Elon Musk can now put his brain implants in humans

Neuralink, which was founded by Elon Musk in 2016, announced Thursday it received FDA approval to start conducting human studies of its brain chips. Elon Musk owns Twitter.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Elon Musk's Neuralink said Thursday it got FDA approval to conduct a "first-in-human clinical study." So far the company has only tested the brain implants on animals, such as pigs and monkeys. Neuralink says the brain chips could allow people to complete tasks using only their minds. Elon Musk finally got approval from the Food and Drug Administration to start implanting his company's brain chips in humans, Neuralink announced Thursday.Neuralink, which was founded by Musk in 2016, said on Twitter it received FDA approval to launch its "first-in-human clinical study." The company added "recruitment is not yet open" to participate in the clinical trial, but that they'd be sharing more information on that soon.In March the FDA rejected Neuralink's request for approval to being human testing, citing several concerns that would first need to be addressed, Reuters reported at the time. Among the safety concerns were that the brain chip wires could move around or that the chip could overheat.So far Neuralink has only tested the brain chips on animals, including pigs and monkeys.Neuralink says its brain chips could allow people to complete tasks using only their minds and help treat certain medical conditions.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Twitter users collectively voiced distrust in Musk's ability to safely conduct Neuralink trials, slamming the man and his companies' track records. Elon Musk.LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images Elon Musk's Neuralink said it's been given the green light to test brain implants on humans. Recruitment's not open yet, but people on the internet say they want nothing to do with it. Much of the backlash is coming from an apparent distrust of Musk, and not the tech itself. Elon Musk's Neuralink says it's finally allowed to put brain implants in human beings, and the internet's not thrilled by the prospect.When Neuralink tweeted on Thursday that federal authorities have approved its first human clinical study, the comments were filled with praises and well-wishes from verified accounts — people who've paid for a Twitter subscription.But not everyone was enthusiastic about Neuralink's trial getting approved — in the kingdom of the checkmark-less, people are basically reacting with a collective "hell nah.""The first dudes in line are still going to be apes," one user tweeted."Just say NOPE!" wrote another.The backlash isn't too surprising, given how the announcement is about tech that literally puts a chip in your head, and Skynet still grips people on the internet with fear. Musk himself has hinted that he thinks nefarious AI might be a possibility.The negative comments were largely directed toward Musk, not Neuralink. Neuralink says it's working on developing implants to assist paralyzed people, a feat recently accomplished by Swiss researchers.Some people were not convinced that the technology would be used for positive ends in Musk's hands. "If this is what you really think he's going to use it for, you're delusional," wrote one Twitter user."No trust or belief in him or anything he as anything to do with," tweeted another.Lots of people are posting GIFs of exploding heads, likely referencing either past explosive hiccups from Musk's companies, like Teslas catching fire spontaneously, or reports that hundreds of animals tested by Neuralink have died.—Dame Jamz (@makeitepic) May 26, 2023To be fair, the billionaire's trade is in exceedingly ambitious ideas like living on Mars, self-driving cars, fixing the problem of traffic, and getting people on the internet to discuss things responsibly.But with those ambitions have come very visible failures, such as SpaceX's mega-rocket bursting into flames in April (said by Musk to be an expected outcome) and The Boring Company's hyped Washington D.C. and Los Angeles projects stalling out in 2021.—KiKiLove1111 (@KiKiLove1111_) May 26, 2023And on Wednesday, tech issues on Musk's Twitter Spaces led to a disastrous start for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' 2024 campaign announcement, as hundreds of thousands of listeners overloaded the site."Elon already showed this week that he's the guy with the technical attention to detail to trust with brain implants," one Twitter user wrote sarcastically.Meanwhile, some people are asking Musk to test the brain implants on himself.They shouldn't have to wait long. Musk said in December that he'd do so once human trials are ready to go.Whether the billionaire, CEO, and father of 10 actually puts the chip in his head remains to be seen.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Hacking Humanity: Transhumanism Authored by Michael Rectenwald via The Mises Institute, The notion that the world can be replicated and replaced by a simulated reality says a great deal about the beliefs of those who promote the metaverse [treated in the previous chapter]. The conception is materialist and mechanistic at base, the hallmarks of social engineering. It represents the world as consisting of nothing but manipulable matter, or rather, of digital media mimicking matter. It suggests that human beings can be reduced to a material substratum and can be induced to accept a technological reproduction in lieu of reality. Further, it assumes that those who inhabit this simulacrum can be controlled by technocratic means. Such a materialist, mechanistic, techno-determinist, and reductionist worldview is consistent with the transhumanist belief that humans themselves will soon be succeeded by a new transhuman species, or humanity-plus (h+)—perhaps a genetically and AI-enhanced cyborg that will outstrip ordinary humans and make the latter virtually obsolete. The term transhumanism was coined by Julian Huxley, the brother of the novelist Aldous Huxley and the first director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In an essay entitled “Transhumanism,” published in the book New Bottles for New Wine (1957), Huxley defined transhumanism as the self-transcendence of humanity: The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself—not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature. One question for transhumanism is indeed whether this transcendence will apply to the whole human species or rather for only a select part of it. But Huxley gave some indication of how this human self-transcendence might occur: humanity would become “managing director of the biggest business of all, the business of evolution . . .” As the first epigraph to this Part makes clear, Julian Huxley was a proponent of eugenics. And he was the President of the British Eugenics Society. It was in his introduction of UNESCO, as the director-general that he suggested that eugenics, after the Nazi regime had given it such a bad name, should be rescued from opprobrium, “so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable.” As John Klyczek has noted, “In the wake of vehement public backlash against the atrocities of the Nazi eugenic Holocaust, Huxley’s eugenics proper was forced to go under-ground, repackaging itself in various crypto-eugenic disguises, one of which is ‘transhumanism.’” Transhumanism, Klyczek suggests, is “the scientific postulate that human evolution through biological-genetic selection has been largely superseded by a symbiotic evolution that cybernetically merges the human species with its own technological handiwork.” Contemporary transhumanist enthusiasts, such as Simon Young, believe that humanity can take over where evolution has left us to create a new and improved species—either ourselves, or a successor to ourselves: We stand at a turning point in human evolution. We have cracked the genetic code; translated the Book of Life. We will soon possess the ability to become designers of our own evolution. In “A History of Transhumanist Thought,” Nick Bostrom details the lineage of transhumanist thought from its prehistory to the present and shows how transhumanism became wedded to the fields of genomics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR), where robotics is inclusive of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is the last of these fields that primarily concerns us here. The transhumanist project has since envisioned the transcendence of humanity via technological means. In the past thirty years, this technological transcendence has been figured as “the singularity.” Vernor Vinge, the mathematician, computer scientist, and science fiction author introduced the notion of the technological singularity in 1993. The singularity, Vinge suggested, is the near-future point at which machine intelligence will presumably supersede human intelligence. Vinge boldly declared: “Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.” Vinge predicted that the singularity would be reached no later than, you guessed it, 2030. The question Vinge addressed was whether, and if so, how, the human species might survive the coming singularity. The inventor, futurist, and now Google Engineering Director Raymond Kurzweil has since welcomed the technological singularity as a boon to humanity. Kurzweil, whose books include The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999), The Singularity Is Near (2005), and How to Create a Mind (2012), suggests that by 2029, technologists will have successfully reverse-engineered the brain and replicated human intelligence in (strong) AI while vastly increasing processing speeds of thought. Having mapped the neuronal components of a human brain, or discovered the algorithms for thought, or a combination thereof, technologists will convert the same to a computer program, personality and all, and upload it to a computer host, thus grasping the holy grail of immortality. Finally, as the intelligence explosion expands from the singularity, all matter will be permeated with data, with intelligence; the entire universe will “wake up” and become alive, and “about as close to God as I can imagine,” writes Kurzweil. Thus, in a complete reversal of the Biblical creation narrative, Kurzweil posits a dumb universe that begins with a cosmic singularity (the Big Bang) and becomes God by a technological singularity. This second singularity, Kurzweil suggests, involves the universe becoming self-aware, vis-à-vis the informational, technological agent, humanity. Thus, in the technological singularity, the technological and the cosmic converge, as Kurzweil resembles a techno-cosmic Hegelian. (Hegel figured collective human self-consciousness progressing in self-actualization and self-realization, finally becoming and recognizing itself as God, “through the State [as] the march of God in the world.”) Incidentally, according to Kurzweil, our post-human successors will bear the marks of their human provenance. Thus, the future intelligence will remain “human” in some sense. Human beings are the carriers of universal intelligence and human technology is the substratum by which intelligence will be infinitely expanded and universalized. More recently, Yuval Noah Harari—the Israeli historian, WEF-affiliated futurist, and advisor to Klaus Schwab—has also hailed this singularity, although with dire predictions for the vast majority. According to Harari, the 4-IR will have two main consequences: human bodies and minds will be replaced by robots and AI, while human brains become hackable with nanorobotic brain-cloud interfaces (B/CIs), AI, and biometric surveillance technologies. Just as humans are functionally replaced, that is, they will be subject to the total control of powerful corporations or the state (or, what’s more likely, a hybrid thereof, a neo-fascist state). Rather than a decentralized, open-access infosphere of exploding intelligence available to all, Singularitarian technologies will become part of the arsenal for domination. The supersession of human intelligence by machine intelligence will involve the use of such data and data processing capabilities to further predict and control social behavioral patterns of the global population. In addition, the biotechnical enhancement of the few will serve to exacerbate an already wide gulf between the elite and the majority, while the “superiority” of the enhanced functions ideologically to rationalize differences permitted by such a division. That is, Harari suggests that if developments proceed as Vinge and Kurzweil predict, this vastly accelerated information-collecting and processing sphere will not constitute real knowledge for the enlightenment of the vast majority. Rather, it will be instrumentalist and reductionist in the extreme, facilitating the domination of human beings on a global scale, while rendering opposition impossible. In an article in Frontiers in Neuroscience, Nuno R. B. Martins et al. explain just how such control could be implemented through B/CIs, which the authors claim will be feasible within the next 20 to 30 years: Neuralnanorobotics may also enable a B/CI with controlled connectivity between neural activity and external data storage and processing, via the direct monitoring of the brain’s ~86 x 109 neurons and ~2 x 1014 synapses. . . They would then wirelessly transmit up to ~6 x 1016 bits per second of synaptically processed and encoded human–brain electrical information via auxiliary nanorobotic fiber optics (30 cm3) with the capacity to handle up to 1018 bits/sec and provide rapid data transfer to a cloud-based supercomputer for real-time brain-state monitoring and data extraction. A neuralnanorobotically enabled human B/CI might serve as a personalized conduit, allowing persons to obtain direct, instantaneous access to virtually any facet of cumulative human knowledge (emphasis mine). Such interfaces have already reached the commercialization stage with Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Kernel, and through DARPA, among others. When neuralnanorobotic technologies that conduct information and algorithms that make decisions interface with the brain, the possibilities for eliminating particular kinds of experiences, behaviors, and thoughts becomes possible. Such control of the mind through implants was already prototyped by Jose Delgado as early as 1969. Now, two- way transmission of data between the brain and the cloud effectively means the possibility of reading the thoughts of subjects, interrupting such thoughts, and replacing them with other, machine-cloud-originating information. The desideratum to record, label, “informationalize,” rather than to understand, let alone critically engage or theorize experience will take exclusive priority for subjects, given the possibilities for controlling neuronal switching patterns. Given the instrumentalism of the Singularitarians— or, as Yuval Harari has called them, the “Dataists”— decisive, action-oriented algorithms will dominate these brain-cloud interfaces, precluding faculties for the critical evaluation of activity, and obliterating free will. Given enough data, algorithms will be better able to make decisions for us. Nevertheless, they will have been based on intelligence defined in a particular way and put to particular ends, placing considerable emphasis on the speed and volume of data processing and decision-making based on data construed as “knowledge.” Naturally, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World comes to mind. Yet, unlike Huxley’s mind-numbing soma, brain-cloud interfaces will have an ideological appeal to the masses; they are touted as enhancements, as vast improvements over standard human intelligence. Harari peels back the curtain masking transhumanism’s Wizard of Oz promises, suggesting that even before the singularity, robotics and machine intelligence will make the masses into a new “useless class.” Given the exorbitant cost of entry, only the elite will be able to afford actual enhancements, making them a new, superior species—notwithstanding the claim that Moore’s Law closes the technological breach by exponentially increasing the price-performance of computing and thus halving its cost per unit of measurement every two years or less. How the elite will maintain exclusive control over enhancements and yet subject the masses to control technologies is never addressed. But perhaps a kill switch could be implemented such that the elite will not be subjected to brain-data mining—unless one runs afoul of the agenda, in which case brain-data mining could be (re)enabled. In a 2018 WEF statement, Harari spoke as the self-proclaimed prophet of a new transhumanist age, saying: We are probably among the last generations of homo sapiens. Within a century or two, Earth will be dominated by entities that are more different from us, than we are different from Neanderthals or from chimpanzees. Because in the coming generations, we will learn how to engineer bodies and brains and minds. These will be the main products of the 21st century economy (emphasis mine). No longer capable of mounting a challenge to the elite as in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and having no function, the feckless masses will have no recourse or purpose. Exploitation is one thing; irrelevance is quite another, says Harari. And thus, as Harari sees it, the remaining majority will be condemned to spend their time in the metaverse, or worse. If they are lucky, they will collect universal basic income (UBI) and will best occupy themselves by taking drugs and playing video games. Of course, Harari exempts himself from this fate. As for the elite, according to Harari, their supposed superiority to the masses will soon become a matter of biotechnological fact, rather than merely an ideological pretension, as in the past. The elite will not only continue to control the lion’s share of the world’s material resources; they will also become godlike and enjoy effective remote control over their subordinates. Further, via biotechnological means, they will acquire eternal life on Earth, while the majority, formerly consoled by the fact that at least everybody dies, will now lose the great equalizer. As the supernatural is outmoded, or sacrificed on the altar of transhumanism, the majority will inevitably forfeit their belief in a spiritual afterlife. The theistic religions that originated in the Middle East will disappear, to be replaced by new cyber-based religions originating in Silicon Valley. Spirituality, that is, will be nothing but the expression of reverence for newly created silicon gods, whether they be game characters, game designers, or the elites themselves. Harari’s pronouncements may amount to intentional hyperbole to make a point, but his statements are remarkable for the cynicism and disdain for humanity they betray. They are revelatory of the unmitigated gall of believers in the transhuman future. Coupled with the neo-Malthusian impulses of the elite, centered around the UN and the WEF, a picture emerges of an elite whose objective is to reduce the population of “useless eaters,” while keeping the remainder in their thrall. [This piece is an excerpt from The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty.] Tyler Durden Sat, 04/15/2023 - 21:30.....»»

