Neuralink patient controls games by thinking during interview | Hacker News Reader

Neuralink patient controls games by thinking during interview

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199 pointssambroner144 comments

This makes me very excited! I have Spinal Muscular Atrophy type 2 [1] and I have lost most of my physical capabilities save for 2-3 fingers and of course speech. Although I am now on Nusinersen [2] treatments I am still becoming weaker over time, albeit extremely slowly.

It brings me comfort to know that such a fallback will eventually exist, should I need one.

Note that specialists are saying that another promising drug from Scholar Rock [3] would probably prevent any further weakening if used in conjunction with my current treatment. Unfortunately, the FDA takes a long time to approve new medications and I have heard this one is particularly special because there is potential for abuse by athletes.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_muscular_atrophy

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusinersen

[3]: https://scholarrock.com/our-pipeline/spinal-muscular-atrophy...

I hope you can get on that promising drug ASAP and that it works wonders. I think the future looks bright for medicine with all these new breakthroughs coming out.

I‘ve been wondering if Apple‘s AR Headset would be a useful tool for people in similar situations. Did you have a chance to try it, yet?

Doesn't that headset require you to be able to move your head in various directions, and be able to use gestures and such? I just looked at some videos during the release, and those things seems to be a pretty fundamental part of using it.

You don't necessarily need to move anything other than eyes. It's the default input method, but it doesn't require it. It's a computer, it can connect to other devices or use APIs.

So if you use a headset meant for spatial movements, but you're unable to do spatial movements, can't you just use a display and get exactly the same experience?

It's not the same experience. Display is never going to give you full immersion.

Not saying which is better - it's certainly different though.

A very close experience yes. It works just fine with zero head movement and you can move and adjust your windows to only be directly in front of you. And they are by default

From what I understand the headset can be configured to be used without moving the head and even to use eye tracking, only, instead of the minimal finger gestures.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/apple-vision-pro/tan42...

I love that one of the first things he said he did was binge on Civilization 6 until 6am. Welcome back, buddy!

Strangely that simple example was the most powerful part for me. I've done that so many times and it was such a fun experience. Now he gets to re-live that joy (and follow up shame) again!

Some clarity for ppl. - Other techniques would likely work for this patient. Eyegaze technology is pretty readily available. He has proximity switches for driving his chair and lets not forget voice control. So.. what does BCIe offer significantly? I think this is the BIG problem BCI has. The gains are not enough for a lot of people compared to what the AT sector can already offer. Please remember this. This guy could use eyegaze or voice control on pretty regular hardware. And no surgery needed..

- These types of BCI are effectively an array of switches. You typically map a motor thought eg. "Move your arm up" => Moving the cursor up. This maybe how then you control a game such as chess if it has keyboard shortcuts. Eye movement could be done in the same way but there are easier ways. Interestingly to measure these motor commands you dont really need intracortical BCI. You can do it with surface EEG. Sticking it inside your head - closer to centres where you can measure intentional thought makes the signal cleaner and more reliable

- The big breakthroughs is really making this intracortical stuff safer and long term. Its getting there. But this isnt it

The big wins out there - are in speech BCI. Thats hardcore. Even the two main studies doing this - each of the participants requires a LOT of training time to make a Machine model work efficiently.

They are taking an iterative approach.

Look at the starship program for an example of where you can get in 20 iterations

I think once this tech can be used to connect to a robot / exoskeleton, then it will be very useful for someone like him. Imagine him thinking that he wants an apple from the fridge in another room and the robot goes and grabs it for him.

Yeah I agree. In reality though - right now - I'd say you might be surprised to what people actually want and need. For example I could assess someone for say a curtain opener or door opener. I have fallen into the trap of assuming that someone would want this. In reality though its very few people who do. Why? Its totally overkill and pointless when 90% they are with someone who will just open the door anyway. (NB: This isnt Everyone - the ubiquity of home control systems on the regular commercial marketplace is changing this I think)

Sorry but what you're saying simply is not true from my experience. The potential of this technology is the ability to perform multiple actions simultaneously e.g. having your character strafe while zooming in while firing a trigger. With eye tracking you are limited to (for the most part) one action at a time, which is what I do now.

You are correct in that one could add more inputs but that only works if you can use the inputs. The individual in the video has full control of his head which many people do not. All I can do, for example, is use like two fingers.

