My impression from people who have been working on BCI for a long time is that this isn’t that impressive. Not that the hardware isn’t impressive, but that they’ve done similar-ish things with worse hardware for a long time.
Just a quick Google, I’m not exactly endorsing this article, but it seems to support my impression.
The hardware is impressive — it’s best-in-class, but the presentation was mostly theatrics. We’ve had brain-computer interfaces for cursor control for 30 years (pong can be reduced to 1D cursor control — it’s even simpler than the first task).
It’s just a lot cooler to the public when its Musk getting a monkey to play a video game.
If this has been a thing for 30 years, why is the hardware best-in-class? Also, is there a presentation that is more impressive/innovative but perhaps less theatrical?
The hardware should be best-in-class due to the massive amount of channels (over 1,000), and the fact that each channel is surgically implanted into the head. For comparison, 16 channels is on the high end for consumer-grade BCI kits, and each channel is a sensor that rests on top of the skin.
As far as why they aren’t making use of its capabilities to do something more impressive, I don’t know.
For what I would consider a more technically impressive presentation, see this video of a man controlling two prosthetics in 3d space to slice bread.
I’m fairly confident I saw pong being played with a BCI many years ago. I’m sure you could find some videos without too much trouble, but Rabrg just posted a video of what I think is even more impressive than pong.
My impression from people who have been working on BCI for a long time is that this isn’t that impressive. Not that the hardware isn’t impressive, but that they’ve done similar-ish things with worse hardware for a long time.
Just a quick Google, I’m not exactly endorsing this article, but it seems to support my impression.
https://www.inverse.com/innovation/neuralink-video-shows-musk-gaming-monkeys
The hardware is impressive — it’s best-in-class, but the presentation was mostly theatrics. We’ve had brain-computer interfaces for cursor control for 30 years (pong can be reduced to 1D cursor control — it’s even simpler than the first task).
It’s just a lot cooler to the public when its Musk getting a monkey to play a video game.
If this has been a thing for 30 years, why is the hardware best-in-class? Also, is there a presentation that is more impressive/innovative but perhaps less theatrical?
The hardware should be best-in-class due to the massive amount of channels (over 1,000), and the fact that each channel is surgically implanted into the head. For comparison, 16 channels is on the high end for consumer-grade BCI kits, and each channel is a sensor that rests on top of the skin.
As far as why they aren’t making use of its capabilities to do something more impressive, I don’t know.
For what I would consider a more technically impressive presentation, see this video of a man controlling two prosthetics in 3d space to slice bread.
I assume because Musk put a lot of money into it and got the right people together.
I think that monkey video is the most advanced thing Neuralink has put out.
Including people doing things like the monkey does in the video, right? ‘Mind pong’.
I’m fairly confident I saw pong being played with a BCI many years ago. I’m sure you could find some videos without too much trouble, but Rabrg just posted a video of what I think is even more impressive than pong.