Elon Musk's company Neuralink wants to put a computer chip in everyone's brain. But the new tech comes with big risk. Research has found that brain chips can warp your sense of self.Arif Qazi / InsiderStudies show that Elon Musk's new tech can bend your mind in strange and troubling waysElon Musk wants to put a computer chip in your brain. Well, maybe not in your brain, but in the brain of some human somewhere. Musk's neurotech startup, Neuralink, has been working toward implanting its skull-embedded brain chip in a human since it was founded in 2016. After years of testing on animal subjects, Musk announced in December that the company planned to initiate human trials within six months (though this wasn't the first time he'd said these trials were on the horizon).Neuralink has spent over half a decade figuring out how to translate brain signals into digital outputs — imagine being able to move a cursor, send a text message, or type in a word processor with just a thought. While the initial focus is on medical use cases, such as helping paralyzed people communicate, Musk has aspired to take Neuralink's chips mainstream — to, as he's said, put a "Fitbit in your skull." Musk's company is far from the only group working on brain-computer interfaces, or systems to facilitate direct communication between human brains and external computers. Other researchers have been looking into using BCIs to restore lost senses and control prosthetic limbs, among other applications. While these technologies are still in their infancy, they've been around long enough for researchers to increasingly get a sense of how neural implants interact with our minds. As Anna Wexler, an assistant professor of philosophy in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, put it: "Of course it causes changes. The question is what kinds of changes does it cause, and how much do those changes matter?"Intervening in the delicate operation of a human brain is a sticky business, and the effects are not always desirable or intended. People using BCIs can feel a profound sense of dependency on the devices, or as though their sense of self has been altered. Before we reach the point where people are lining up to get a smartphone implanted in their brain, it's important to grapple with their dangers and unique ethical pitfalls.From science fiction to a billion-dollar industryIn the 1974 film "The Terminal Man," a man gets an invasive brain implant to help with his seizures. While the operation initially seems to be a success, things go awry when sustained exposure to the chip sends him on a psychotic rampage. As is typically the case in sci-fi movies, a scientist warns of the disaster early in the story by comparing the implants to the lobotomies of the 1940s and 1950s. "They created an unknown number of human vegetables," he says. "Those operations were carried out by physicians who were too eager to act."While humans have yet to produce flying cars, man missions to Mars, or engineer convincing replicants, BCIs may be the most significant technology to not only catch up to but in some cases surpass their early sci-fi depictions. More than 200,000 people around the world already use some kind of BCI, mostly for medical reasons. Perhaps the best-known use case is cochlear implants, which enable deaf people to, in a sense, hear. Another preeminient use case is in epileptic-seizure prevention: Existing devices can monitor brain-signal activity to predict seizures and warn the person so that they can avoid certain activities or take preventive medication. Some researchers have proposed systems that would not only detect but preempt seizures with electrical stimulation, almost exactly the mechanism depicted in "The Terminal Man." Implants for people with Parkinson's disease, depression, OCD, and epilepsy have been in human trials for years.Recent improvements in artificial intelligence and neural-probing materials have made the devices less invasive and more scalable, which has naturally attracted a wave of private and military funding. Paradromics, Blackrock Neurotech, and Synchron are just a few venture-backed competitors working on devices for paralyzed people. Last November, a startup called Science unveiled a concept for a bioelectric interface to help treat blindness. And last September, Magnus Medical got approval from the Food and Drug Administration for a targeted brain-stimulation therapy for major depressive disorder. Neuralink, meanwhile, has been dogged by a history of overhyped promises — failing to deliver on timelines, for example, and reportedly triggering a federal investigation into claims of animal-welfare violations. The market-intelligence firm Grand View Research valued the global brain-implants market at $4.9 billion in 2021, and other firms have projected that the figure could double by 2030. For now BCIs are constrained to the medical domain, but a vast array of nonmedical uses have been proposed for the technology. Research published in 2018 described participants using BCIs to interface with numerous apps on an Android tablet, including typing, messaging, and searching the web just by imagining relevant movements. More speculative applications include playing video games, manipulating virtual reality, or even receiving data inputs like text messages or videos directly, bypassing the need for a monitor. These may sound like science fiction, but the reality is that we've reached a point where the cultural and ethical barriers to this kind of tech have begun to outpace technical ones. And despite the fictional nature of "The Terminal Man," its disastrous turn raises real questions about unintentional effects of BCIs.A changed mindThere have been no confirmed cases of "Terminal Man"-style violent rampages caused by BCIs, but compelling evidence suggests the devices can cause cognitive changes beyond the scope of their intended applications.Some of these changes have been positive; after all, BCIs are intended to change certain things about their users. Wexler, the University of Pennsylvania philosophy professor, interviewed people with Parkinson's who were undergoing deep-brain stimulation, a surgical treatment that involves implanting thin metal wires that send electrical pulses to the brain to help abate motor symptoms, and found that many had lost their sense of self before undergoing treatment. "Many felt that the disease had robbed them, in some ways, of who they were," she told me. "It really impacts your identity, your sense of self, if you can't do the things that you think of yourself as being able to do." In these instances, BCIs helped the people feel like they were returning to themselves by helping treat the underlying disease.A woman undergoes deep brain stimulation surgery — a type of brain-computer interface that can help people with Parkinson's Disease.Bernadett Szabo / ReutersEran Klein and Sara Goering, researchers at the University of Washington, have similarly noticed positive changes in personality and self-perception among people using BCIs. In a 2016 paper on attitudes and ethical considerations surrounding DBS, they reported that study participants often felt that the treatment helped them recapture an "authentic" self that had been worn away by depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder. "I've begun to wonder what's me, and what's the depression, and what's the stimulator," one patient said. In a talk in late 2022 on similar research, the neuropsychologist Cynthia Kubu described a heightened sense of control and autonomy among patients she'd interviewed.But not all the changes that researchers have found are beneficial. In interviews with people who've had BCIs, Frederic Gilbert, a philosophy professor at the University of Tasmania specializing in applied neuroethics, has noticed some odd effects. "The notions of personality, identity, agency, authenticity, autonomy, and self — these are very compact, obscure, and opaque dimensions," Gilbert told me. "Nobody really agrees on what they mean, but we have cases where it's clear that BCIs have induced changes in personality or expression of sexuality."Across numerous interview studies, Gilbert has noticed patients report feelings of not recognizing themselves, or what is typically referred to as "estrangement" in the research. "They know that they are themselves, but it's not like it was prior to the implantation," he said. Some expressed feelings of having new capacities unrelated to their implants, such as a woman in her late 50s who hurt herself while attempting to lift a pool table she'd thought she could move on her own. While some estrangement could be beneficial — if it results in a healthy sense of self-esteem, for example — negative instances, known as deteriorative estrangement, can be quite vexing. "It has led to extreme cases where there has been attempted suicide," Gilbert said.For people using BCIs to help with a significant medical limitation, it makes sense that the treatment would have a positive psychological effect. But when it comes to considering brain chips for popular use, there's much more concern about downsides.A smartphone in your brainAs the technology improves, we get closer to Musk's "Fitbit in your skull" vision. But there's reason to be cautious. After all, if it's easy to get addicted to your phone, just think how much more addicting it could be if it were wired directly into your brain. Gilbert told me about one patient he had interviewed who developed a kind of decision paralysis, eventually feeling as if they couldn't go out or decide what to eat without first consulting the device that showed what was going on in their brain. "There is nothing wrong with having a device that is completing a decision," Gilbert said, "but at the end, the device was kind of supplanting the person in the decision, kicking them out of the loop."Sometimes a patient can come to rely so much on their device that they feel like they can't function without it. Gilbert has encountered many study participants who have fallen into depression upon losing support for their devices and having them removed, often simply because a given trial expired or ran out of funding. "You grow gradually into it and get used to it," an anonymous study participant who'd received a device to detect signs of epileptic activity said in an interview. "It became me."This kind of dependence is further complicated by the fact that BCIs are difficult to support financially and maintain, often requiring invasive brain surgery to remove and reimplant them. Since BCIs are largely still in the trial phase, there's a lack of universal standards or stable financial support, and many devices are at risk of abruptly losing funding. Early adopters could have their sense of self disrupted by supply-chain issues, hardware updates, or a company's bankruptcy.There are also privacy concerns that come with a computer getting access to your brain waves. "If you get a device to help you move your prosthetic arm, for instance, that device will pick up other sources of noise that you may not want to be out of your brain," Gilbert said. "There is a lot of background noise, and that background noise can be deciphered. That noise is necessarily converted, sitting somewhere on the cloud." Someone could learn a lot by studying your brain waves, and if a hacker managed to access your data, they could read your mind, in a sense, by looking for specific expressions of brain-signal activity.Since BCIs are still mainly constrained to the medical field, most early adopters are happy to make these kinds of trade-offs. "If someone has a disability that makes it so that they can't communicate," Wexler said, they're "generally pretty happy if there's a technology that then allows them to do so." But, putting aside the idea that nonmedical BCIs would likely introduce a host of new problems, it's less clear that the trade-offs would be worth it just to have a Fitbit in your head.While we're still a long way away from the cyborgian future of electronically interconnected minds prophesied by people like Elon Musk, the industry's accelerating growth compounds the urgency of ethical considerations once constrained to science fiction. If a brain chip can change key parts of your personality, companies should not be rushing to put them in people's heads. Wexler told me that while most people in the industry aren't that open to using BCIs as a consumer product, they still think it's likely to happen. If it does, she said, "the whole risk-benefit trade-off changes."Evan Malmgren is a writer who covers power and infrastructure and is currently working on a book about American off-gridders.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Elon Musk's company Neuralink wants to put a computer chip in everyone's brain. But the new tech can bend your mind in strange and troubling ways. Research has found that brain chips can warp your sense of self.Arif Qazi / InsiderStudies show that Elon Musk's new tech can bend your mind in strange and troubling waysElon Musk wants to put a computer chip in your brain. Well, maybe not in your brain, but in the brain of some human somewhere. Musk's neurotech startup, Neuralink, has been working toward implanting its skull-embedded brain chip in a human since it was founded in 2016. After years of testing on animal subjects, Musk announced in December that the company planned to initiate human trials within six months (though this wasn't the first time he'd said these trials were on the horizon).Neuralink has spent over half a decade figuring out how to translate brain signals into digital outputs — imagine being able to move a cursor, send a text message, or type in a word processor with just a thought. While the initial focus is on medical use cases, such as helping paralyzed people communicate, Musk has aspired to take Neuralink's chips mainstream — to, as he's said, put a "Fitbit in your skull." Musk's company is far from the only group working on brain-computer interfaces, or systems to facilitate direct communication between human brains and external computers. Other researchers have been looking into using BCIs to restore lost senses and control prosthetic limbs, among other applications. While these technologies are still in their infancy, they've been around long enough for researchers to increasingly get a sense of how neural implants interact with our minds. As Anna Wexler, an assistant professor of philosophy in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, put it: "Of course it causes changes. The question is what kinds of changes does it cause, and how much do those changes matter?"Intervening in the delicate operation of a human brain is a sticky business, and the effects are not always desirable or intended. People using BCIs can feel a profound sense of dependency on the devices, or as though their sense of self has been altered. Before we reach the point where people are lining up to get a smartphone implanted in their brain, it's important to grapple with their dangers and unique ethical pitfalls.From science fiction to a billion-dollar industryIn the 1974 film "The Terminal Man," a man gets an invasive brain implant to help with his seizures. While the operation initially seems to be a success, things go awry when sustained exposure to the chip sends him on a psychotic rampage. As is typically the case in sci-fi movies, a scientist warns of the disaster early in the story by comparing the implants to the lobotomies of the 1940s and 1950s. "They created an unknown number of human vegetables," he says. "Those operations were carried out by physicians who were too eager to act."While humans have yet to produce flying cars, man missions to Mars, or engineer convincing replicants, BCIs may be the most significant technology to not only catch up to but in some cases surpass their early sci-fi depictions. More than 200,000 people around the world already use some kind of BCI, mostly for medical reasons. Perhaps the best-known use case is cochlear implants, which enable deaf people to, in a sense, hear. Another preeminient use case is in epileptic-seizure prevention: Existing devices can monitor brain-signal activity to predict seizures and warn the person so that they can avoid certain activities or take preventive medication. Some researchers have proposed systems that would not only detect but preempt seizures with electrical stimulation, almost exactly the mechanism depicted in "The Terminal Man." Implants for people with Parkinson's disease, depression, OCD, and epilepsy have been in human trials for years.Recent improvements in artificial intelligence and neural-probing materials have made the devices less invasive and more scalable, which has naturally attracted a wave of private and military funding. Paradromics, Blackrock Neurotech, and Synchron are just a few venture-backed competitors working on devices for paralyzed people. Last November, a startup called Science unveiled a concept for a bioelectric interface to help treat blindness. And last September, Magnus Medical got approval from the Food and Drug Administration for a targeted brain-stimulation therapy for major depressive disorder. Neuralink, meanwhile, has been dogged by a history of overhyped promises — failing to deliver on timelines, for example, and reportedly triggering a federal investigation into claims of animal-welfare violations. The market-intelligence firm Grand View Research valued the global brain-implants market at $4.9 billion in 2021, and other firms have projected that the figure could double by 2030. For now BCIs are constrained to the medical domain, but a vast array of nonmedical uses have been proposed for the technology. Research published in 2018 described participants using BCIs to interface with numerous apps on an Android tablet, including typing, messaging, and searching the web just by imagining relevant movements. More speculative applications include playing video games, manipulating virtual reality, or even receiving data inputs like text messages or videos directly, bypassing the need for a monitor. These may sound like science fiction, but the reality is that we've reached a point where the cultural and ethical barriers to this kind of tech have begun to outpace technical ones. And despite the fictional nature of "The Terminal Man," its disastrous turn raises real questions about unintentional effects of BCIs.A changed mindThere have been no confirmed cases of "Terminal Man"-style violent rampages caused by BCIs, but compelling evidence suggests the devices can cause cognitive changes beyond the scope of their intended applications.Some of these changes have been positive; after all, BCIs are intended to change certain things about their users. Wexler, the University of Pennsylvania philosophy professor, interviewed people with Parkinson's who were undergoing deep-brain stimulation, a surgical treatment that involves implanting thin metal wires that send electrical pulses to the brain to help abate motor symptoms, and found that many had lost their sense of self before undergoing treatment. "Many felt that the disease had robbed them, in some ways, of who they were," she told me. "It really impacts your identity, your sense of self, if you can't do the things that you think of yourself as being able to do." In these instances, BCIs helped the people feel like they were returning to themselves by helping treat the underlying disease.A woman undergoes deep brain stimulation surgery — a type of brain-computer interface that can help people with Parkinson's Disease.Bernadett Szabo / ReutersEran Klein and Sara Goering, researchers at the University of Washington, have similarly noticed positive changes in personality and self-perception among people using BCIs. In a 2016 paper on attitudes and ethical considerations surrounding DBS, they reported that study participants often felt that the treatment helped them recapture an "authentic" self that had been worn away by depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder. "I've begun to wonder what's me, and what's the depression, and what's the stimulator," one patient said. In a talk in late 2022 on similar research, the neuropsychologist Cynthia Kubu described a heightened sense of control and autonomy among patients she'd interviewed.But not all the changes that researchers have found are beneficial. In interviews with people who've had BCIs, Frederic Gilbert, a philosophy professor at the University of Tasmania specializing in applied neuroethics, has noticed some odd effects. "The notions of personality, identity, agency, authenticity, autonomy, and self — these are very compact, obscure, and opaque dimensions," Gilbert told me. "Nobody really agrees on what they mean, but we have cases where it's clear that BCIs have induced changes in personality or expression of sexuality."Across numerous interview studies, Gilbert has noticed patients report feelings of not recognizing themselves, or what is typically referred to as "estrangement" in the research. "They know that they are themselves, but it's not like it was prior to the