> You can do it with surface EEG. sticking it inside your head - closer to centres where you can measure intentional and thought makes vy signal cleaner and more reliable.

Further clarification: when doing conventional EEG, the signal quality is so fragile that even blinking can produce recording artifact.

Also, there's the whole "put a shower cap with conductive gel" things that makes it very impractical for every day use.

There are 'dry' EEG electrodes which don't require conductive gel, and algorithms to remove the electrical effect of eye-blinks (ICA, etc.)

You don't need a full EEG to do what the parent mentions. 3 electrodes around each eye (EOG) + ground is all that is needed. Even cheap commercial electrodes will work for this. Blinks can be filtered online with PCA-like techniques.

I don't think the point for him was to simply find a way to control his mouse. He said at the end of the clip he specifically wanted to help out with Neuralink. He also said the surgery was easy and he was released a day later.

He appears to just think about where the mouse should go and then be able to click and click-and-hold. Seems like multiple inputs which an eye tracker wouldn't do. Unless maybe its just configured to click when the cursor pauses on a spot?

Also the user experience seems better than attaching electrodes to your head. It seems to just work wirelessly. It is always there and sometimes he has to recharge it.

Theres a lot of patients who "want to help out" Eddie Chang's team in SF have one patient who moved right next to the hospital to equally do this.. (NB: they should be getting paid too by the way - although thats not clear)

Yeah - this is wireless. Better than some systems which have been, no joke, a box at the top of your head with a HDMI cable in it..

> He appears to just think about where the mouse should go and then be able to click and click-and-hold. Seems like multiple inputs which an eye tracker wouldn't do. Unless maybe its just configured to click when the cursor pauses on a spot?

This is really the key question. The dwell technique you note is what most eyetrackers do (although far better to use a binary technique - eg a blink - to select because of the midas touch effect). Its built into to Windows/MacOS and iOS now. I have a sneaky feeling the reason why its chess is you can encode the positions "X1 to Y2". You can then do a transformer model to decode intentional speech..

If that is the case - then if a person actually speaks whats the benefit right now for this indvidual? (yes - that he doesnt have to say it. BUT sub-vocal speech is already achievable without invasive surgery..)

He notes these other forms of HCI in the video, and I think you’re really underselling the main point of this being ease of use. All of those methods are significantly degraded experiences compared to normal ways of interacting with a computer. The potential for a quadriplegic to interface with a computer at a higher ease of use compared to a human without disabilities is huge.

Sure. The problem is this video somewhat misses how that interaction actually works. You need a control technique of thinking to action. What that actually is and how you learn to use that is missing from the demos. Thats a tad misleading right now IMHO.. (NB: It could be intentional speech eg "Move x to y" or it could be intentional motor control "move my hand right and up" You would also need a stop command. Not sure.. )

But sure - "the potential" is the key thing in all this. Just the cost to benefit ratio is pretty dramatic right now.

Eye tracking does not work nearly as well as people imagine. It cannot directly replace a mouse pointer the way you want it to. The accuracy and reliability are not good enough and never will be due to physical constraints. This system is likely already working better than an eye tracker would for cursor control, and it will certainly improve.

Apple has done great stuff with eye tracking on Vision Pro, but it required completely rewriting the UI for literally everything. Not something we have the luxury of doing for accessibility for quadriplegics.

Source: built an eye tracker and eye-controlled UI at a startup and got acquired by Google

I hear you. I literally cant use any commercial tracker because of a alternating strabismus and the midas touch effect is a nightmare. I'd argue Apple did that because its such a mess on regular OS where the primary input method isnt eye gaze. (They did that with iOS too - match the OS and UI to the primary access method)

I'm not sure I can believe this "This system is likely already working better than an eye tracker would for cursor control" - the training to use this stuff isnt just 'magic'. I do agree though with "and it will certainly improve" - yeah iterate.. iterate..

Eye tracking on AVP works very well on websites that are not at all designed for it.

There’s a ton more that these implants can do other than cursor control. And not needing external visible hardware like other forms of input is a bigger deal than you might think, and especially in terms of the user wanting to feel more “normal” and less of a robot in a bundle of contraptions

He explicitly mentions eye tracking and how it doesn't work for him in this interview with him: https://twitter.com/ModdedQuad/status/1771298116719002100

I haven't followed Neuralink too closely since it was announced, so I was not expecting to see what I just saw. I've seen a handful of breakthrough moments in my life - I think this will be remembered as one.

