500 wpm access to 4 TW LLMs at <1ms latency will feel great!
It's insanity that a company literally developing mind control and mind reading (or as they sanitize it: bidirectional brain-computer interface) hasn't been shut down yet, but here we are.
i hope they make the technology really good so it can solve problems in mental health and beyond
I wish the worst for this company! May they receive extreme public backlash and never secure the funding they need, please god
(No access so haven't read yet.)
I think that the current systems being tested by Neuralink are (1) a connection to motor cortex allowing quadriplegic/locked-in to type/control a mouse; (2) a connection to visual cortex to provide vision for patients with bilateral complete vision loss.
(1) has been documented fairly well; provides some benefit (let's say 10x) for patients beyond eye trackers / sip-puff interfaces but at a cost that is easily 10000x greater. Unclear whether insurance would cover this. Even if they did, total patient population increase per year is probably ~1000, so asymptotic market is tiny.
(2) has not been documented. Historically, there are lot of challenges with cortical stimulation for vision, and the company's distaste for doing science / acknowledging scientific uncertainty makes me skeptical. Same issues as (1) apply if it does work.
I think that people who worry about black-mirror style issues have been overwhelmed by the hype machine. These things are infinitely worse than natural senses and motor control. They are using bluetooth connections and they have no R&D path to increasing bandwidth to neurons in a way that would grow exponentially.
What is possible in this space is something that has real but marginal benefit to a small number of patients. I had hoped that somehow Musk was motivated to solve the insurance and regulatory challenges towards deploying things to these patients, but I think unfortunately that the more their valuation rises, the greater the likelihood that they will close up shop sooner.