implantation," he said. Some expressed feelings of having new capacities unrelated to their implants, such as a woman in her late 50s who hurt herself while attempting to lift a pool table she'd thought she could move on her own. While some estrangement could be beneficial — if it results in a healthy sense of self-esteem, for example — negative instances, known as deteriorative estrangement, can be quite vexing. "It has led to extreme cases where there has been attempted suicide," Gilbert said.For people using BCIs to help with a significant medical limitation, it makes sense that the treatment would have a positive psychological effect. But when it comes to considering brain chips for popular use, there's much more concern about downsides.A smartphone in your brainAs the technology improves, we get closer to Musk's "Fitbit in your skull" vision. But there's reason to be cautious. After all, if it's easy to get addicted to your phone, just think how much more addicting it could be if it were wired directly into your brain. Gilbert told me about one patient he had interviewed who developed a kind of decision paralysis, eventually feeling as if they couldn't go out or decide what to eat without first consulting the device that showed what was going on in their brain. "There is nothing wrong with having a device that is completing a decision," Gilbert said, "but at the end, the device was kind of supplanting the person in the decision, kicking them out of the loop."Sometimes a patient can come to rely so much on their device that they feel like they can't function without it. Gilbert has encountered many study participants who have fallen into depression upon losing support for their devices and having them removed, often simply because a given trial expired or ran out of funding. "You grow gradually into it and get used to it," an anonymous study participant who'd received a device to detect signs of epileptic activity said in an interview. "It became me."This kind of dependence is further complicated by the fact that BCIs are difficult to support financially and maintain, often requiring invasive brain surgery to remove and reimplant them. Since BCIs are largely still in the trial phase, there's a lack of universal standards or stable financial support, and many devices are at risk of abruptly losing funding. Early adopters could have their sense of self disrupted by supply-chain issues, hardware updates, or a company's bankruptcy.There are also privacy concerns that come with a computer getting access to your brain waves. "If you get a device to help you move your prosthetic arm, for instance, that device will pick up other sources of noise that you may not want to be out of your brain," Gilbert said. "There is a lot of background noise, and that background noise can be deciphered. That noise is necessarily converted, sitting somewhere on the cloud." Someone could learn a lot by studying your brain waves, and if a hacker managed to access your data, they could read your mind, in a sense, by looking for specific expressions of brain-signal activity.Since BCIs are still mainly constrained to the medical field, most early adopters are happy to make these kinds of trade-offs. "If someone has a disability that makes it so that they can't communicate," Wexler said, they're "generally pretty happy if there's a technology that then allows them to do so." But, putting aside the idea that nonmedical BCIs would likely introduce a host of new problems, it's less clear that the trade-offs would be worth it just to have a Fitbit in your head.While we're still a long way away from the cyborgian future of electronically interconnected minds prophesied by people like Elon Musk, the industry's accelerating growth compounds the urgency of ethical considerations once constrained to science fiction. If a brain chip can change key parts of your personality, companies should not be rushing to put them in people's heads. Wexler told me that while most people in the industry aren't that open to using BCIs as a consumer product, they still think it's likely to happen. If it does, she said, "the whole risk-benefit trade-off changes."Evan Malmgren is a writer who covers power and infrastructure and is currently working on a book about American off-gridders.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

An animal rights group had reached out to the agency alleging Neuralink had not properly transported brain chips from monkey test subjects. Elon Musk's brain-chip startup, Neuralink, is being investigated by the US Department of Transportation.Philip Pacheco / AFP via Getty Images The US Department of Transportation is investigating whether Neuralink transported hazardous pathogens. Activists alleged Neuralink had not properly transported brain chips from monkey test subjects. The animal rights group has criticized Neuralink in the past over its use of monkeys. The US Department of Transportation (DOT) is investigating Elon Musk's brain-chip startup, Neuralink, over concerns the company may have transported hazardous pathogens.A DOT spokesperson confirmed to Insider that the agency was looking into the issue on Thursday after an animal right group had sent a letter to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. Reuters was the first to report the probe. "We have received the request from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and we take these allegations very seriously," the spokesperson said. "We are conducting an investigation to ensure that Neuralink is in full compliance with federal regulations and keeping their workers and the public safe from potentially dangerous pathogens."The group, the Physicians Committe of Responsible Medicine (PCRM) said in a press release on Thursday that it had emails and other records that pointed to the possibility that the company had not properly packaged the brain implants from its test monkeys ahead of transportation in compliance with Federal Hazmat Law. PCRM said the documents showed that pathogens, like antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus and Klebsiella, as well as Herpes B virus, had potentially been transported in 2019 without meeting DOT guidelines, including proper sanitization and packaging.PCRM cited an alleged email from 2019 in which a UC Davis employee said they were "concerned for human safety" at the site due to the risk of contaminated material. The group said contaminated hardware could cause issues in humans, including blood infections, pneumonia, and meningitis. A spokesperson for Neuralink did not respond to a request for comment from Insider ahead of publication.The documents are from when Neuralink was working with University of California, Davis. The partnership ended in 2020, but PCRM told Reuters that Musk's company still employs many of the same staff, including the neurosurgeon in charge of the experiments on the animal test subjects.A spokesperson for UC Davis told Insider that the institution complies with lab safety and biohazard regulations.The animal rights group has taken issue with Neuralink in the past. Last year, Insider reported that the group had sued UC Davis and filed a complaint with the US Department of Agriculture over Neuralink's treatment of its monkeys. PCRM said at the time that it had obtained records showing the monkeys experienced "extreme suffering as a result of inadequate animal care and the highly invasive experimental head implants during the experiments."Neuralink previously denied some of the injuries cited by the group and said the company is "absolutely committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible."Musk cofounded Neuralink in 2016 as a brain-computer interface company. The billionaire has said in the past that Neuralink's chips — which are coin-sized devices designed to be implanted in the brain via a surgical robot — could one day do anything from cure paralysis to give people telepathic powers, referring to the device as "a Fitbit in your skull."The device has yet to receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Musk’s Neuralink Promising For Disabled, 'Ethical Concern' For Masses, Experts Say Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Neuralink implant that aims to allow a person to control a computer with thoughts has good potential to achieve its initial goal of helping paralyzed people communicate. It may, at least to some extent, help restore vision for the blind. It may, to a significant degree, restore limb control for those with spine injuries, according to several neuroscientists. Illustration by The Epoch Times. (Aleksandra Sova/Shutterstock, Carina Johansen/NTB/AFP via Getty Images) But when it comes to Neuralink’s broader goals of letting healthy people interface with computers directly via the mind, the technical capability is achievable, but would lead to expansive ethical, safety, security, privacy, and even philosophical issues, experts told The Epoch Times. Neuralink—founded in 2016 by the world’s richest man, prolific entrepreneur Elon Musk—recently applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for human trials of its brain implants. The company staged a three-hour presentation of its progress, including demonstrations of a monkey controlling a computer with its mind, a robot that can handle some of the most delicate parts of the required brain implant insertion surgery, as well as a pig whose legs can be controlled remotely by a computer. The presentation also included a monkey with a brain implant that made it see flashes of light, a step toward the company’s proposition to restore vision for the blind. “The overarching goal of Neuralink is to create, ultimately, a whole brain interface. So a generalized input-output device that in the long term literally could interface with every aspect of your brain and in the short term can interface with any given section of your brain and solve a tremendous number of things that cause debilitating issues for people,” Musk said during the presentation. Elon Musk speaks at the 2020 Satellite Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C., on March 9, 2020. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) The Neuralink technology “makes a lot of sense” for helping people with disabilities, said Nicho Hatsopoulos, a neurology professor at the University of Chicago and one of the pioneers of brain-computer interface development. “It is impressive, actually,” he said after seeing the Neuralink presentation. Mark Churchland, associate professor of neuroscience at Columbia University and an expert on brain signal decoding, commended Neuralink for bringing the brain-computer interface technology a long way from experiment to product. “They seem to have a solid wireless interface, which is not an easy thing to build. And going from needing racks of equipment and computers to needing an iPhone is impressive,” he said. “In terms of the actual experiments, it’s not doing anything that hasn’t been done before, but if you’re doing it better and more easily, that counts for a lot.” When it comes to the company’s plans to one day mass-produce the implants for use by anybody and everybody, both Hatsopoulos and Churchland were much more reserved. “We’re going to have to have some serious ethical conversations,” Hatsopoulos said, noting that “it’s one thing to help restore function in people who have a disability,” but “another thing to augment people.” “Augmentation is going to be a big ethical concern,” he said. Churchland was more blunt. “I think that is likely a really bad idea,” he said. Other experts raised concerns as well, ranging from philosophical questions over free will to security and privacy issues with regard to data collected from the brain as well as the potential to hack the implant. Level 1: Mind Mouse Neuralink’s initial goal is to enable physically incapacitated people to control a computer. At the current stage of development, the implant is roughly the size of a small stack of quarters. To install it, first, a piece of skin would be cut and peeled off the skull of the patient. Then, a small hole would be drilled in the skull. Next, a series of extremely thin, flexible wires would be connected to a thin needle one by one and stuck by a robotic machine inside the surface layer of the brain in the motor cortex area. The implant would be placed inside the hole in the skull, sealing it. The skin would be sewn over it and, as it heals, the implant would become invisible from the outside. The person would be asked to think, for instance, about moving their hand in a certain direction. Corresponding brain activity signals from the implant would be collected over a period of time, translated to computer data and commands via artificial intelligence and voila—the implant would then allow the person to control a computer with their mind. The Neuralink presentation proved the concept by showing a video of a monkey with the implant. The primate moved a mouse cursor to highlighted positions on a computer screen, getting bits of banana smoothie through a tube as a reward. Neuralink company logo on a phone and its website on a computer. (Shutterstock) The underlying technology is real and a similar experiment has been repeated many times by researchers using various methods, according to Shinsuke Shimojo, a professor of experimental psychology at the California Institute of Technology. In fact, a similar effect can be achieved even without sticking wires inside the brain as some brain activity can be detected on the surface of the head, he said, noting he’s currently working on one such technology. “It can be recordable reasonably well from the electrodes outside of the skull,” Shimojo said. “Those are done already and it’s going to be even better.” The more invasive path Neuralink has taken is more ambitious and more delicate. Regulatory authorities don’t allow invasive experimental techniques unless there’s an urgent medical need, Shimojo noted. “It’s not a science problem. It’s an ethical problem,” he said. Such experiments have so far been approved on a small scale for research purposes. In the early 2000s, implants developed by Cyberkinetics, a company co-founded by Hatsopoulos, were tested on several physically disabled patients. The project fizzled out because its investors lost interest, he said. The underlying software was acquired by a company called BrainGate in 2008 and clinical trials with small groups of patients have been ongoing at several research institutions, including one called BrainGate2 under the leadership of Leigh Hochberg, an engineering professor at Brown University. Science has only recently reached a point where multiple companies have decided to try to move it from research to a marketable product, Hochberg said. He’s currently helping several such companies, including Neuralink, which is now in talks with the FDA to run clinical trials that could lead to official approval of its implant as a form of treatment. “Clinical trials of this type would generally take a few years,” Hochberg said. Each new iteration of the implants would then require further trials, though he hopes software improvements of the system could be incorporated “with perhaps more speed.” The technology has been aided by advances in machine learning, which allows matching brain signal patterns with specific actions, such as moving a mouse cursor in a particular direction. Machine learning allows the correlation of brain patterns with physical outcomes without the need to understand the function of each specific neuron. “That’s the difference between the scientific approach and the engineering approach,” Shimojo commented. Scientists try to find out how things work, such as by exploring “how each neuron is wired” or “what’s the hierarchy of information processing in different parts of the brain,” he said. As a result, they try to drill down to causal relationships. Engineers, on the other hand, try to solve a problem. If an artificial intelligence finds a pattern that matches the desired result 95 percent of the time, that may be good enough, he noted. “I think right now, it’s moving, especially because of this deep learning progress, in that direction.” Level 2: Artificial Eye The next step for the Neuralink technology would be to restore sight, the presenters said. The same implant would be inserted at the back of the skull and connected to the visual cortex, the part of the brain responsible for processing images from the eyes. A video stream from a camera would then be encoded as neural signals and used to stimulate neurons responsible for image processing, thus rendering a picture. This seems to be possible in principle, but there may be difficulties in practice. “There are some constraints that can be removed eventually by just technical advance. And then there are some intrinsic limitations related to how the visual cortex itself is organized,” Shimojo said. Some neurons in the visual cortex indeed correspond to a location in the visual field. That means correct stimulation of one location in the brain produces a flash of light at a particular location in one’s vision and stimulation of another location produces a flash of light at a different place. Experiments of this kind have been done in apes and Neuralink demonstrated one. But “so far, the resolution is very, very low—ridiculously low,” Shimojo said. The flashes of light such stimulation produces can only be positioned on a grid of perhaps 12 by 12 pixels, he said. The picture quality can be improved by stimulating more neurons, i.e. inserting more electrodes into the brain. The Neuralink implant currently uses over 1,000 electrodes with a promise of 16,000 electrodes on the same chip. For the visual aid, the presentation proposed two implants with 16,000 electrodes each. If each electrode could be used to stimulate multiple “pixels,” perhaps a picture quality on par with a 1980s computer can be achieved. But even if the number of electrodes is further boosted in the future, the resulting image quality would still be limited, according to Shimojo. The problem is that if one creates a topographic map of the visual field, assigning each neuron to its position in the field, the result is nowhere precise enough to make up a clear image. “The topographic map is kind of crude and diffuse. It’s not pinpoint,” he said. People see with clarity thanks to complex, multi-layer image processing by the brain where the signal can travel back and forth between the layers and where neurons help adjacent neurons with the tasks. It’s not clear how the implant could achieve a comparable result, according to Shimojo. “It’s not easily solved by the technical side,” he said. Musk went as far as to suggest vision can be restored for people who are congenitally blind because even such people possess a visual cortex. “Even if they’ve never seen before, we’re confident that they could see,” he said. Hatsopoulos wasn’t so convinced. “I’m not clear that that’s possible,” he said. The issue is that the visual cortex “develops over the first several years of life” and the visual input from the eyes “helps organize how the visual cortex will function,” Hatsopoulos explained. Around the age of two, the brain loses the initial ability to develop so rapidly. That early development is “crucial,” he said, giving the example of children born with cataracts. The condition can be remedied by surgically replacing eye lenses, but it needs to be done early on. If the operation is performed too late, the patient won’t be able to see, even though all the physical parts are present and functioning. “Everything is perfectly fine, but the person will not understand the visual input coming in,” Hatsopoulos said. Level 3: Stretching the Limbs The Neuralink presentation outlined how the implants could restore limb control for people paralyzed after spine injuries. Aside from the implant in the motor cortex, another several implants would be inserted into the spine. Signals from the brain would then be recorded and sent to the spinal implants, bridging the part where the spinal cord is severed or damaged. In principle, this is fully achievable, according to the experts. “In fact, we’re doing that right now,” Hatsopoulos said. His university is working with a different implant technology that allows a patient to control a mechanical arm via the mind. One challenge is to record from many neurons at the same time “to give you the rich kind of movement that you would want to get” in order to produce “movement that’s somewhat normal,” he said. Reading from maybe a thousand neurons should suffice to restore “functional movement,” such as allowing a person to feed or dress themselves, Hatsopoulos said. “Maybe not as quickly as they would if they had an intact system, but they can do it,” he said. Based on its technical specifications, the Neuralink implant should enable a wide range of movement. Its presentation included a video of a pig with brain and spinal implants that bent its leg and stretched its thighs in response to commands sent to the implants. Facilitating complex movement, such as playing a piano, would