I don't think the device itself is a breakthrough, the issue beforehand was that tissue in the brain tries to heal from the implant, it can be lethal, I don't know what they're doing to have a PERMANENT implant, completely stop that area from "healing" so tht the implant doesn't become a legitimate hazard.

The main issues with previous BCIs were that the electrodes were larger, less flexible, and not as biocompatible. This caused scar tissue to form around the electrodes, degrading the quality of the signals and eventually making the device useless. Neuralink has apparently reduced scar tissue formation enough that the implant receives usable signals for years. Neuralink also uses far more electrodes, improving signal quality and adding redundancy. The number of electrodes necessitates the use of a robot to place them. The robot is programmed to avoid blood vessels, which also reduces bleeding and scarring.

It will be quite a while before we know if they've managed to mitigate the issues enough to last a lifetime (and support upgrades), but it's better than previous devices.

Can you point to a study showing that Neuralink has achieved any of those things you mentioned? What evidence is there that the implants have reduced scar tissue formation and what supports the assertion that they would be usable for years? What other previous devices are you comparing it to that allows you to positively assert that it is better than them?

You can not just reel off every bullet point on the marketing slides without support as if it is the truth.

the only development (and it wasnt invented by neuralink) is flexible and smaller electrodes seem to take longer for scarring to take over than larger and more rigid ones. Right now, it seems that their only path is to help people with severe disabilities get better quality of life for a few years, which many people might take.

I've worked with Deep Brain Stimulation and other cranial implants before. Mostly on the hardware side and the implantation side.

I want to stress that giving a person a few years is a big deal. It's not something to scoff at. Even a few months can really help someone out.

Why would this be remembered as a breakthrough? Playing games with a BCI is many years old at this point. Here is an article from 2020 talking about playing Sonic the Hedgehog, amongst other games [1]. Here he is fist bumping President Obama in 2016 with a brain controlled robot arm.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/12/16/brain-...

Yeah game/simulator control by neural interface is old news (and has been demonstrated with non-invasive interfaces.)

[2015] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/paralyzed-woman-op...

[2013] With a non-invasive interface: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1741-2560/10/4/04...

[2011] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

[2010] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20876032/

From a technical perspective, moving a mouse with your mind isn't entirely new: https://elifesciences.org/articles/18554

Personally, I think the most exciting part of Neuralink and other companies working on BCIs is the fact that they're trying to keep these implants in long-term, and scale the deployment significantly. Most academic BCI research thus far has just been trials, without patients getting to keep the implants long term.

Moving the mouse wasn't that impressive. That he could turn of the music just like that while the game was open was impressive. And Civ 6 is way more complex to operate compared to chess. I assume that's not mouse driven.

Still early days for this tech but it seems impressive.

Civ 6 can be entirely played via mouse

> And Civ 6 is way more complex to operate compared to chess. I assume that’s not mouse driven.

Civ 6 is drivable completely with the mouse, and other than editing gold amounts in trade offers a little more quickly there’s not much reason to use anything but a mouse for it.

I assume moving the mouse is an intermediary step for the short term. Detecting intents and relating to actions is probably the medium term goal.

> "I played Civ 6 until 6AM"

Neuralink has now achieved product market fit

I never could get into Civ. Do you have any tutorials or a specific game edition to recommend? Maybe my issue is that it's too slow to get started with, but it seems like I'd enjoy it if I stuck with it.

You either like it or you don’t. The inbuilt tutorial is pretty self explanatory and took me 15 mins to really get into it from scratch. It’s slow and turn based and that’s not for everyone.

Factorio on the other hand took a while for me to start liking but that’s because it has a huge learning curve. I eventually got into it but it’s not something I crave playing.

Hmm, I'll power through, thanks. I do love Factorio, though.

Not a big Civ fan. I had way more fun with Paradox games like Crusader Kings. You can learn them by watching a Let's Play on YT. After watching a few hours of somebody play in a roll play fashion, I jumped in.

Fwiw I liked Civ 5 more, maybe give that one a go over Civ 6 if you haven't.

The open source clone of 5/6 is pretty fast, games take less time when it's less flashy and more responsive: https://github.com/yairm210/Unciv

This is much more convenient than the full game, but I always get stuck in the tutorial because I can't find a button it asks me to press :(

Why do you say “5/6”? its an open-source clone of 5, and the Readme notes that given the time it took them to get done with 5 (i.e., not yet, as the base mechanics are only “mostly done” and there’s a bunch of stuff from the expansions still to do), implementing Civ 6 mechanics is an express “won’t-do”.

