Tech & Science

Under new legislation that passed the House of Representatives last week, TikTok could be banned in the United States.

Life

Platforms like Instagram and Pinterest often suggest travel destinations based on your likes and viewing habits.