probably require thousands of electrodes, Hatsopoulos said, noting “we’re taking baby steps right now.” Another challenge is fine-tuning the stimulation so it targets muscle threads that don’t tire quickly. “You’ve got to do more than just activate muscles,” Churchland said. “You’ve got to activate them in a relatively natural way to avoid fatigue. And that’s definitely doable, but it’s certainly not trivial.” It’s helpful in this endeavor that patients usually actively cooperate to make the solution work. Even though the number of electrodes may create a bottleneck, with effort, patients could rewire their brains to take maximum advantage of the interface. “With practice, they can get better at it,” Hatsopoulos said. The ability to move, however, is not enough. To truly restore function to a limb requires fixing the sense of touch too. That means recording sensory impulses from the limb and sending them to another implant in the brain’s sensory cortex. In principle, that has already been done as well. Stimulating some brain cells, for example, can create an impression that one is touching something, Hatsopoulos said, referring to experiments done at his university. The issue, again, is reading from and stimulating enough neurons to create a sufficiently robust touch experience. The technology still has a long way to go in this regard, Hochberg acknowledged. “It’s early, but exciting days,” he said. For truly natural movement, however, one would need to go further yet. A healthy person not only senses limb movement from what he touches externally, but also gets a sense of movement and limb position from inside the body. The phenomenon is called proprioception. Scientists know that certain brain areas receive those kinds of sensory inputs, but it’s not quite known how it works. “That’s the next frontier in this field,” Hatsopoulos said. “No one has cracked that yet.” Level 4: Cyborgs Musk envisions Neuralink going far beyond helping the disabled. He portrayed it more as a natural next step from a smartphone or smartwatch. Just like “replacing a piece of skull with a smartwatch for lack of a better analogy,” as he put it. “I could have a Neuralink device implanted right now and you wouldn’t even know. I mean, hypothetically, I may be one of these demos. In fact, one of these demos I will,” he said to laughs and cheers from the audience. He argued that “we are all already cyborgs in a way that your phone and your computer are extensions of yourself.” “I’m sure you found if you leave your phone behind you end up tapping your pockets and it’s like having missing limb syndrome,” he said. Neuralink for healthy people, however, may be far in the future, if it ever comes. “The FDA is not going to approve this for use in healthy individuals. At least in this version of the implant,” Hatsopoulos said, noting that “you would have to show an incredible level of safety.” Shimojo expressed a similar sentiment. “If the safety is proven, then there’s a possibility, in the long, long future, that maybe intact, healthy people have electrodes inside of the brain. But I don’t think that’s going to happen soon,” he said. The technology would likely have to get to a point of giving disabled people greater capabilities than healthy people have. Musk believes the implant would indeed bestow superior capabilities. “We’re confident that someone who has basically no other interface to the outside world would be able to control their phone better than someone who has working hands,” he said. But even if the implant is technically safe in the sense that it wouldn’t accidentally harm the user and even if it eventually passes regulatory muster, the technology faces other problems that may prove intractable. Data Security The Neuralink implant currently communicates with a computer using Bluetooth. That can be hacked by a number of easily available tools, according to Gary Miliefsky, a cybersecurity expert, head of Cyber Defense Media Group, and a founding member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “If you’re in the proximity of the person you will probably be able to steal some data. So that’s not secure,” he said. As a first step, the communication between the implant and a computer would need to be encrypted, but that would drain the battery and processing power on the implant. Even then, “people will find ways to hack” the implants, Miliefsky said. There are already devices that can “unwind” SSL and TLS encryption protocols commonly used to secure emails, he said. And new technologies can go even further. “Quantum computing can probably break today’s encryption pretty easily,” he said. There’s “quantum-proof” encryption on the horizon, but the processing power it requires is far beyond anything a small implant could handle now or even in the upcoming decades, he estimated. “Nothing is bulletproof. Nothing is foolproof. When they tell you it’s unhackable, it’s usually hacked in five minutes, whatever it is,” he said. Even if the implant-computer communication is somehow secured, the brain activity data could still be exfiltrated from the computer, such as by infecting the computer with malware. “Seventy percent of new malware gets past all the virus scanners,” Miliefsky noted. And even if the data is somehow secured on the computer, it would still need to be accessed by technicians servicing the implant. Anybody with insider access to the Neuralink system would immediately become a prime target for every intelligence agency and every malicious actor in the world, Miliefsky acknowledged. “They’ll be unsuspecting victims. Absolutely,” he said. And that doesn’t even include the issue of covert operatives of all sorts lining up for jobs at Neuralink. “Insider threat defense is a big issue,” Miliefsky said. Yet another area of concern is that, once the data exists, there’s a chance the government could use the legal process to force Neuralink to preserve the data and share it for purposes of criminal investigations, counterintelligence, national security, and intelligence collection. Brain Hack The implications of a hacked implant appear difficult to fully grasp. People seem to be willing to accept some level of privacy intrusion. Smartphones, for example, can easily be used to listen in on a person and track one’s movement. “We’re walking around with spyware every day,” Miliefsky said. A brain implant, however, can produce personal data on another level of intimacy. From the motor cortex, an implant could record a wide range of body movements, according to Hochberg. “It continues to, I think, both amaze and pleasantly surprise a lot of people in the field just how rich the information is that can be extracted from small areas of the motor cortex,” he said. From the visual cortex, everything a person sees could theoretically be recorded, albeit likely in low resolution. Moreover, the implant would be under the skin, meaning it can’t be removed by the user and it can’t be turned off as it needs to maintain the capability of being turned on and off remotely. Worse yet, the implant can send signals into the brain too. Issuing commands to the motor cortex could make one move involuntarily. Theoretically, it’s possible to make a remote-controlled human, Hatsopoulos confirmed. Sending visual signals could make one see things that aren’t there, distract a person, or perhaps obstruct vision with flashes of light, the Neuralink experiments indicate. Churchland, however, dismissed such concerns as too far removed from the technology’s current reality. “It’s not physically impossible, but it’s extremely improbable,” he said. “Concerns about external manipulation, I think, are fanciful for the foreseeable future.” Level 5: Far From ‘The Matrix’ Musk expects to go even further. As the electrode insertion technology improves, the implant will be able to reach deep areas of the brain as well, according to the presentation. Those parts of the brain are responsible for thought activity such as memory processing, emotion, motivation, and abstract thinking. Yet the know-how for decoding signals from these parts of the brain is so far limited, according to Shimojo. Machine learning can recognize patterns with a high degree of probability, but some level of ambiguity may be “intrinsic,” he said. “The brain is complicated and one neuron is not participating in one task. The same neuron can be participating in different networks for entirely different purposes. It’s really highly context-dependent and environment-dependent.” Whether it’s possible to fully decode such thought processes remains an open question. “Even among neuroscientists, there are different opinions,” he said, noting that such difficulties may need “some clever creativity to deal with.” “So is this eventually overcome? It may be, but it’s very long-run. It’s not as easy as those demonstrations may indicate.” Hypothetically, the ability to truly read and write in deeper areas of the brain would raise profound ethical and philosophical questions. Accessing memory processing centers, for example, would open another floodgate of privacy and security issues, according to Miliefsky, from password theft to national, corporate, and personal secret exfiltration. “There is not a single computer on the internet that I would say is safe and secure from a loss of privacy or having enough security that you could say, ‘Jimmy, who’s got the implant, all of his private thoughts are still secure.’ And it’s not going to happen,” he said. Furthermore, linking brain parts responsible for decision-making with an AI would put in question the integrity of free will, Shimojo argued. “If you and AI together make a decision about an action, is that your free will or is it hybrid free will?” he asked. “Is it ok for people? Is it ok for society? What‘s going to happen to elections, for instance?” As Musk explained during multiple talks, interfacing with an AI is actually the primary goal of why he pursued the implant technology to begin with. His original motivation for starting Neuralink, he said, was to address the rapid development of artificial intelligence. During the presentation and in previous talks, he opined that as AI develops, it’s likely to far surpass human intelligence. At that point, even if it turns out to be benevolent, it may treat humans as a lower life form. “We’ll be like the house cat,” he said at the Recode’s Code Conference in 2016. The solution would be to prevent AI power from getting centralized in a few hands, he argued. Read more here... Tyler Durden Thu, 12/22/2022 - 20:20.....»»

"Elon, Gates, and Bezos are always intrigued by things that could change the game," one biotech investor told Insider. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates are pouring money into brain-computer-interface startups.David Ryder/Getty Images, Patrick Pleul/Getty Images, Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Tech moguls like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates are investing in brain-implant startups. They're "always intrigued by things that could change the game," an investor said. Brain scientists say brain-computer-interface research has made exciting progress in recent years. The idea of connecting computers directly to our brains is moving from fantasy to reality, and some of the richest and most powerful men are pouring money into the space, chasing a vision that the technology could one day upend healthcare — and everyday life as we know it.Through their venture-capital funds, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates both recently backed the Brooklyn, New York, startup Synchron, which has tested its brain stent in seven humans.Elon Musk has become the public face of the brain-computer-interface (BCI) industry with his headline-grabbing claims about the potential of his startup Neuralink, even as experts stress that his company's neural techniques are ordinary, at best.Peter Thiel, a billionaire cofounder of PayPal, invested last year in Utah's Blackrock Neurotech, an older BCI startup that has said it hopes to apply for Food and Drug Administration approval soon.BCIs have been around for roughly 50 years, but until recently, the technology was largely relegated to lab studies and one-off experiments. (More than a decade ago, people wearing BCI caps were already playing pinball using only their minds.) Over the past several years, BCIs have moved from the clinic into people's heads, homes, and lives, becoming true assistive devices.Synchron has developed what is perhaps one of the sleekest, most minimally invasive BCIs: It's a tiny stent fitted with mind-reading electrodes that is ferried up through a key blood vessel to sit next to and communicate with the area of the brain that we use to produce voluntary movements. Synchron's chief commercial officer told Insider that its device could commercially launch in a few years, if clinical research went well."Every single day, there's some fabulous, new, really powerful insight," Christopher Moore, a neuroscientist and associate director of Brown University's Carney Institute for Brain Science, said. "It's just a treat to be a part of this field right now."While today's research is focused chiefly on using these brain implants in the heads of patients with serious medical conditions like total paralysis, or imagining ways to treat diseases like Parkinson's, the possibilities for linking brains with computers extend far beyond healthcare. That long-term potential has caught the attention of tech billionaires like Musk, Gates, and Bezos."Elon, Gates, and Bezos are always intrigued by things that could change the game," Robert Nelsen, a biotech investor at Arch Venture Partners who's invested in Neuralink and Synchron, said in an interview.Brain implants are moving from fantasy to realityPhilip O'Keefe uses his Synchron Stentrode to operate a computer with his mind.Paul Burston, The University of MelbourneA brain-computer interface cuts out the intermediary between your computer and your mind.By recognizing predictable brain signals, BCIs essentially read your thoughts to achieve concrete actions, like clicking a mouse. That's how Philip O'Keefe, an Australian who was implanted with Synchron's device in 2020, uses his BCI to play games online, exchange WhatsApp messages, and turn the lights on and off at home.O'Keefe has ALS, a degenerative condition that makes it hard for him to use his fingers and hands, but he now has no problem using his mind to get around online."Whatever you can do on a computer, I can do," O'Keefe recently told Insider using his BCI. "At this stage, I am a bit slower than you would be, but there is the ability to do almost anything — if I want to."Learning how to use the tech takes months of training, during which both the BCI and the person using it learn to reliably perform and interpret key thoughts: Click here; move there. The possibilities of BCI aren't limited to computer clicks or mechanical movements, though.BCIs are also being developed to diagnose brain issues and treat conditions including depression through deep brain stimulation. They could also help unlock secrets to how our brains work, giving scientists a chance to peer inside our heads and look at our neural circuitry in real time."People are reading out brain-area activity patterns and detecting epilepsies before they can hit," Moore, the Brown neuroscientist, said. "There's a clear, human, clinical application coming."There are also applications beyond healthcare, such as video games, security, and creating more-powerful soldiers. BCI industry captures the imagination of tech moguls Kevin Dietsch / Staff / Getty ImagesThe BCI industry has attracted investment from a who's who of tech moguls, including Musk, Gates, Bezos, Thiel, and Vinod Khosla. While most of these billionaires invest in other biotech ideas, tech moguls have an outsize presence in BCI, which remains a niche part of biotech.No BCI startup has gone public, and most of their fundraising rounds have been modest compared with larger and more-mature biotechs. The computing element of BCI is also an "obvious bridge" between computers and medicine for people with a tech background, Arch's Nelsen said. The data from BCI research projects can easily appeal to executives more used to looking at computer code than interpreting biology experiments."People think of the brain as the most advanced computer out there," Kurt Haggstrom, Synchron's chief commercial officer, said in an interview. "What tech person is not going to want to learn and be able to tap into it and understand how it works?"The emperor has pants but no shirt — yetDespite the excitement, Moore said BCIs couldn't collect data capturing the full spectrum of what our brains do. BCIs are focused almost exclusively on electrical signals that are firing in the brain. But there are many components to how our brains work that are not measured through BCIs and remain critical to brain function and how our thoughts create behaviors."It's not that the emperor has no clothes," Moore said. "OK, the emperor has pants." While BCIs can observe, interpret, and even adjust what the neurons firing in our brain are doing, they don't capture the whole complex picture of all the dynamic, nonelectrical (and still poorly understood) cellular networks in our heads that may have an effect on how we process information and behave — everything from what happens inside our blood vessels to how specialized cells called astrocytes communicate.BCI is "obviously a huge part of the puzzle," Moore said, adding: "But think of all the potential dynamics we could record in these other systems in the brain."Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

The Age Of Drones Authored by Karen Hunt (aka KH Mezek) via 'Break Free' Substack, While researching my piece, The Truth about Luciferase, I came across a patent that blew my mind and I absolutely had to write about it. The patent is described as “Systems and Methods for Mobile Sample Collection” and it has to do with drones. We’re talking armies of drones of all shapes and sizes, down to the smallest gnat, working together in a “swarm” to take samples, administer drugs and regulate the health and behavior of ordinary citizens. The promise is that these drones will be deployed to make our lives easier—for our health and safety. Embarking on this read, I would like to start with some important words: metaverse, meatverse, wetware, software, hardware Metaverse: a virtual-reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users. Meatverse: you will not find this word defined anywhere on the internet. It is the word technocrats derisively use when describing the real world. In June 2018, Oculus executive Jason Rubin sent an email to Facebook board member Marc Andreessen with the subject line “The Metaverse.” This paper was like the first page in the history of a new world, written by one of the gods. Ruben described the Metaverse as a place where users “float through a digital universe of virtual ads, filled with virtual goods that people buy. There would be virtual people that they marry, while spending as little time as possible in the so-called ‘MEATVERSE’ — referring to the real world because humans are flesh and blood.” We are assured that at a certain point, humans will prefer spending time in the razzle-dazzle metaverse rather than the drab and restrictive meatverse. And lest you think, oh what’s the big deal, Zuckerberg’s metaverse is on the way out, it isn’t. If he isn’t successful, someone else will be—whatever form it takes over the next 10 years or so. We are just pieces of meat to our controllers. Wetware, Software, Hardware: The human body is now being described in terms that are similar to robots, making us seem as if our differences are only technical. The human body and central nervous system are “wetware” as opposed to the “software” and “hardware” of machines. Technopedia describes wetware like this: …where neural networks and similar artificial intelligence technologies would be described as hardware, the human brain that they attempt to simulate and model would be the “wetware.” Biological systems are described as wetware because of the water that makes up so much of the biological tissue of humans, animals and plants. The term “wetware” will become increasingly useful as technology makes its way into the fields of biology and biological engineering. We are wet. Machines are dry. We have temperatures—both emotionally and physically. Machines do not. Defining humans with these new words adjusts us to accepting identification based on similarity or dissimilarity to machines. It’s hard to fight against our controllers if we don’t even know who or what to attack. The biosecurity state is all pervasive. There isn’t one government, organization, or person to point the finger at. As of July 2022, the United States is just behind China in camera surveillance of its citizens, with an average of two cameras for every 10 people in its major cities. The UK is in third place with one CCTV camera for every 16 citizens in its larger cities. Ever since 9/11, we have been programed to accept constant