Play civ 2 first. The newer civs have so much extra stuff to make it overwhelming.

Ahh, that's a good idea, thanks!

For me Civ 5 is brilliant (even more so with the improved AI mods), Civ 6 feels like a chore.

A key differentiator of Neuralink is that the implant can both read and write through ~1000 channels (each of which is a tiny wire into the brain). So it's not really the same thing as external devices that read electrical activity from outside the brain, because those cannot write data. Not sure if the initial implant supports much of this, obviously you'd start with the simplest use cases.

Which is why I will never get anything like that installed unless I'm paralyzed or effectively so. Humans have no mechanism for recognizing that a sensation, thought, or emotion, which arises within themselves, is actually inserted by malware. No thanks.

I'd just wait like a decade and see how it's going.

That's pretty amazing, the fact he's able to click the pause button with his brain alone is insane to me - that's like Apple Vision Pro without the gigantic goggles.

This is a good point. Seems like a likely candidate for an S curve in tech development. i.e. next 15 years of VR are improvements to camera, display, and tracking technology. Following 15 years are brain implants.

I would be excited if I didn't fear them putting ads directly into my brain.

They don't need to put ads. they just need to make you go buy something.

Please read my bio. BCIs are the final frontier of privacy. Let's not mess this up like we did internet tracking.

The sheer joy on this mans face to be able to freely control a mouse again, and engage with general technology. If they’re able to make this into a generally safe procedure, a lot of people will be interested in just that.

As soon as you can stimulate tactile impressions it's over. You can put on your VR Headset and be in a completely different world. Eventually the interface for eyes and ears will improve, but tactility would be a huge step towards being in a completely virtual world.

I think at that point you could also stimulate visual/audio cortex as well - no headset needed!

It's going to take a long time to match the inbound bandwidth of the optic nerves. Lots of specialized cells involved. [0]

I supposed we could just jack in directly, though I really don't want surgery latching onto my optic nerve.

[0] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9633-calculating-the-....

Semi related tangent incoming: I’m reminded of a book I read last year named Semiosis by Sue Burke.

Tiny spoiler warning I guess though not really, it’s just background world building that was used as motivation for side character’s growth. In the book, there was a Hitler-esque villain who existed long before the characters were born. The villain killed many billions of people. But through cloning, the societies of Earth punish this villain for their entire life by feeding them torturous scenarios through their brain implants. These were scenarios like being chased and eaten by a tiger, running naked through a frozen tundra, execution, etc.

The clone thought it was entirely real because it was all in their brain implant, even though they were safe in a jail cell. And as an extra Black Mirror-y twist, anyone in that society could tune in with their own implant to watch the clone being tortured.

I’m not really trying to cast doom and gloom on this brain implant tech, I think it’s neat. I was just reminded of the book I read when you mentioned simulating tactile impressions and virtual worlds. Pleasant simulations would be great, but even “benignly” scary ones like a virtual haunted house in your brain could be terrifying. (As someone who hates haunted houses.)

VR headsets have spent many years being not terribly good. I imagine the first tactile impressions will be similar.

The inspiration for this (as well as for SpaceX) comes from the “Culture” series of novels by Iain M. Banks, which most people are apparently unfamiliar with. Specifically the BCI interface is called “neural lace” there and it grows along with the brain from a seed and covers its entire surface. There it serves as an interface to access superhuman AIs and information in general, on demand, and only the hopeless luddites choose not to have it

Sorry but surely the idea of having a brain computer interface predates the Culture novels by many decades. Similarly, how are these books the inspiration for SpaceX? Those ideas of traveling the stars (well, planets) _absolutely_ predate the culture series.

Seems pretty obvious to me that these ideas originated long ago in the scientific world and were (beautifully) expanded upon by science fiction authors (again, many decades ago).

The names of SpaceX’s drone ships, such as “Of Course I Still Love You”, are from the Culture novels

Oh so grand parent was referring to the names?

Not the idea itself, but this specific implementation. Musk has clearly read quite a bit of Banks and Heinlein.

That’s fair I suppose but it’s probably giving more credit to Musk than he deserves. The real work is all being done by researchers who are drastically more knowledgeable about all of this than he is. He’s wise to invest in these sorts of ideas though and deserves credit for that.

