Neuralink update
This afternoon Elon Musk and a team from Neuralink provided an update on their work on advanced brain computer interfaces. Some quick takeaways from me on the event.
I’m sure there’ll be plenty of neuroscientists and brain computer interface (BCI) researchers rolling their eyes at the latest update from Elon Musk’s company Neuralink following today’s live update.
The company’s unorthodox approaches and unconventional use of PR for a medical device company have been ruffling feathers for some years now, and I can’t see today being an exception.
And yet for all the hype and hubbub, I can’t help but be inspired by what Neuralink are achieving, and what they aspire to.
The update was broadcast live on X (formerly Twitter), and consisted of Musk and four Neuralink experts describing progress with their first in-person trial, and responding to questions from viewers.
Much of the establishment’s pushback agains Neuralink comes from them not playing by the conventional rules when it comes to developing invasive medical devices. The company is fast, innovative, visionary, embraces story telling, engages widely and creatively with the public, and — most infuriatingly — brings a disruptive digital technologies mindset to a sector that tends to be anything but disruptive.
This has led to plenty of concerns around how Neuralink is going about its business. And of course, with the company being owned by Musk, his often-polarizing public persona has fueled a lot of the adverse attention that Neuralink has attracted.
Some of this is most likely justified, and I’ve expressed my own concerns about how the company are approaching the responsible development of BCIs. But it’s hard to deny that the company is on a trajectory to completely shake up the field of brain computer interfaces.
And this is something that comes through in today’s update.
In addition to a recap of the company’s flagship technology (wireless precision-inserted BCIs that are near-invisible when implanted), there were a few things that caught my attention in particular in today presentation that I thought were worth flagging:
Multi-depth electrodes
The Neuralink team took some time to describe how, in the near future, they are looking at implanting electrodes at multiple different depths — the aim being to substantially enhance their ability to interface with targeted areas of the brain.
This is a big deal, and to my knowledge will be a first at the level of precision and number of electrodes that Neuralink are planning.
The ability — using precision robotic insertion — to interface with a selected area of the brain in a truly 3 dimensional manner should allow closer integration with tissue volumes associated with functions such as motor control and visual processing. If successful, it’s likely to accelerate what is possible far beyond the 2D arrays used by other companies and researchers.
Lifestyle integration
I don’t think this is acknowledged as much as it warrants, but unlike the BCIs used in research which typically involve patients being hardwired to machines through clunky attachments to their skull, the Neuralink device is intended to be both wireless and near invisible.
And this makes it ready-designed to integrate seamlessly into a user’s lifestyle.
Musk even joked that they are aiming for the device to be so well integrated that you wouldn’t be able to tell if a bald user had one installed.
This is possible in part because the device wirelessly charges and connects to an external device.
But it also sits under the skin. And the company are also working hard to ensure that it fits flush with the skull — so much so that Musk expects it to be undetectable by touch, even if someone ran their hand over the head of a user.
The result — if Neuralink succeed — will be a device that exquisitely combines the usability of a premium consumer product with the utility of an advanced medical device.
This attention to consumer expectations and lifestyle may seem trivial from a medical device perspective. But it’s likely to be a game changer as far as widespread user/consumer adoption goes — something that tech companies tend to know a lot about.
Future humanoid robot integration
There was a somewhat jokey discussion in the Neuralink livestream about using the BCI to integrate users with the Optimus humanoid robot being developed by Tesla — although underneath the banter it was clear that this is a possibility that Elon Musk and the team take seriously.
And there’s good reason for their seriousness. As well as being another example of synergistic tech integration across Musk’s companies (and see my last point below), this is an obvious extension of what could be possible with an advanced BCI.
In principle, there’s nothing to stop a future Neuralink user being able to control motor functions in an Optimus, or to be able to tap into its sensors. And this raises a number of intriguing possibilities, as the team discuss in the briefing.
What really grabbed my attention though is the possibility of a level of integration with the Optimus that could extend to communicating through thought alone — no typing, no words, just hyper-efficient communication between a human with an AI interface and an AI that looks like a human.
This is all rather speculative of course. But it’s something that Neuralink’s approach to design, manufacturing and consumer use and adoption, is likely to place within viable reach in the future.
The possibility of advanced cybernetics
While the conversation around integrating Neuralink’s BCI and Tesla’s Optimus was fascinating, things got even more intriguing when one of the team started to speculate about what could happen if parts of the Optimus robot were, instead, physically integrated with someone’s body.
For instance, if a patient could use the BCI to gain exquisite control over an Optimus’ hand — but they lacked their own functioning hand — why not remove the robot’s hand and attach it directly to them?
In this way, the conversation moved from human-robot connections to highly advanced cybernetic enhancement — and enhancement that could substantially exceed biological human capabilities.
Again, this is exceedingly speculative. And there are serious technical challenges that would need to be overcome — prosthetic weight and charging being just two. But given the breakthroughs that Musk’s companies are making across the fields of sensors, actuators, robotics, automation, batteries, and AI, clear pathways are emerging between what his developers are dreaming of, and what might actually come about.
And that leads to my final takeaway from today’s update:
Elon Musk’s trademark synergistic tech integration
This is something that has been discussed in some emerging tech circles for a while, but also something that I don’t think is as widely appreciated as it should be: Elon Musk has a vision that far exceeds the capabilities of any one of his companies, and a strategy that intentionally integrates advances from across them to make the seemingly impossible, possible.
It’s an approach that simultaneously ensures that each company is profitable on its own by creating value that others will invest in, while also ensuring that there is highly multiplicative value-creation when emerging capabilities across the companies are combined.
The result is a sleight of hand where Musk can seemingly pull technological rabbits out of a metaphorical hat because he’s working to a plan that transcends any single company, yet depends on capabilities that are emerging across them.
It’s a strategy that can make it seem that advanced capabilities have come from no-where if you’re not following the big picture.
The most widely discussed part of this master plan is the future human habitation of Mars; something that will depend on massive advances in transportation, automation, sensors, actuators, robotics, power systems, human-computer integration, construction capabilities, understanding and nudging human behavior, and AI — all capabilities that Musk is developing across his companies).
But I suspect that this is also a plan that includes layers that are not so obvious — at least not yet — but that depend on bringing capabilities together from across his tech empire in transformative ways.
Some of this was hinted at in today’s Neuralink update — including the speculative integration between the BCI and Optimus. But my guess is that Elon’s ambitions for strategically leveraging synergies between advanced BCIs, cybernetic systems, AI, and more, are much more expansive.
And this is why, despite all the flack that Musk attracts, he’s still one of the most interesting and potentially transformative tech leaders around.
Its also why, coming back specifically to Neuralink’s BCI, I suspect that the company will confound its critics — because it’s not just a BCI company, but a component of a much bigger vision of the future according to Musk.
Of course, whether this is something to be excited or concerned about is another question entirely …
Great insights and recap!
You forgot to include any update on recent work that's achieved a successful outcome, rather than a series of speculations about what might be achieved in the future.