surveillance for our health and safety. The January 6th attack on the Capitol building opened the door for even greater surveillance due to increased risk of “domestic terrorism”. As for online surveillance, in 2019 alone, the US government investigated over 800,000 of its own citizens personal data. Thanks to Covid, citizens came to accept greater and greater levels of control. A 2020 New York Times article described this post-Covid world we now live in: Drones have been working as police officers, soaring over the banks of the Seine in Paris and the city squares of Mumbai, to patrol for social distancing violators. They’re delivering medical supplies in Rwanda and snacks in Virginia. They’re hovering over crowds in China to scan for fevers below. “Yes auntie, this is the drone speaking to you,” said one drone, speaking to an elderly woman below in an eerie bullhorn echo, according to a video published by Global Times, a state-controlled newspaper. “You shouldn’t walk about without wearing a mask.” Global Times also published an account of another drone. A voice from above castigated a small child peering skyward while seated with a man who was violating quarantine rules by playing mahjong in public: “Don’t look at the drone, child. Ask your father to leave immediately.” Drones can be equipped with so-called stingrays to collect information from people’s mobile phones, night-vision cameras, GPS sensors, radar, lidar (laser detection technology for creating three-dimensional maps of an area), as well as thermal and infrared cameras. Frank Wang is the world’s first drone billionaire. His company DJI, headquartered in Shenzhen, has a 77% share of America’s consumer drone sales, according to this Bloomberg article. The same drone surveillance system being used in Xinjiang, a region in northwest China that human-rights groups have described as a police state because of the oppression, horrific abuse, and confining to camps of as many as 1 million Uighurs, are being used by Flymotion, a Florida-based drone services company that uses its devices to support dozens of police departments. “DJI owns the global market,” says Flymotion CEO Ryan English. Agencies in all 50 states have drones now, about 90% of them made by DJI, according to a recent Bard College study. Now that we have figured out ways to connect machines with our bodies, creating the Internet of Bodies (IoB), drones can be used as intermediaries between our machine-controlled bodies and the elite who control it all. IoB means that our bodies are “connected to a network through devices that are ingested, implanted, or connected to the body in some way. Once connected, data can be exchanged, and the body and device can be remotely monitored and controlled”. The elite will no longer have to walk among us. They can live in safe zones, real-world paradises, while we live under constant surveillance, our only escape being the virtual worlds inside our devices and perhaps one day connected directly to our minds. At any time, drones can swoop down and take samples from us, or inject us with whatever drugs AI determines we need. Skin-like electronics are being made to monitor our health continuously, described by the United States government as “wearable electronics paired with artificial intelligence that could transform screening for health problems.” Such a skin-like device is being developed in a project between the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME). Leading the project is Sihong Wang. According to Wang, ​“Such a diagnosis, with health information being continuously gathered over an extended period, is very data intensive.” Philanthropist Jennifer Pritzker, at left, and Illinois Gov. J.B. PritzkerPHOTO ILLUSTRATION: TABLET MAGAZINE; ORIGINAL PHOTOS: VINCE TALOTTA/TORONTO STAR VIA GETTY IMAGES; E. JASON WAMBSGANS/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE VIA GETTY IMAGE It should be noted that the Pritzker family, including Jennifer Pritzker (a male who identifies as transgender), “devotes their massive fortune to funding transgender ideology, or ‘synthetic sexual identities’ (SSI),” as described by journalist Jennifer Bilek. Imagine a scenario where a drone, having evaluated you as being at risk of heart disease, implants a device on or in you that will monitor what you eat, when you eat, your heart rate, how often you exercise, how many hours you sleep. It will know if you commit the sin of smoking a cigarette or drinking a whiskey. Perhaps AI will determine your son is really a girl. AI will know this, no matter if you say otherwise. It can administer drugs to facilitate your child’s “sex change.” What if as a result, you seem depressed or anxious? There are drugs for that, too. One of the products being used to facilitate this is called stretchable electronics, a thin film of a plastic semiconductor combined with stretchable gold nanowire electrodes. You can see what it looks like in this short video. Research was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation and a start-up fund from the University of Chicago. Sub-millimeter microsensors tiny enough to inject under the skin is a step toward making tiny under-the-skin implants that continuously measure a person’s blood glucose, heart rate, and other physiological conditions a reality. The small device, “approximately five centimeters square, can be placed directly on the skin for around-the-clock health monitoring. When the device turns color, the wearer knows something is awry.” Other monitoring devices, according to Global Research are RFIDs: RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips are implanted into a passport or driver’s license. RFID tags are small computer chips connected to miniature antennae that can be fixed to or implanted within physical objects, including human beings. The RFID chip itself contains an Electronic Product Code that can be “read” when a RFID reader emits a radio signal. Hidden placement of tags. RFID tags can be embedded into/onto objects and documents without the knowledge of the individual who obtains those items. Unique identifiers for all objects worldwide. The Electronic Product Code potentially enables every object on earth to have its own unique ID. Massive data aggregation. RFID deployment requires the creation of massive databases containing unique tag data. Hidden readers. Tags can be read from a distance, not restricted to line of sight, by readers that can be incorporated invisibly into nearly any environment where human beings or items congregate. RFID readers have already been experimentally embedded into floor tiles, woven into carpeting and floor mats, hidden in doorways, and seamlessly incorporated into retail shelving and counters, making it virtually impossible for a consumer to know when or if he or she was being “scanned.” Individual tracking and profiling. If personal identity were linked with unique RFID tag numbers, individuals could be profiled and tracked without their knowledge or consent. (“Position Statement on the Use of RFID on Consumer Products,” Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, November 14, 2003) The Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility touts (AIM)biometric identification as “an automated method of recognizing a person based on a physiological or behavioral characteristic.” This is especially important since “the need” for biometrics “can be found in federal, state and local governments, in the military, and in commercial applications.” When used as a stand-alone or in conjunction with RFID-chipped “smart cards” biometrics, according to the industry “are set to pervade nearly all aspects of the economy and our daily lives.” Google is developing a device that can be implanted beneath a person's skin in order to carry out diagnostic tests. The patent describes "a system for measuring and/or monitoring an analyte present in interstitial fluid in skin, capable of monitoring the blood and sweat of a wearer and transmit the results through an antenna to a companion device.” But how will all of this be monitored? How will it be delivered? I did some digging into patents, and I found this one which the US government is implementing. DOCUMENT ID: US 11517232 B1; Filed in 2015; DATE PUBLISHED: 2022-12-06; Inventor: Robertson Channing The only problem is that today, when I clicked the link I had, it went nowhere. I spent hours trying to find the patent, to no avail. Fortunately, I read the entire patent and also copied most of it, so I am able to share it. I thought of abandoning this essay, but it is too important. If anyone can find it, I will be forever in your debt! I did find this explanation and the drawing, which illustrates the different types and sizes of drones (just so you all know it exists): US 11,517,232 B1SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MOBILE SAMPLE COLLECTION Channing Robertson, Palo Alto, CA (US) Assigned to Labrador Diagnostics LLC, Wilmington, DE (US)Filed by Labrador Dlagnostics LLC, Wilmington, DE (US)Filed on Nov. 9, 2015, as Appl. No. 14/936,599.Claims priority of provisional application 62/077,023, filed on Nov. 7, 2014.Int. Cl. B64C 39/02 (2006.01); A61B 5/15 (2006.01); G05D 1/00 (2006.01); G08G 5/04 (2006.01) CPC A61B 5/150748 (2013.01) [A61B 5/150847 (2013.01); B64C 39/024 (2013.01); G05D 1/00 (2013.01); G08G 5/04 (2013.01); B64C 2201/128 (2013.01); B64C 2201/141 (2013.01)] So, let’s look into Systems and Methods for Mobile Sample Collection. Imagine our world as a giant petri dish and we are all inside of it. Experiments can be conducted on our “wetware.” There will be no escape from the drones. The drones being employed are described like this in the patent: A “drone” as used herein may be a mechanical device, electromechanical device, other self-propelled device, or a robotic device that can use one or more modes of transportation such as but not limited to flying, swimming, rolling, crawling, wheeling, and/or other movement mode to travel to a subject. A drone may also have at least one other capability such as but not limited to video surveillance capability, audio surveillance capability, sample collection, tissue penetration, and/or other capabilities currently known or may be developed. (15) Optionally, some may test for a simple and/or rapid test initially; if a positive signal is detected, then the system may send more drones or send more sophisticated drones to the subject. Some may send a base station or other forward operating device to or near the location of the first drone to sample the area around that site. (16) Optionally, the size and weight of the drone may be such that they are less noticeable to the subject. This drives to a certain length scale, possibly smaller than a mosquito having the ability to talk to one another, talk to a base station, guidance, autopilot, etc. . . . ). i) Optionally, one configuration may be one where each small flying drone (“gnat”) takes the same type of sample. Optionally, one configuration may be one where ii) each “gnat” takes a different type of sample (blood, sweat, tears, or other bodily fluid). Optionally, one configuration may be one where iii) multiple “gnats” take different types of samples. (21) In one non-limiting example, the nested drones or nested vehicles may be in the form of sisterships, motherships, daughterships, or any single or multiple combination of the foregoing. (24) In one embodiment, the mobile sampling system may combine autonomous technology with one or more swarm technologies, one or more motive/movement technologies, and/or one or more sample acquisition technologies. (33) Location acquisition (for targeting or retrieval) may be by one or more of the following: vision, magnetically, prior GPS coordinates, chemically, electrically, radar, sonar, GIS systems, mapping, and/or other targeting system. Some may use targeting based on features such as but not limited to gas output, thermal signature, CO.sub.2 output, scent-based characteristics, chemical, UV, anything in the EM spectrum, or other signature characteristic of the target. Acquisition may involve waiting for subjects to walk by or be positioned for sampling. Some may involve being positioned on a tree branch, perch, overhang, or other location above the subject S. Tentacles, webs, strings, or attachments lines may be deployed to assist in getting the sampling device to the subject S. The device may acquire sample from a subject's finger, hand, forearm, ear lobe, ear cheek, or buttocks. (38) This reduced volume more enables the embodiments here to use tick or mosquito type sample acquisition techniques because the desired sample size is so small. (46) Most occupants could be clearly detected by their airborne bacterial emissions, as well as their contribution to settled particles, within 1.5-4 h. It should be understood that an occupied space is microbially distinct from an unoccupied one, and that individuals release their own personalized microbial cloud. (47) Optionally, other characteristics of the subject such as but no limited to height, weight, sex, profile, thermal image, picture, or the like may also be associated with the microbial cloud sample to more confidently confirm a target. (51) Optionally, sampling theory and statistics is used as part of one implementation in terms of disease or other outbreak detection. 52) In one embodiment, the population to be sampled is one that has signed up to be sampled. An example may be all patients associated with a particular health insurance company, doctor group, medical group, or other affiliation (health-related or otherwise). Subjects may wear beacons, identifiers, other devices to help facilitate target acquisition by the sampling device. Some may wear Bluetooth, infrared transmitters, or other devices now known or to be developed in the future. (53) In one non-limiting example, there is an option for sampling weekly, monthly, or other interval. In one non-limiting example, such sample collection may be occurring and the subject may not even know it. (55) In one non-limiting example, a subject's bodily fluid is being tested hourly or other frequent interval without the subject's explicit knowledge. (62) In one non-limiting example, the sample acquisition from a subject may be in a form that is based at least in part on bio-mimicry of tick, leech, mosquito, or other natural blood sampler for sampling purposes. (66) Optionally, some may fly and land on a surface and then crawl to the subject. Some may land and remain in the shower or bathroom or other desired area to facilitate sample collection. And that's it! Unbelievable what they have in-store for us! I hope it won’t give you nightmares. If people still mock and say it will never happen, then I don’t know what to tell you. I’m doing my best to inform as many people as will listen--myself included. *  *  * Break Free with Karen Hunt is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Tyler Durden Fri, 12/16/2022 - 21:00.....»»

Employees of Neuralink told Reuters that the brain chip company has killed roughly 1,500 animals, and some of the deaths could have been avoidable. Elon Musk.Carina Johansen/Getty Images Elon Musk's brain chip company Neuralink is under federal investigation of animal welfare abuse, reported Reuters.  The company has reportedly killed roughly 1,500 animals since 2018, and many deaths were allegedly avoidable.  Employees told Reuters they felt rushed due to Musk's pressure-cooker work environment, leading to careless errors. Elon Musk's brain chip company might be causing another problem for the billionaire as he balances running multiple companies, including Twitter, Tesla, and SpaceX. Reuters reported that Neuralink is under federal investigation for concerns about animal welfare by the US Department of Agriculture. Twenty former and current employees of the health tech company told Reuters that Musk's pressure cooker work environment has caused staffers to feel rushed, making careless errors while testing and resulting in more animal suffering and deaths.Since 2018, roughly 1,500 animals, including sheep, pigs, and monkeys, have been killed during Neuralink testing, according to the report.While many companies tests on animals before humans to bring new products to the market, Neuralink employees told Reuters that the company had made several reckless errors involving incorrect surgical glue or the wrong-size brain chip, which caused scientists to have to kill those animals and start experiments over again. Reuters could not determine whether the federal probe involved the same alleged issues with animal testing that it found by talking to employees. Multiple workers reportedly said Musk told them to imagine a bomb was strapped to their heads to get them to move quicker."We are simply not moving fast enough. It is driving me nuts," he reportedly wrote to staffers earlier this year. Representatives from Neuralink and the US Department of Agriculture did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Neuralink has passed all USDA inspections of its facilities, Reuters reports. Neuralink was founded by Musk and a group of scientists and engineers in 2016 to develop brain chips that would allow computers to read brain signals. Last week, Musk announced that it plans to begin human clinical trials next year and said he would try the brain chip device himself. Despite the pressure many employees reportedly have felt working at Neuralink, Musk had reportedly told at least one former employee that he disliked using animals for research and said he wanted them to be "the happiest animals" while alive. Neuralink has faced allegations of animal abuse in the past. Earlier this year, an animal-rights group accused the company's researchers of subjecting monkeys to "extreme suffering" while testing brain implants. In one example of incidents the group provided, a monkey was allegedly missing fingers and toes "possibly from self-mutilation" after an experiment.  Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Elon Musk said at a show-and-tell event that he expects Neuralink will be ready to begin implanting the device in humans in the next 6 months. Elon Musk presenting "Neuralink Progress Update, Summer 2020."Neuralink/YouTube Elon Musk said he plans to implant a Neuralink device in his brain once it's available to humans. The billionaire said on Wednesday that he expects Neuralink will start human trials in the next 6 months. The startup aims to create brain implants that can read and write brain activity. Elon Musk said on Wednesday that he plans to install a Neuralink brain implant in himself when the device is ready."You could have a Neuralink device implanted right now and you wouldn't even know. I mean, hypothetically," Musk said during a show-and-tell event for his startup. "In one of these demos, in fact, in one of these demos, I will."The founder of the brain computer startup reiterated his pledge to get an implant of the device on Twitter.—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 1, 2022Musk doesn't think he'll have to wait too long before making good on his promise. The billionaire said at the event that he expects Neuralink will be ready to begin human trials in the next six months and indicated that the only delay was approval from the US Food and Drug Administration."Obviously, we want to be extremely careful and certain that it will work well before putting a device in a human, but we're submitted, I think, most of our paperwork to the FDA," he said on Wednesday night.A Neuralink spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Insider ahead of publication.Since 2019, Musk has repeatedly set and missed his own projections for when Neuralink would begin implanting its devices in human brains.To date, Neuralink has yet to test on humans and has instead experimented with the device on animals, including pigs and monkeys. Last year, Musk showed a demo video of a monkey using the device to play video games with its mind. This year, he provided a video of a monkey with an implant "telepathically typing."Neuralink competitor Synchron launched human trials in 2019 in Melbourne, Australia, and beat Musk's company to implanting its first device in a US patient earlier this year. The device has been implanted in multiple US patients who have been severely paralyzed and has reportedly allowed patients to shop online and craft text messages using only their mind.Both companies are working to create brain-computer interfaces with chip implants that can read and write brain activity. Musk has claimed in the past the brain-machine interface could do anything from cure paralysis to give people telepathic powers, referring to the device as "a Fitbit in your skull."On Wednesday, the billionaire added that he believes the device could restore vision to people who had been born blind.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Elon Musk‘s startup Neuralink Corp. should be ready to test its technology on humans in six months, the entrepreneur said Wednesday during a live-streamed update about progress the company has made with its brain-implant technology......»»