Yeah those researchers would be aimlessly rotting in academia if he didn’t fund risky, out there stuff like this. I can’t name anyone else among his peers who spends their wealth on anything even remotely civilizationally beneficial.

Okay.

>Would be rotting in academia

They’d be doing research man

They _are_ doing research man, and they get help from the best engineers on the planet to turn that research into reality. That’s much better than poking mice brains and never getting anything done. Here they get EEs, roboticists, computer vision experts, neurosurgeons, you name it.

I think he deserves an awful lot of credit for funding such a pie in th sky idea and giving those researches a chance to even attempt it.

In 1 month he's launched the largest rocket ever, done one of the first successful brain implants ever and released a pretty amazing version of FSD.

No other billionaires have done even 1 of those things. Even if he was a buffoon he deserves credit foe the audacity.

I was sort of with you until the FSD

The new FSD is fantastic. It's not perfect but 12.3 is a massive upgrade over 11.x. Very natural. The end is within sight, really.

IDK. I tried previous versions others said were “fantastic” and it was a pants-shitting experience every time, so I quickly turned it off. Plus I had to hold onto the steering wheel the entire time. That’s not “self driving” IMO

Version 12 is a quantum leap above version 11. It's not even comparable. V11 was just bad imo

Maybe I’ll give it another try. Do you still have to keep your hands on the steering wheel?

I'm curious if he's signed any type of NDA or non-disparagement agreement to receive the implant.

I don't think they'd have to do that - the implant could simply prevent any disparaging output.

Har har.

They probably interviewed him to see if he’d be a good person for PR reasons. And I imagine he got it for free. So he has plenty to be happy about with the situation

I'd rather hear about his own experiences from the man himself, without someone from Neuralink standing over him and hyping it for a press release.

He’s on twitter expressing his own opinion all the time

Hence why I'm asking if he signed an NDA or non-disparagement agreement.

I'd like to know if they're doing 'online training' - ie. Do the weights of the neural net which converts raw signal data into mouse movements update themselves every few seconds using historical data?

Such online training might be necessary to deal with brain plasticity - ie. The optimal set of neurons to read to determine X/Y mouse movement right now might not be the same set it was an hour ago.

Such plasticity can be seen in regular humans too when they say 'whoa, I haven't used a pen for months - let me get used to writing again!'.

Good thing no Musk owned companies have a well established track record of faking the entire thing

like?

They are referring to Tesla promotional FSD videos being heavily edited.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/tesla-faked-autopilot-video-engin...

While not an Musk company, it is worth remembering Theranos demos being convincingly faked as well. I don't know if it is happening here but it does happen.

Doesn’t have to be faked either, I remember the Emotiv made similar claims and had similar demos where to the best of my understanding eventually people figured out it wasn’t really reading your brainwaves but rather facial muscles or something (a friend of mine works in brain computer interfacing and explained it to me once but I don’t remember the details — it wasn’t that they were actively trying to mislead necessarily, more akin to leaking validation data into neural network training than to outright deceiving).

I don't think it's fake in this sense - the technology already exists for quite some time - there are devices like that even allow people to talk - check Synchron for example.

But it may be fake in the sense that it's not viable for a long term use and / or necessitates a very controlled environment. That would indeed match the pattern for Musk companies - articulate a grandiose vision, show a working demo to amaze the world, then show progress on some scale but without disclosing the issues that actually would make to product not viable or not financially viable in the long term, and sell the hell out of it to investors.

If you look closely, all his companies work like that. Yes, including Tesla ! Their car business is at the point where they may start loosing money again - competition, slowdown in EV subsides, but also factors that allowed them to reach an apparent profitability - for example, their service is nonexistent, while it used to be great. Basically they sold millions of cars, while their service centers are still scaled for thousands, not millions. This will a big financial liability, but not really visible in their financial for now.

But hey, they already transitioned to another business that promise to make even more money in the future with other promising tech ! AI anybody ?

This is some weird stock market doom and gloom astroturfing and is a massive stretch to discuss given the context of the OP

Also after reviewing your post history, it’s overwhelmingly you shitting on the same stocks with really ridiculous hyperbole and not much else. And a warren buffet quote thrown in for good measure.

Indeed, I'm quite fascinated by last 4 years in the stock market - and what happened with companies like Tesla !