Malone: Human Cyborgs Are Just The Beginning Authored by Robert W. Malone via Who is Robert Malone, Ever since I wrote the substack article on human augmentation and the UK Ministry of Defence and the German Military Complex , discussing that these two organizations advocate for human augmentation in a report entitled “Human Augmentation – The Dawn of a New Paradigm“, I have been wondering if the US government, that is to say the US Department of Defense (DoD) and the Administrative State which controls it, has developed similar plans. This week I did a little research starting with the key words – “human augmentation” and “DoD” and there “it” is. The “it” being the strategy playbook and battlefield field plan for creating human cyborgs… For those who lust for more stimulation and shaping after reading the following, this substack also relates to our June 16 substack entitled “ARPA-H, Intelligence Community within NIH”. To begin – there are various “hints” from various governmental agencies that human augmentation research is underway and has been ongoing for a number of years. For instance, this article: Inside the Military’s New Office for Cyborgs 2014 DARPA’s Arati Prabhakar Tells Defense One That Cutting-Edge Biology Research Is the Future of National Security Defense One, April 1, 2014 The ability to link human brains to machines, create new life forms and build Star Trek-style disease detectors will be the focus of a new Defense Department office soon. The new office, named the Biological Technology Office, or BTO, will serve as a clearinghouse for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, programs into brain research, synthetic biology and epidemiology. The office will cover everything from brewing up tomorrow’s bioweapon detectors and connecting humans to computers to designing entirely new types of super-strong living materials that could form the basis of future devices. Here are the key areas in more detail. This author does let “the cat out of the bag”, so to speak, by his use of the word “cyborg” in the article’s title. That is the “military’s new office for cyborgs.” But the actual content of the article does little to enlighten us as to what the DoD actually has planned. It is getting hard to tell who is driving the bus here, the Pentagon or Paramount pictures’ script writers. Do DARPA locker rooms have pinups of Jeri Ryan? Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Is Bruce Sterling actually a deep state operative and CIA consultant? (tolokonov/iStock) Moving on to more recent news. Another fascinating title and article – this search was a little like following the bread crumbs to grannies house… Researchers Help DoD Consider Challenges of Human Enhancement DEVCOM CBC Public Affairs November 18th, 2019 Peter Emanuel, Ph.D., the Army’s Senior Research Scientist for Bioengineering, sees a future 30 years from now where a U.S. Soldier can direct a swarm of drones in battle through a direct brain-to-machine connection using a neural implant. The implant also allows him to see exactly what each of those drones is seeing, then digitally integrate this information in his brain and send it as data to other machines, fellow Soldiers or his command and control element. This is a little more helpful. Note that the person being interviewed for this article is Dr. Peter Emanuel. This is important later on in this Substack. Trust me, it is a “Where’s Waldo” kind of thing. Also, interesting that now the DoD is using the language “human enhancement” – so much softer and gentler than “human cyborg,” don’t you think? This article is even a little more current. Of note – The COVIDcrisis most definitely took the spotlight off the whole “human cyborg” research agenda. Something tells me that the DoD didn’t mind that too much. US Space Force Chief Scientist Says Human Augmentation ‘Imperative’ The Defense Post, May 05, 2021 Today we’re on the brink of a new age: the age of human augmentation   Human augmentation should be embraced by the West to keep up with the competition, US Space Force chief scientist Dr. Joel Mozer said during an event last week at the Airforce Research Laboratory. “In our business of national defense, it’s imperative that we embrace this new age, lest we fall behind our strategic competitors,” Mozer said. Mozer added that unprecedented developments are forthcoming in areas such as artificial intelligence, which will allow the military to craft tactics and strategies that “no human could.” Autonomous programs will eventually provide real-time advice to commanders, and multiple autonomous agents will be able to assist commanders and decision-makers in reconnaissance and fire control. The chief scientist further explained that human augmentation will eventually develop into technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality — including “nerve stimulation” to enhance the simulation of physical sensations. “You could put [an] individual into a state of flow, where learning is optimized and retention is maximized,” Mozer said. “This individual could be shaped into somebody with very high-performing potential.” (I mean, who isn’t up for a little “nerve stimulation” among friends?) The language used is really helpful in tracking the origins of the ideas. Bruce Sterling’s classic cyberpunk novel Schismatrix is all about the conflict between Shapers and Mechanists, Shapers being the group that alters the body through genetic modification and specialized mental training. Mechanists are the group that modifies bodies through computer software and external alterations. Yeah, we’ve seen that movie too. Then we have the Big Kahuna, the report that begins to lay out the true intent of the military in all of this. This large, year-long assessment – commissioned by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and conducted by the DoD Biotechnologies for Health and Human Performance Council was published at the end of 2019. It is entitled: “Cyborg Soldier 2050: Human/Machine Fusion and the Implications for the Future of the DoD” Subject terms: “Cyborg” and “Human/Machine Enhancement” That abstract of that assessment reads: Abstract: The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (Alexandria, VA) established the DOD Biotechnologies for Health and Human Performance Council (BHPC) study group to continually assess research and development in biotechnology. The BHPC group assesses scientific advances for improved health and performance with potential military application; identifies corresponding risks and opportunities and ethical, legal, and social implications; and provides senior leadership with recommendations for mitigating adversarial threats and maximizing opportunities for future U.S. forces. At the direction of the BHPC Executive Committee, the BHPC study group conducted a year-long assessment entitled “Cyborg Soldier 2050: Human/Machine Fusion and the Impact for the Future of the DOD”. The primary objective of this effort was to forecast and evaluate the military implications of machines that are physically integrated with the human body to augment and enhance human performance over the next 30 years. This report summarizes this assessment and findings; identifies four potential military-use cases for new technologies in this area; and assesses their impact upon the DOD organizational structure, warfighter doctrine and tactics, and interoperability with U.S. allies and civil society. This analysis was made public when published, but then COVIDcrisis soon overwhelmed us all and it quickly faded from public memory. If you didn’t read this report back in the beginning of 2020 or if you have forgotten about it, below is the executive summary of this 50 page report (or click on the linked title above to read the whole report): EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A DoD Biotechnologies for Health and Human Performance Council (BHPC; Alexandria, VA) study group surveyed a wide range of current and emerging technologies relevant to assisting and augmenting human performance in many domains. The team used this information to develop a series of vignettes as case studies for discussion and analysis including feasibility; military application; and ethical, legal, and social implication (ELSI) considerations. Ultimately, the team selected four vignettes as being technically feasible by 2050 or earlier. The following vignettes are relevant to military needs and offer capabilities beyond current military systems: ocular enhancements to imaging, sight, and situational awareness; restoration and programmed muscular control through an optogenetic bodysuit sensor web; auditory enhancement for communication and protection; and direct neural enhancement of the human brain for two-way data transfer. Although each of these technologies will offer the potential to incrementally enhance performance beyond the normal human baseline, the BHPC study group analysis suggested that the development of direct neural enhancements of the human brain for two-way data transfer would create a revolutionary advancement in future military capabilities. This technology is predicted to facilitate read/write capability between humans and machines and between humans through brain-to-brain interactions. These interactions would allow warfighters direct communication with unmanned and autonomous systems, as well as with other humans, to optimize command and control systems and operations. The potential for direct data exchange between human neural networks and microelectronic systems could revolutionize tactical warfighter communications, speed the transfer of knowledge throughout the chain of command, and ultimately dispel the “fog” of war. Direct neural enhancement of the human brain through neuro-silica interfaces could improve target acquisition and engagement and accelerate defensive and offensive systems. Although the control of military hardware, enhanced situational awareness, and faster data assimilation afforded by direct neural control would fundamentally alter the battlefield by the year 2050, the other three cyborg technologies are also likely to be adopted in some form by warfighters and civil society. The BHPC study group predicted that human/machine enhancement technologies will become widely available before the year 2050 and will steadily mature, largely driven by civilian demand and a robust bio-economy that is at its earliest stages of development in today’s global market. The global healthcare market will fuel human/machine enhancement technologies primarily to augment the loss of functionality from injury or disease, and defense applications will likely not drive the market in its later stages. The BHPC study group anticipated that the gradual introduction of beneficial restorative cyborg technologies will, to an extent, acclimatize the population to their use. The BHPC study group projected that introduction of augmented human beings into the general population, DOD active duty personnel, and near-peer competitors will accelerate in the years following 2050 and will lead to imbalances, inequalities, and inequities in established legal, security, and ethical frameworks. Each of these technologies will afford some level of performance improvement to end users, which will widen the performance gap between enhanced and unenhanced individuals and teams. The BHPC study group analyzed case studies and posed a series of questions to drive its assessment of the impact to DOD programs, policies, and operations. The following are the resulting recommendations (not listed in order of priority): (RM- I have only posted the top summaries for these recommendations, please go to the report for more detail). 1. DOD personnel must conduct global assessments of societal awareness and perceptions of human/machine enhancement technologies. 2. U.S. leadership should use existing and newly developed forums (e.g., NATO) to discuss impacts to interoperability with allied partners as we approach the year 2050. This will help develop policies and practices that will maximize interoperability of forces. 3. DOD should invest in the development of dynamic legal, security, and ethical frameworks under its control that anticipate emerging technologies. 4. Efforts should be undertaken to reverse negative cultural narratives of enhancement technologies. 5. DOD personnel should conduct tabletop wargames and targeted threat assessments to determine the doctrine and tactics of allied and adversarial forces. 6. The U.S. Government should support efforts to establish a whole-of-nation approach to human/machine enhancement technologies versus a whole-of-government approach. 7. The DOD should support foundational research to validate human/machine fusion technologies before fielding them and to track the long-term safety and impact on individuals and groups. This rabbit hole then led me to the DARPA website – and wow! This research -to create human cyborgs, it is actually happening. A quick glance at the Biological Technology Office and DARPA reveals that programatic goals of building cyborg capabilities are being conducted at an astounding rate. The webpage search engine allows a search of the non-classified programs already being developed. So, one can go to this site and envision many, if not most of these technologies listed as being used for warfare. The military is developing human augmentation for military uses, not civilian. This is important to keep in mind. So, I spent a little time searching and webmining the more “interesting” DARPA projects. Below are just a few of the abstracts of research projects being funded by DARPA and the DoD: The Measuring Biological Aptitude (MBA) program aims to address the need for a more capable fighting force by helping individual warfighters identify, measure, and track personalized biomarkers related to training and peak performance for specialized roles. If the program succeeds, MBA technologies will give warfighters the ability to understand the underlying biological processes that govern their performance. Specifically, these technologies would elucidate the internal expression circuits (e.g., genetic, epigenetic, metabolomic) that shape militarily relevant cognitive, behavioral, and physical traits. New devices for continuously tracking these expression circuits could be integrated into the body to provide instantaneous user feedback, helping the warfighter to improve performance throughout training, assessment, selection, and mission execution for a given military specialty. DARPA’s multi-year AI Next portfolio of programs and investments seeks to develop contextual reasoning in artificial intelligence systems to improve human/machine teaming. The Agile Teams (A-Teams) program aims to discover, test, and demonstrate generalizable mathematical abstractions for the design of agile human-machine teams and to provide predictive insight into team performance. While human-machine teams have been the subject of considerable past work in artificial intelligence and autonomy, designing agile team architectures remains largely a trial-and-error enterprise. The A-Teams program seeks to create a systematic methodology to design teams that best use the capabilities of both humans and machines and that can achieve enhanced performance in uncertain, dynamic, and co-evolving environments. These new abstractions will be validated using experimental testbeds aimed to support reproducible evaluation of human-machine team architectures in a diverse range of problem contexts. The Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX) program is pursuing key technologies to enable precision control of and sensory feedback from sensor-equipped upper-limb prosthetic devices. If successful, the resulting system would provide users near-natural control of prosthetic hands and arms via bi-directional peripheral nerve implants. The Safe Genes program supports force protection and military health and readiness by protecting Service members from accidental or intentional misuse of genome editing technologies. Additional work will leverage advances in gene editing technology to expedite development of advanced prophylactic and therapeutic treatments against gene editors. Advances within the program will ensure the United States remains at the vanguard of the broadly accessible and rapidly progressing field of genome editing. Safe Genes performer teams work across three primary technical focus areas to develop tools and methodologies to control, counter, and even reverse the effects of genome editing—including gene drives—in biological systems across scales. First, researchers are developing the genetic circuitry and genome editing machinery for robust, spatial, temporal, and reversible control of genome editing activity in living systems. Second, researchers are developing small molecules and molecular strategies to provide prophylactic and treatment solutions that prevent or limit genome editing activity and protect the genome integrity of organisms and populations. Third, researchers are developing “genetic remediation” strategies that eliminate unwanted engineered genes from a broad range of complex population and environmental contexts to restore systems to functional and genetic baseline states. Overall, the Safe Genes program is creating a layered, modular, and adaptable solution set to: protect warfighters and the homeland against intentional or accidental misuse of genome editing technologies; prevent and/or reverse unwanted genetic changes in a given biological system; and facilitate the development of safe, precise, and effective medical treatments that use gene editors. The Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) program aims to develop high-performance, bi-directional brain-machine interfaces for able-bodied service members. Such interfaces would be enabling technology for diverse national security applications such as control of unmanned aerial vehicles and active cyber defense systems or teaming with computer systems to successfully multitask during complex military missions. Whereas the most effective, state-of-the-art neural interfaces require surgery to implant electrodes into the brain, N3 technology would not require surgery and would be man-portable, thus making the technology accessible to a far wider population of potential users. Noninvasive neurotechnologies such as the electroencephalogram and transcranial direct current stimulation already exist, but do not offer the precision, signal resolution, and portability required for advanced applications by people working in real-world settings. The envisioned N3 technology breaks through the limitations of existing technology by delivering an integrated device that does not require surgical implantation, but has the precision to read from and write to 16 independent channels within a 16mm3 volume of neural tissue within 50ms. Each channel is capable of specifically interacting with sub-millimeter regions of the brain with a spatial and temporal specificity that rivals existing invasive approaches. Individual devices can be combined to provide the ability to interface to multiple points in the brain at once. To enable future non-invasive brain-machine interfaces, N3 researchers are working to develop solutions that address challenges such as the physics of scattering and weakening of signals as they pass through skin, skull, and brain tissue, as well as designing algorithms for decoding and encoding neural signals that are represented by other modalities such as light, acoustic, or electro-magnetic energy. The Neural Evidence Aggregation Tool (NEAT) program aims to overcome current limitations by developing a new cognitive science tool that identifies people at risk of suicide by using preconscious brain signals rather than asking questions and waiting for consciously filtered responses. By aggregating preconscious brain signals to stimuli, NEAT would determine what a person believes to be true, false, or indeterminate about specific types of knowledge that could be used to detect signs of depression, anxiety, or suicidal ideation earlier and more reliably than ever before. If successful, NEAT will not only significantly augment behavioral health screening, but it could also serve as a new way to assess ultimate treatment efficacy, since patients will often tell their clinicians what they think the clinician wants to hear rather than how they are truly feeling. Ultimately, NEAT intends to augment current behavioral health screening programs by providing clinicians with previously unavailable information to enable earlier interventions and more reliable measures of successful treatment. The research activities that are being conducted by DARPA and the DoD are considerable. Even the small sampling of abstracts published above only begins to document just how large this endeavor is. These technologies are further along than we might think, and we deserve to know more about them. This is the future that our government is planning for us, whether we like it or not, and it is a future that is opaque. From genetic engineering to new synthetics development for neural implants, to replacing and enhancing limbs for warfare – our military is “going there.” But the truth is, some places “we” shouldn’t go. Just because they “can,” doesn’t mean they “should”. If you have learned anything since January 2020, I hope that you have learned to question the wisdom and insight of the insider cliques within the US Government and “Administrative State” who believe that it is acceptable to march ahead with genetic and mechanical engineering of human beings without meaningful oversight, let alone self awareness and any sense of bioethical boundaries. If we truly wish to have a say in these new technologies, society (which is to say “we”) must be informed. “We” have a right to be informed. That means you and me. As these technologies develop, transhumanism will become all the rage. Think about that. These new technologies will be what future generations will have to look forward to. Human cyborgs are their futures. They, that is human cyborgs, will be our children and our grandchildren. We are Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service us. Thanks, Paramount. We need more “normalizing their vision of the future” in our lives please. The military is already working on propaganda to “reverse negative cultural narratives of enhancement technologies.” So, once again – we are being played before we even know what the playing field looks like. Like I said before, we have all seen that movie too. The full scope of this program needs to be revealed to the American people. Although the executive report barely mentions gene editing technologies, the military is investing heavily in them and clearly with the intention of using them for the war fighter. The executive report barely skims the surface of the research that is currently being carried out by DARPA, and that is only one office within the Department of Defense. The public’s right to know about this research and what the final goals are is crucial. Congress must demand answers and must demand open and transparent responses. As the report rightly points out, what happens in the military will make its way into the public sphere. We have a right to know what is being planned for our future “evolution.” I don’t use that word lightly. But that is how the UK Ministry of Defence has labeled human augmentation research. Turns out that Silicon Valley darling and Klaus Schwab’s evil mini me Yuval Noah Harari (author of Homo Deus, which literally means “Man God”) is not so far out there in his thinking as we had thought. The bioethics of human augmentation are complex. The regulatory processes must be developed before the technologies come into being, not the other way around. People must envision how these technologies will be used in civilian life, in military life and as life-saving treatments. People need to decide if and which of these technologies really are for the good of society. People need to become involved now. That starts with education. Which begins with transparency by our government. In future Substacks, I hope that you and I will begin exploring the bioethics, the impact of these technologies, privacy issues, the targets, future visions of society and just what this all means. After all, what could possibly go wrong? Reposted from the author’s Substack Tyler Durden Sat, 10/01/2022 - 19:30.....»»

UC Davis and Elon Musk's company Neuralink have refuted the claims its test animals experienced "extreme suffering" in the past. Neuralink used rhesus macaque monkeys (not pictured).EAN-FRANCOIS MONIER/AFP/Getty Images An animal-rights group says UC Davis has 371 photos showing Neuralink's experiments on monkeys. The organization sued the university and filed a complaint with the USDA in February. UC Davis and Neuralink have refuted the claims its test animals experienced "extreme suffering." An animal-rights group that is suing the University of California, Davis over experiments conducted for Neuralink says the university has 371 photos related to experiments on monkeys that were performed for Elon Musk's biotech company.The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine said UC Davis has 185 pictures related to the autopsies of animals that died during Neuralink experiments and another 186 photos of the experiments that were performed on the monkeys, which included cutting holes into the monkeys' skulls to implant electrodes into their brains.The group said they learned of the photos through a legal document from UC Davis dated September 7, 2022. Between 2017 and 2020, Neuralink paid the university $1.4 million to use UC Davis' facilities and animals for testing, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine said."UC Davis thinks the public is too stupid to know what they're looking at," Ryan Merkley, director of research advocacy with the Physicians Committee, said in a press release. "But it's clear the university is simply trying to hide from taxpayers the fact that it partnered with Elon Musk to conduct experiments in which animals suffered and died."A spokesperson from Neuralink did not respond to a request for comment and a UC Davis spokesperson referred Insider to a previous statement. In February, the institution said "research protocols were thoroughly reviewed and approved by the campus's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee" during the institutions work with Neuralink."Animal research is strictly regulated and UC Davis follows all applicable laws and regulations including those of the US Department of Agriculture," the statement said.UC Davis issued the statement after the animal-rights group sued the university for not releasing photos and videos of the experiments it has performed for Neuralink from 2017 to 2020. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine also filed a complaint with the US Department of Agriculture, alleging the institution had violated the federal Animal Welfare Act. Insider's Isobel Asher Hamilton previously reported that the group said it had obtained records showing the monkeys experienced "extreme suffering as a result of inadequate animal care and the highly invasive experimental head implants during the experiments."At the time, Neuralink responded to the accusations, denying several of the injuries that the animal rights group reported and saying the company is "absolutely committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible." The company said it has since transitioned to using its own in-house facilities.Ultimately, Neuralink is working to develop a computer brain interface system that would be able to read and write brain activity. In the past, Musk has claimed the AI brain chips would one day be able to do anything from cure paralysis to give people telepathic powers, referring to the device as "a Fitbit in your skull."Last year, the billionaire said the company plans to transition from implanting the chips in monkeys to humans by the end of the year, but the device has yet to receive approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to begin human trials.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Brandon Smith: Artificial Intelligence - A Secular Look At The Digital Antichrist Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us, Why do globalists have a deep rooted obsession with Artificial Intelligence (AI)? What is it about the fervent quest for an autonomous digitized brain that sends them into fits of ecstasy? Is it all about what AI can do for them and their agenda, or, is there also a darker “occult” element to the concept that is so appealing? The World Economic Forum, an organization dedicated to the globalist “Great Reset” agenda, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the “Shared Economy,” dedicates a large portion of every annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland to discussion on AI and the expansion of its influence over daily life. The United Nations holds extensive policy sessions on AI and has been spending a considerable amount of energy to establish “ethics rules” for the development and use of Artificial Intelligence. At the core of the UN’s efforts is the assertion that only the UN is qualified to dictate and control AI technologies; for the good of all mankind, of course. AI governance is slated to go into full effect by 2030 according to the UN’s own white papers (All globalist institutions have set 2030 as the target date for all of their projects). Another lesser known but substantial organization is the World Government Summit held every year in Dubai. These summits are attended by many national leaders and representatives as well as corporate CEOs and celebrities. The primary subjects of focus at the WGS are usually climate change propaganda, centralization of the global economy, Transhumanism and AI. Most of the public discussions on AI revolve around positive narratives; we are meant to be convinced on the many great advancements that AI technology will provide. Some of the “advantages” include transhumanist health modifications, computer implants in the body or brain, and even nanobots which may one day be advanced enough to change our very cells. In other words, in order to benefit from AI we must become less human and more machine. Other supposed benefits require a vast array of new systems (some of them are being built now) that would allow algorithms to monitor every facet of our lives. Globalists often refer to these systems as the “internet of things” – Every appliance you own, the car you drive, every computer, every cell phone, every surveillance camera, every stop light, everything would be centralized into a single AI network within a city, and each city would be connected in a great spider’s web to a national AI database. The Internet of Things is regularly mentioned in conjunction with climate change governance and carbon restrictions. The purpose is crystal clear – Governments and corporate elites want the ability to monitor every watt of energy you use everyday. This kind of full spectrum information makes it easier to dictate our decisions and our access to goods and services. They would have total control of anyone living within these “Smart Cities.” Your entire life, every second, would be watched and scrutinized. But how could this be made possible? Millions upon millions of people living day-to-day; that’s a LOT of data to sift through to find anyone not following the rules. This is one of the reasons why the globalists are salivating over AI technologies – It’s the only tool available to collect and delineate mass data collection in real time. Already, there are efforts to use AI systems to predict crime before it happens (pre-crime). These experiments are rather overhyped as they don’t actually predict specific crimes or identify specific criminals. Rather, they use statistical analysis to predict which areas of a city certain crimes are most likely to occur. You don’t need AI for this, any cop that’s worked in a city long enough can tell you when and where certain crimes are most likely to happen. Hilariously, AI algorithms have recently been accused of “racial bias” when it comes to the areas they select for predictive crime, because often these areas tend to be in predominantly black neighborhoods and the most predicted criminals tend to be young black men. So, the computers have been accused of racial profiling just as many cops are accused of racial profiling. Just another classic contradiction of the political left: They love the idea of climate change restrictions, transhumanism, and even AI surveillance when it suits them, but a computer does not care about your feelings and it doesn’t care about social taboos. It only cares about the numbers. And this is where we get into the greater dangers inherent in AI. Imagine a world micro-managed by a cold dead algorithm that views you as only one of two things: A resource or a threat. Prediction of pre-crime is nonsense; algorithms monitor habits and patterns and human beings tend to break patterns abruptly. People are affected by crisis events in different ways that are impossible to portend. There are far too many variables and there will never be a system that is able to predict the future, but that’s not going to stop the globalists from trying to force the issue. AI governance is an inevitability according to globalist institutions – They claim that one day Artificial Intelligence will be used to govern whole societies and dole out punishment based on scientifically efficient models. They act as if this is just the natural path of mankind and one we cannot avoid, but in reality it is a self-fulfilling prophesy. It’s not necessarily meant to happen, it is being engineered to happen. AI proponents argue that the algorithms cannot act with the same bias that humans do, therefore, they would be the best possible judges of human behavior. Every decision from production to distribution to healthcare to schooling to law and order would be managed by AI as a means to achieve ultimate “equity.” As noted above, they’ve already run into the road block of statistical probability and the fact that even if AI is left to autonomously make decisions devoid of emotion, millions of people will still see those decisions as biased. And, in some ways they would be right. The most logical decision is not always the most moral decision. Furthermore, an AI is programmed by its creator and can be engineered to make decisions with the creator’s biases in mind. Who gets to program the AI? Who gets to dictate its coding? Global elitists? And here is where we get to the more “spiritual” element of the AI issue in relation to the globalists. A couple years back I wrote an article titled ‘Luciferianism: A Secular Look At A Destructive Globalist Belief System.’ My goal in that piece was to outlined the large amount of evidence that globalists are in fact a kind of cult of organized psychopaths (people without empathy that take joy in destruction for the sake of personal gain). I concluded that globalists do indeed have a religion, and their root belief system according to the evidence is Luciferianism. Yes, I’m sure there will be naysayers out there that will scoff at this notion, but the facts are undeniable. There is a distinct occult element to globalism, and Luciferianism pops up consistently as the root philosophy. I think I broke this down rather effectively in the article and I won’t rehash all the evidence here; people are welcome to read it if they wish. I wrote from a secular standpoint because Luciferianism is an inherently destructive ideology even when viewed outside of the lens of Christian belief. Beyond that, there are psychological elements that need to be addressed that Christianity often ignores. Luciferian philosophy is tailor made for narcissistic and sociopathic people. The root of the cult is about “special” human beings that are not hindered by the boundaries of conscience, morals or ethics. Lack of empathy is seen as an advantage to progress and the ultimate goal of Luciferianism is godhood – A person becoming like a god, whether through being worshiped by others, the power of influence or by technological methods of extending life and abilities. But what does this have to do with AI? I believe that globalists view AI with such reverence because they think it is a new form of life, or an ultimate form of life – A life that they are creating (as gods create life). And, if you think about it symbolically, this new “life” is actually made in the image of its creators: It has no empathy, no remorse, no guilt, no love. For lack of a better word, it is soulless, much like globalist psychopaths are soulless. If we are to look at AI in religious terms for a moment – AI is a kind of antithesis to the figure of Christ. Christ represents an all-knowing form of ultimate love and ultimate self sacrifice according to Christian doctrine. I don’t think there is a word for what AI ultimately represents. The only term that seems to fit is “Antichrist”: The all seeing eye. A rulership of a super-intelligence devoid of humanity. To be clear, I DO NOT believe in end-of-the-world concepts portrayed by those that adhere to more popular interpretations of Revelations. I think the world changes. I think empires rise and fall and this can often be seen as the “end of the world” when it’s really just the end of an epoch. That said, I wholeheartedly believe in the existence of evil; evil being defined as willfully deceitful or destructive actions for purely personal or organizational benefit, such as murder or enslavement. Evil does indeed exist and is an observable element of human life. There are also traits of humanity that lead to good, that prevent us from self destruction when we listen to them. Conscience, reason, wisdom and often faith can provide a shield against evil actions for the majority of us. If we didn’t have these pillars within our psyches we would have annihilated ourselves long ago. But, there are some who do not have conscience, that do not have empathy and they despise these traits as “limiting.” AI is being designed by these kinds of people. And maybe they won’t cause the “end of the world” in terms we commonly understand (or in biblical terms), but over time they could take away everything that makes humanity worthy of the world. In a way, this would be an Apocalypse. It would be a living nightmare run by psychopathic people using sociopathic artificial intelligence, actively encouraging and enabling the masses to abandon their human bodies to become digital monstrosities and technological chimera. If successful, it really would be the ultimate defilement of nature, or of God’s design if that is what you believe in. The pursuit of godhood is not worth it for most of us, but for the globalists it is the dream of an age, and they will do ANYTHING to achieve it. *  *  * If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE. Tyler Durden Sat, 08/13/2022 - 23:30.....»»

The startup implanted a 1.5-inch device into the brain of an ALS patient at Mount Sinai West medical center in New York on July 6, Bloomberg reported. Elon Musk on March 9.Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Synchron implanted its first device into a US patient on July 6 in New York. The chip is designed to allow patients with severe paralysis to communicate using their thoughts. Elon Musk's Neuralink has a similar mission, but has yet to receive FDA approval. Synchron, a brain-computer interface startup, reportedly implanted its first device in a US patient earlier this month — overtaking Elon Musk's Neuralink for the third time.The startup implanted a 1.5-inch device into the brain of an ALS patient at Mount Sinai West medical center in New York on July 6, Bloomberg first reported. A spokesperson from Synchron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The purpose of the device is to allow the patient to communicate — even after they have lost the ability to move — by using their thoughts to send emails and texts. Bloomberg reported that Synchron has already implanted the device in four patients in Australia who have been able to use the brain implant to send messages on WhatsApp and shop online.Last year, the Australia-based startup received permission from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin human trials on six US patients who have been severly paralyzed. In 2019, the company implanted its device into its first human patient in Melbourne, Australia.Meanwhile, Neuralink has yet to receive FDA approval, though Musk has predicted the could company could begin human trials as early as 2020. Most recently, he said in 2021 that the company planned to start implanting its computer chip in humans by 2022. The announcement came after the billionaire and cofounder shared a video of a monkey playing a video game using only its mind via a Neuralink brain chip.Earlier this year, the cofounder and former president of Neuralink, Max Hodak, revealed he'd invested in Synchron after leaving Musk's startup.Synchon and Neuralink's implants have similar immediate applications. They are both designed to translate human thoughts into computer commands and could help patients with neurological diseases like Parkinson's or ALS.However, Musk's goals for Neuralink appear to be slightly more ambitious. In the past, Musk has claimed the brain-machine interface could give people telepathic powers and make humans symbiotic with artificial intelligence, referring to the device as "a Fitbit in your skull."Neuralink and Synchron's products have several key differences: namely, size and installation. The Australian startup's product can be inserted into a human skull without cutting into it using a catheter that feeds the device through the jugular vein into a blood vessel in the brain. The process requires two separate surgeries.In contrast, Neuralink plans to make a much smaller and more powerful device that would require a portion of the individual's skull to be removed and would be performed using a robot.Read more about the startup on Bloomberg's website.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

The startup implanted a 1.5-inch device into the brain of an ALS patient at Mount Sinai West medical center in New York on July 6, Bloomberg reported. Elon Musk on March 9.Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Synchron implanted its first device into a US patient on July 6 in New York. The chip is designed to allow patients with severe paralysis to communicate using their thoughts. Elon Musk's Neuralink has a similar mission, but has yet to receive FDA approval. Synchron, a brain-computer interface startup, reportedly implanted its first device in a US patient earlier this month — overtaking Elon Musk's Neuralink for the third time.The startup implanted a 1.5-inch device into the brain of an ALS patient at Mount Sinai West medical center in New York on July 6, Bloomberg first reported. A spokesperson from Synchron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The purpose of the device is to allow the patient to communicate — even after they have lost the ability to move — by using their thoughts to send emails and texts. Bloomberg reported that Synchron has already implanted the device in four patients in Australia who have been able to use the brain implant to send messages on WhatsApp and shop online.Last year, the Australia-based startup received permission from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin human trials on six US patients who have been severly paralyzed. In 2019, the company implanted its device into its first human patient in Melbourne, Australia.Meanwhile, Neuralink has yet to receive FDA approval, though Musk has predicted the could company could begin human trials as early as 2020. Most recently, he said in 2021 that the company planned to start implanting its computer chip in humans by 2022. The announcement came after the billionaire and cofounder shared a video of a monkey playing a video game using only its mind via a Neuralink brain chip.Earlier this year, the cofounder and former president of Neuralink, Max Hodak, revealed he'd invested in Synchron after leaving Musk's startup.Synchon and Neuralink's implants have similar immediate applications. They are both designed to translate human thoughts into computer commands and could help patients with neurological diseases like Parkinson's or ALS.However, Musk's goals for Neuralink appear to be slightly more ambitious. In the past, Musk has claimed the brain-machine interface could give people telepathic powers and make humans symbiotic with artificial intelligence, referring to the device as "a Fitbit in your skull."Neuralink and Synchron's products have several key differences: namely, size and installation. The Australian startup's product can be inserted into a human skull without cutting into it using a catheter that feeds the device through the jugular vein into a blood vessel in the brain. The process requires two separate surgeries.In contrast, Neuralink plans to make a much smaller and more powerful device that would require a portion of the individual's skull to be removed and would be performed using a robot.Read more about the startup on Bloomberg's website.