A single event isn't a "track record". Though I guess he's been touting the Robotaxi idea for a long time and it still isn't anywhere on the horizon.

My FSD V12.3 disagrees with the last part of your statement... and the recent experiences of 1000s of others with the recent upgrade.

FSD being good isn't really the same as the Robotaxi idea. Robotaxi was where you could rent out your car and it could completely autonomously drive other people for a fare. Your car would make money.

I haven't seen 12.3 but other versions had some frightening mistakes in videos. It feels like it will eternally be 90% there but never actually reach the end goal of completely autonomy.

Personally I love Autopilot even if I only use it to drive on the freeways for me when I'm tired.

I think everybody understand that Musk (and others) were way to aggressive on self driving stuff. What their new version can do is impressive, but as you say, Robotaxi aren't all that close.

But do think saying this demo is fake based on to aggressive timelines for self driving is a stretch.

No, they were unequivocal lies. In 2019:“ I think we will be feature-complete full self-driving this year, meaning the car will be able to find you in a parking lot, pick you up, take you all the way to your destination without an intervention — this year. I would say that I am certain of that. That is not a question mark." [1].

See the part where he says: "That is not a question mark." That is called making a clear and direct, unequivocal, unqualified, statement that he knew for certain was wrong. That is called lying.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-doubles-down-on-cl...

Not if he believed what he was saying, which is about intent, and impossible to prove. It is rather a lot easier to make unfounded claims about someone's intention than it is to engineer self-driving cars, reusable rockets, high resolution BCIs, world wide space internet, and faster lighter cheaper underground tunnel boring machines, let alone all of them at once.

Thank the stars someone is not judging you so harshly.

Good thing the most stringent generally accepted burden of proof for intent is “beyond a reasonable doubt”, not “100% mathematically certain”.

In his situation, no sane person of even average intelligence would have any cause to believe that Tesla would have autonomous vehicles by the end of the year.

At the time the statement was made, 5 years after Tesla began development, Tesla had not even begun testing with no driver. It has been 5 years since then and FSD is still 10,000x worse than human drivers and they have still not even begun testing with no driver.

He was lying beyond any reasonable doubt.

As to your laundry list of marketing slide bullet points. Can you please identify how a list of claimed accomplishments proves a unrelated statement is not a lie?

I can see how it could prove someone is a habitual liar since Elon Musk has not delivered safer-than-human “self-driving cars”, “cheaper underground tunnel boring machines”, or “high resolution BCIs” so half of your supporting statements are outright fabrications that you made zero effort to validate before repeating.

If that is the standard of proof you apply, then I would thank the stars if people would judge me as uncritically. I could make up any fantasy and people would eat it up because how could they know I am lying, maybe I am just a colossal moron, but also a genius visionary.

> In his situation, no sane person of even average intelligence would have any cause to believe that Tesla would have autonomous vehicles by the end of the year.

You literally have no idea what work he's exposed to from his engineering teams, and you have become the thing you hate by making authoritative sounding statements about subjects which you cannot know everything.

If you can't prevent yourself from making such statements, I'm not sure how you expect anyone else to.

qed

Thank you for resorting to ad hominem, it shows you have run out of real arguments. But it is sad to see that you can not even resort to ad hominem without making logical fallacies.

In case you did not notice, it is Elon Musk who made the unequivocal, unqualified, direct, positive assertion that the cars would be self-driving by end of 2019. That demands clear and convincing evidence. To assert the absence of clear and convincing, as I have done, only demands establishing it is unclear or unconvincing, it does not reverse the standard to require me to prove the negative in a clear and convincing manner. You have failed to even apply to basic standards of burdens of proof as is commonly seen by those parroting the pernicious lies of Elon Musk.

But sure, let us assume my standard of proof is clear and convincing.

In 2019, they had not even begun testing with no human driver. I will repeat that, they had not even tested the claim at all in any official capacity. We know this because you are required to get a driverless testing permit before you begin testing and you must publicly report any driverless testing miles. Tesla has reported 0 miles as of 2024 as they have so far failed to even receive a permit. This is because they have not even done any driverless testing with a safety driver since 2016. 5 years after "That is not a question mark." they have still not even started testing.

In 2019, they were unable to detect and respond to "Do Not Enter" signs. 5 years later, they still can not detect and respond to "Do Not Enter" signs. You would have to be a colossal moron to believe the car will be better than a human driver when it still can not even handle the, what, 5th most common road sign? The road sign that tells you not to drive down a dangerous street. No normal person would believe the car will be ready within 1 year if it can not even handle common road signs and has been completely untested.

As to what he is exposed to from his engineering teams. We know from sworn testimony by the, now current director of Autopilot, that Elon Musk was made aware that the 2016 Autonomy Day demo introducing their self-driving system was done over multiple takes, using technology they have repeatedly declared they will not use in production products (such as HD mapping), and literally crashed during at least one of the takes [1]. Despite this, he still directed the initial frame of the video to state: "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself." That is direct and clear deception meant to insinuate the system is ready when the engineers directly and clearly indicate that it is not. Elon Musk demonstrably, literally, has a past record on this exact topic of being intentionally deceptive.

As to your statement that I, "literally have no idea what work he's exposed to", turns out I actually do know, so you are wrong on that as well. I actually have mutual friends with one of the former heads of Autopilot in the mid 2010s who repeatedly told Elon Musk that the systems were not ready. Despite that, Elon Musk announced that it would be safer than a human driver on a schedule that the engineers said was impossible (which we now know to be correct as they still can not do it nearly a decade after that deadline). He then fired the team when they failed to do the impossible. Then he fired the next team when they failed to deliver on his promises. Then he fired the next team. Then he fired the next team. Then I think he hired Karpathy, though maybe there were a few more firings in between that. Then he fired that team. Then I think he promoted the loyalist who helped make the deceiving 2016 demo.

He fired like half a dozen teams because they could not meet his insane deadlines showing that his promises were not based in what he learned from his engineering team, but lies in the hopes that a miracle would happen and make his lies into truth. I have not read his biography, but I have been told that this process of: "Promise it is almost ready. Relentlessly drive engineering team. Fail to meet deadline. Fire team so you now have nothing working. Promise the thing that was not working is now almost ready." is well documented.

So yeah. Your arguments consist entirely of logical fallacies and even then they do not hold water.

[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23574198-elluswamy-d...

> No normal person would believe the car will be ready within 1 year if it can not even handle common road signs and has been completely untested.

No normal person has access to custom built supercomputers to train AIs or teams of engineers dedicated to such. It's a weird false equivalency to base your entire argument on and leaves me to conclude that you would feel similarly about anyone engineering something which hasn't previously existed.

> He fired like half a dozen teams because they could not meet his insane deadlines showing that his promises were not based in what he learned from his engineering team, but lies in the hopes that a miracle would happen and make his lies into truth. I have not read his biography, but I have been told that this process of: "Promise it is almost ready. Relentlessly drive engineering team. Fail to meet deadline. Fire team so you now have nothing working. Promise the thing that was not working is now almost ready." is well documented.

If the man wasn't landing rockets, forcing the auto industry to electrify after even California failed to do so, connecting the world with Starlink, and allowing paralyzed people to live more fulfilling lives, you might have an argument? Whatever he's doing seems to work. Seems like a lot of problems just need management that believes the problem can be solved with enough investment and effort.

"In Australia and New Zealand, tall poppy syndrome refers to successful people being criticised. This occurs when their peers believe they are too successful, or are bragging about their success.[1][2] Intense scrutiny and criticism of such a person is termed as "cutting down the tall poppy"."

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome

And no, it is not established that because you cited one person's deposition and "mutual friends with one of the former heads of Autopilot" that you "actually do know" what work Elon is exposed to from his engineering teams. What a weird claim to make when you're not sitting in on the meetings yourself.

I find the thousands of hours of RE work done by https://www.youtube.com/@MunroLive to be a much more credible indicator of the kind of thinking and work that goes on at Tesla.

Your argument is that Elon Musk knows something we do not about how fast they are improving which is why every single year for a literal decade he has promised a unsupervised self driving system and every single year for that decade he has a produced a unsupervised self driving system that can not even read basic road signs, is 10,000x worse than a human driver, has not even begun validation, and that has killed tens to hundreds of people. Your argument flies in the face of reality. He is demonstrably unable to predict progress by literal factors of thousands and yet makes unequivocal statements that it will be completed in timelines that would be impossible even if the product were literally already done and only validation was required.