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Neuralink's tech could help study and treat neurological disorders. Musk also claims it could one day meld human consciousness with AI. Elon Musk.Win McNamee/Getty Images Neuralink is one of Elon Musk's strange and futuristic companies. It's developing neural interface technology — a.k.a. putting microchips in people's brains. The technology could help study and treat neurological disorders. Elon Musk is known for his high-profile companies like Tesla and SpaceX, but the billionaire also has a handful of unusual ventures. He says he started one of them to achieve "symbiosis" between the human brain and artificial intelligence.Neuralink is Musk's neural interface technology company. It's developing a device that would be embedded in a person's brain, where it would record brain activity and potentially stimulate it. Musk has compared the technology to a "FitBit in your skull."Musk also had twins with top Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis, Insider was first to report.While Musk likes to talk up his futuristic vision for the technology, the tech has some potential near-term medical applications.Here's everything you need to know about Neuralink:Neuralink was founded under-the-radar in 2016.Neuralink first became publicly known in 2017 when The Wall Street Journal reported on its existence.The company's first major public outing didn't come until 2019, when Elon Musk and other members of the Neuralink executive team showed off their tech in a livestreamed presentation. Neuralink is developing two bits of equipment. The first is a chip that would be implanted in a person's skull, with electrodes fanning out into their brain.The chip sits behind the ear, while electrodes are threaded into the brain.Neuralink/YouTubeThe chip Neuralink is developing is about the size of a coin, and would be embedded in a person's skull. From the chip, an array of tiny wires, each roughly 20 times thinner than a human hair, fan out into the patient's brain.The wires are equipped with 1,024 electrodes which are able to monitor brain activity  and, theoretically, electrically stimulate the brain. This data is transmitted wirelessly via the chip to computers, where it can be studied by researchers. The second is a robot that could automatically implant the chip.Neuralink surgical robot.Woke StudiosThe robot would work by using a stiff needle to punch the flexible wires emanating from a Neuralink chip into a person's brain, a bit like a sewing machine.Neuralink released a video showcasing the robot in January 2021. Musk has claimed the machine could make implanting Neuralink's electrodes as easy as LASIK eye surgery. While this is a bold claim, neuroscientists previously told Insider in 2019 that the machine has some very promising features.Professor Andrew Hires highlighted a feature, which would automatically adjust the needle to compensate for the movement of a patient's brain, as the brain moves during surgery along with a person's breathing and heartbeat.The robot as it currently stands is eight feet tall, and while Neuralink is developing its underlying technology its design was crafted by Woke Studios.In 2020, Neuralink showed off one of its chips embedded in a pig named Gertrude.The Neuralink device in Gertrude's brain transmitted live data during the demo as she snuffled around.Neuralink/YouTubeThe demonstration was proof of concept, and showed how the chip was able to accurately predict the positioning of Gertrude's limbs when she was walking on a treadmill, as well as recording neural activity when the pig snuffled about for food. Musk said the pig had been living with the chip embedded in her skull for two months. "In terms of their technology, 1,024 channels is not that impressive these days, but the electronics to relay them wirelessly is state-of-the-art, and the robotic implantation is nice," said Professor Andrew Jackson, an expert in neural interfaces at Newcastle University."This is solid engineering but mediocre neuroscience," he said.Jackson told Insider following the 2020 presentation that the wireless relay from the Neuralink chip could potentially have a big impact on the welfare of animal test subjects in science, as most neural interfaces currently in use on test animals involve wires poking out through the skin."Even if the technology doesn't do anything more than we're able to do at the moment — in terms of number of channels or whatever — just from a welfare aspect for the animals, I think if you can do experiments with something that doesn't involve wires coming through the skin, that's going to improve the welfare of animals," he said.Neuralink went a step further with its animal demos in April 2021, when it showed off a monkey playing video games with its mind.Neuralink released video of a macaque monkey named Pager playing video games such as "Pong" for banana-smoothie rewards. Pager played the games using a joystick that was disconnected from the games console, meaning he was controlling the cursor using his brain signals as his arm moved.Elon Musk likes to boast Neuralink can let monkeys control computers with their brain signals, but neuroscientists don't see this as a big deal.Elon Musk monkeyVachira Vachira/NurPhoto via Getty Images/Pool/Getty ImagesElon Musk excitedly announced in a 2019 presentation that Neuralink had successfully implanted its chip into a monkey. "A monkey has been able to control a computer with its brain, just FYI," he said, which appeared to take Neuralink president Max Hodak by surprise. "I didn't realize we were running that result today, but there it goes," said Hodak.Musk reiterated the claim in February 2021, two months ahead of the video demonstration.Neuroscientists speaking to Insider in 2019 said that while the claim might grab the attention of readers, they did not find it surprising or even particularly impressive."The monkey is not surfing the internet. The monkey is probably moving a cursor to move a little ball to try to match a target,"said Professor Andrew Hires, an assistant professor of neurobiology at the University of California, said.Implanting primates with neural-brain interfaces that let them control objects on screens has been done before. Professor Andrew Jackson of the University of Newcastle told Insider in April 2021 that researchers first pioneered this kind of tech in 2002 — but arguably its origins go all the way back to the 1960s. An animal-rights group filed a complaint against Neuralink in February 2022 over the treatment of the monkeys used in its research.Neuralink used rhesus macaque monkeys (not pictured).EAN-FRANCOIS MONIER/AFP/Getty ImagesIn February 2022, animal-rights group the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine said it had submitted a complaint to the US Department of Agriculture after obtaining more than 700 pages of documents relating to monkeys used in Neuralink research at the University of California at Davis between 2017 and 2020.The group obtained the documents, which included veterinary records and necropsy reports, via a public records request. It said they indicated 23 monkeys had experienced "extreme suffering as a result of inadequate animal care and the highly invasive experimental head implants during the experiments."A UC Davis spokesperson told Insider that during its research collaboration with Neuralink, "research protocols were thoroughly reviewed and approved by the campus's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee."The spokesperson said the collaboration between Neuralink and UC Davis ended in 2020."We strive to provide the best possible care to animals in our charge. Animal research is strictly regulated and UC Davis follows all applicable laws and regulations including those of the US Department of Agriculture," they said.Neuralink refuted accusations from an animal-rights group that its test monkeys were mistreated."At Neuralink, we are absolutely committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible," Neuralink said in a blog post.Neuralink said it had kept its monkeys at UC Davis while it built its own animal housing facility."While the facilities and care at UC Davis did and continue to meet federally mandated standards, we absolutely wanted to improve upon these standards as we transitioned animals to our in-house facilities," Neuralink said.It said it opened a 6,000 square-feet vivarium for its monkeys and "farm animals" in 2020. It said its animal enclosures contain "environmental enrichments" including pools, swings, and treehouses.Although none of the tech Neuralink has showcased so far has been particularly groundbreaking, neuroscientists are impressed with how well it's been able to bundle up existing technologies.Elon Musk presenting during the 2020 demo.Neuralink YouTube"All the technology that he showed has been already developed in some way or form, [...] Essentially what they've done is just package it into a nice little form that then sends data wirelessly," Dr. Jason Shepherd, an associate professor of neurobiology at the University of Utah, told Insider following the company's 2020 demonstration."If you just watched this 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," he added.Elon Musk said Neuralink hopes to start implanting its chips in humans in 2022 — two years later than he'd originally envisaged.Britta Pedersen-Pool/Getty ImagesSpeaking at The Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit on December 6, 2021, Musk said Neuralink hoped to start human testing the following year pending Food and Drug Administration approval.He repeated the claim on Twitter. "Progress will accelerate when we have devices in humans (hard to have nuanced conversations with monkeys) next year," Musk tweeted.This isn't the first time Musk has set a timeline for getting Neuralink's chips into humans.Musk said during an appearance on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast in May 2020 that Neuralink could begin testing on human subjects within a year. He made the same claim during an interview on Clubhouse in February 2021.In 2019, Musk said the company hoped to get a chip into a human patient by the end of 2020.Experts voiced doubt about this timeline at the time, as part of safety testing a neural interface device involves implanting it in an animal test subject (normally a primate) and leaving it there for an extended amount of time to test its longevity — as any chip would have to stay in a human patient's brain for a lifetime."You can't accelerate that process. You just have to wait — and see how long the electrodes last. And if the goal is for these to last decades, it's hard to imagine how you're going to be able to test this without waiting long periods of time to see how well the devices perform," Jacob Robinson, a neuroengineer at Rice University, told STAT News in 2019.Neuralink cofounder and president Max Hodak left the company in April 2021. In February 2022 he revealed he'd invested in a rival.Hodak announced on May 1, 2021, that he'd left Neuralink a few weeks previously, tweeting that he remained a "huge cheerleader" for the company.In February 2022, Hodak published a blog post saying he'd been serving as an advisor to Synchron, a rival biotech company that beat Neuralink to human trials with its own neural interface technology.Hodak also announced he'd invested in Synchron and told Bloomberg in an email: "I really don't want this to be construed as a knock on Neuralink.""I'm sure they will also get into humans soon too," Hodak told Bloomberg.In November 2021 Musk had twins with Neuralink director of operations and special projects Shivon ZIlis.Insider obtained court documents which showed Musk and Zillis had petitioned to change the childrens' names to "have their father's last name and contain their mother's last name as part of their middle name."Zillis previously worked at Tesla as a project director on the company's autopilot and chip design teams, and was on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in 2015.Musk has nine known children including his twins with Zillis.In the near-term, a chip in someone's brain could help treat neurological disorders like Parkinson's.Close-up footage of the needle on Neuralink's brain surgery robot.NeuralinkImproved neural interface technology like Neuralink's could help better study and treat severe neurological conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.Professor Andrew Hires said another application could be allowing people to control robotic prostheses with their minds."The first application you can imagine is better mental control for a robotic arm for someone who's paralyzed," Hires said in a 2019 interview with Insider, adding that the electrodes in a patient's brain could potentially reproduce the sensation of touch, allowing the patient to exert finer motor control over a prosthetic limb.Neuralink hinted its chip's first real-world application would be giving quadriplegic people the ability to control phones and laptops.Neuralink announced it had raised a $205 million series C funding round from investors including Google's GV (formerly Google Ventures) on July 29, 2021.As part of its announcement, the company said its chip's first commercial application could be to help quadriplegic people. Quadriplegia is partial or full paralysis in all four limbs."The first indication this device is intended for is to help quadriplegics regain their digital freedom by allowing users to interact with their computers or phones in a high bandwidth and naturalistic way. The funds from the round will be used to take Neuralink's first product to market and accelerate the research and development of future products," Neuralink said in a blog post.During The Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit in December 2021, Musk said the first humans into whom Neuralink hopes to implant its devices are people who: "have severe spinal cord injuries like tetraplegics, quadriplegics."Tetraplegia is another term for quadriplegia.Elon Musk also says that in the long term, Neuralink's chip could be used to meld human consciousness with artificial intelligence — though experts are skeptical of this.Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesAlthough Musk has touted the near-term applications of Neuralink, he often links the company up with his fears about artificial intelligence. Musk has said that he thinks humanity will be able to achieve "symbiosis with artificial intelligence" using technology developed by Neuralink.Musk told "Artificial Intelligence" podcast host Lex Fridman in 2019 that Neuralink was "intended to address the existential risk associated with digital superintelligence.""We will not be able to be smarter than a digital supercomputer, so, therefore, if you cannot beat 'em, join 'em," Musk added.Musk has made lots of fanciful claims about the enhanced abilities Neuralink could confer. In 2020 Musk said people would "save and replay memories" like in "Black Mirror," or telepathically summon their car.Experts have expressed doubts about these claims. "Not to say that that won't happen, but I think that the underlying neuroscience is much more shaky. We understand much less about how those processes work in the brain, and just because you can predict the position of the pig's leg when it's walking on a treadmill, that doesn't then automatically mean you'll be able to read thoughts," Prof. Andrew Jackson told Insider in 2020.In 2019 Prof. Andrew Hires said Musk's claims about merging with AI is where he goes off into "aspirational fantasy land."Musk's also made dubious claims about the medical applications of Neuralink's tech. At one point he claimed the technology could "solve autism."During an appearance on the "Artificial Intelligence" podcast with Lex Fridman in November 2019, Elon Musk said Neuralink could in future "solve a lot of brain-related diseases," and named autism and schizophrenia as examples.Autism is classified as a developmental disorder, not a disease, and the World Health Organization describes schizophrenia as a mental disorder.One neuroscientist told Insider there are big ethical problems with the idea of performing brain surgery for anything other than essential treatment.Dr. Rylie Green of Imperial College London told Insider in 2019 that the notion of performing brain surgery on a healthy person is deeply troubling."To get any of these devices into your brain [...] is very, very high-risk surgery," she said. "People do it because they have severe limitations and there is a potential there to improve their life. Doing it for fun is not a great idea," she added.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

NASA astronaut Doug Hurley discussed what it was like working with Elon Musk and a new Netflix documentary he features in, in a Fox interview. SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Elon Musk has a "very human side to him," according to NASA astronaut Doug Hurley.  Hurley's comments came ahead of a new Netflix documentary covering a historic SpaceX launch in 2020. In an interview with Fox News, Hurley discussed working with Musk and the new documentary.  NASA astronaut Doug Hurley reminisced on what it was like working with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk before he flew on a historic flight to space and back in 2020. In an interview with Fox News, Hurley spoke about his impressions of Musk, the billionaire space race, and a new Netflix documentary, "Return to Space" which follows Hurley's journey and that of fellow astronaut Bob Behnken as they embarked on the first human SpaceX mission to the International Space Station. In May 2020, Musk and SpaceX made history after the company successfully launched two astronauts into space aboard a Crew Dragon spaceship. Shortly after, the astronauts' ship docked at the International Space Station.The mission marked the first time a commercial spaceship delivered humans into orbit and to the ISS. According to Hurley, Musk had a "huge amount of concern" for him and Behnken's safety when preparing for the launch. "He wanted to ensure that the mission would not only be successful but that we would come back to our families," Hurley told Fox. "It drove him to look at every single possible thing with the spacecraft to make sure that we come home safely," he added.Hurley said one thing most people don't get to witness about Musk is his "human side." As the spaceflight edged closer, Hurley recalled Musk speaking to every employee, "even the interns," asking them about their concerns surrounding the mission. "I think that's a very human side a lot of people don't get to see. What I witnessed was a man who was genuinely concerned about our well-being and our families. And I will always be thankful for that because I'm still here," Hurley said. Before the SpaceX flight, the US hadn't flown humans to space from American soil since 2011. Musk subsequently resurrected American crewed spaceflight for NASA but also kicked off a new era of commercial spaceflight with the 2020 mission. One thing that "amazed" Hurley the most about Musk, however, is his "incredible grasp of the technical situation." "You can talk to him about the spacecraft itself or an issue with the rocket — he wants to understand all of it. He's very hands-on," Hurley said. "You have engineers, literally the experts of the system, on site to address those questions," he added. Despite Hurley's praise, Musk's public reputation is somewhat mixed.His on-and-off romantic partner, the musician Grimes, recently described him in an interview with Vanity Fair as both "the love of my life" and someone who says "stupid shit." On the latter, Musk has consistently shown misunderstanding of how particular COVID-19 tests work and skepticism of public health measures, Insider previously reported. He also tweeted "the coronavirus panic is dumb" in March 2020.  Two years on, the disease has killed nearly 1 million of his fellow Americans.Musk recently joined the board of Twitter after steadily buying up the firm's shares and becoming its biggest shareholder. Some Twitter employees expressed annoyance at the development, with one changing their name to "elon musk is a racist demagogue with a god complex." Another said those protesting represented "a vocal minority" at Twitter, Insider reported.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Elon Musk has already earned himself a spot in the pantheon of history’s great innovators, Walter Isaacson writes Elon Musk might be the most interesting person on the planet. And given his passionate quest (so far surprisingly on track) to make humans into a multiplanetary species, he could someday become the most interesting person in the solar system. O.K., those statements may be hyperbole. But Musk’s ability to turn hyperbole into reality is one of his superpowers. Through his intense focus on driving every problem down to the level of basic physics, he has already earned himself a spot in the pantheon of history’s great innovators. His endeavors are not merely digital concoctions conjured up in a dorm room or garage. They involve devising and manufacturing physical products, such as cars and batteries and rocket ships, like America used to be able to do: [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Tesla (no, Mr. President, not General Motors) is the primary driving force transporting the world into the age of electric cars. And self-driving ones. Tesla Energy, with its solar roof tiles and battery walls, is heralding an era of decentralized, carbon-free electricity. SpaceX has enabled the U.S. to launch humans into orbit for the first time since NASA shut down the space shuttle program a decade ago. Starlink has deployed more than 1,800 satellites and is quietly rebuilding the Internet in space. Neuralink is making the next great leap in the storied history of human-machine interfaces by creating implants that can link to the neurons of a brain. The Boring Co. is building tunnels designed to conquer the scourge of traffic. And Starship, the biggest rocket ever built, will someday take us to Mars. Musk’s input-output mechanisms can be unnerving. He displays a manic wackiness and semicalculated craziness that occasionally skitters, like a too early beta version of Full Self-Driving, across the line between wiliness and weirdness. With ultracapacitor bursts of energy, he is addicted to sparking dramas that he can use for strategic purposes. Having endured psychological and physical violence as a kid in South Africa, he has a greater-than-normal mental ability to calculate risk and emotional ability to tolerate it. As a biographer who has covered the shapers of technological revolutions, I see in Musk many of the traits of earlier innovators. Like Thomas Edison, he knows that vision without execution is hallucination, a weakness that sometimes hobbled the original Tesla, as in Nikola. So he expends 90% of his time on the nuts and bolts (literally) of his products. Like Henry Ford, he understands the importance not only of the products he devises but also the factories that can churn them out. His gigafactories for cars and batteries—in the U.S., Germany and China—are showing that innovative methods for manufacturing a product are even more important than innovative products themselves. Like Steve Jobs, he is reinventing multiple industries with the strategic use of reality-distortion fields. He questions every assumption in order to drill down to the first principles of physics. Like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, he has a hardcore intensity that can drive colleagues (and himself) to near madness but also drive them to do things they thought were impossible. And like Benjamin Franklin and Leonardo da Vinci, he has an obsessive but playful curiosity about all of the wonders of nature that helps him see patterns across disparate fields. But more than most other great innovators, Musk is driven by a larger sense of mission. He has a fierce urge to make life on this planet sustainable, turn humans into a spacefaring species, and assure that artificial intelligence will be beneficial rather than malign to us mortals. These goals are audacious, and he may fail. But at the moment, he has become the most important single individual in designing and deploying the innovations that will bring us a few steps closer to each of these aspirations......»»