And again you go to irrelevant arguments. Are you saying that it is okay to lie aggressively just because you happen to get it right in unrelated fields? Because as we see, he is totally and utterly wrong on his self-driving promises. But that is okay because he lies all the time and sometimes it works out? Who cares about the lying as long as we electrify the auto industry. Oh, should we also overlook all the ridiculous racism in the factories as well? And all those people they killed for no reason are just fertilizer for a glorious future, they should be glad that they could be sacrificed.

At this point I am bored of this thread since I have already made my point and all you do is present the bad faith and irrelevant PR bullet points parroted by the Elon Musk cult. Anybody who is actually reading this thread should see how fallacious and morally bankrupt that position is so I am done here. Have fun.

Bored and pissed off at successful people is a rough way to live life, buddy. I feel for you. I know hating on Elon is the popular thing to be doing these days, but you don't have to demonize folks you don't agree with. I happen to appreciate the work each of his companies are doing. I appreciate the level of engineering knowledge apparent in discussions with him, which in my experience is unusual at the management level. No one else out there is building Starship - Jeff Bezos and NASA included. And my appreciation for all these things stems from a multidisciplinary understandin of the complexity of the engineering and organizational and economic efforts involved in making a Mars shot not only viable but profitable and sustainable. Elon has absolutely done things I don't agree with - everyone has - that just doesn't prevent me from appreciating the things he invests his time and effort and resources into doing, when he doesn't need to.

I think it's fair to say that autopilot hasn't worked out as quickly as Musk had hoped. But I also find myself forced in the same breath to acknowledge that Tesla has made a great deal of progress, maybe more than any other car company, at solving a problem I've paid attention to since the DARPA grand challenge days.

I think it's wonderful to have big dreams as a society, and to reach for them, and accomplish them. It's inspiring. Maybe you should take notes. Thanks for expressing yourself.

The headline is wrong, the video was not faked (nor edited). The guy just said what was in the video was not currently shipping to customers, i.e. it was a tech demo.

That's not faked though.. according to your link they tried multiple times and only showed the success video. But the statement that the software drove with no intervention was accurate, and the video was authentic.

That's at least misleading. By that standard, the current video wouldn't be fake if the subject were primarily operating his computer through eye-tracking software, since no explicit representations were made about the mechanism of control.

The link says that the route was pre-determined, pre-mapped, tried multiple times and crashed once during the trials.

By the same logic, this video would not be faked even if in fact it's the same chess move he tried for 2 months and it's the only one working, and also another patient died.

Not saying it's the case - clearly not. But yeah, let's be real.

This was live streamed

How about that time they claimed the Cybertruck beats a Porsche in a 1/4 mile race, but they only did a 1/8 mile race and then just made up a 1/4 mile time based on their feelings? [1]

Or that time they lied about 120,000 defective suspensions that broke causing crashes and fatalities and then blamed their customers and covered it up so they would not have to issue a recall in the US (they were forced to issue a recall for the issue in China)? [2]

A decade of unequivocal lies about delivering autonomous vehicles [3] while knowingly killing tens to hundreds.

But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRYS5VWXZts

[2] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-mu....

[3] https://dawnproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Elon-Musk...

Speculative mud slinging

You reap what you sow

Exactly my thoughts, unfortunately.

But giving it the benefit of the doubt, this looks mind blowing to me !

It was kind of known that the research and tech is almost there for a while already, but seeing the demonstration live like that - incredible !

But then it takes me back to those Musk companies - maybe it's just a repackaged already available research presented in a nice way - making us believe it could be 'deployed' in real world, while in reality it can only be done in a very controlled environment. And we are led to believe that we are '2 weeks away' from it being widely available. Hope we're wrong here.

The resulting brain infection will quit literally be mind blowing

Rather surprised at how many are taking this at face value, given the track record.

I want to know how big the GPU crunching all the numbers is to make this work...

The mouse seems to move very nicely and smoothly (60 FPS?) which presumably means the neural net which converts raw sensor data to mouse movements is running in ~15 milliseconds.

Most neural nets don't do a forward pass in 15ms unless they're either tiny or the GPU is very powerful.

Every possible breakthrough is now a demo on Twitter without much technical context.

Oh my fauci! I can't wait to get ads served directly into my brain

This video kinda looks like the patient really likes their new implant and it's abilities, but is pretty frustrated they now need to do more trials/make marketing videos for the implant when they just want to get on with their life...

Almost out of the loop about Neuralink's tech. Is it EEG?

It's previously involved neural implantation in animals. The video doesn't make it clear what's going on, here.

not exactly it is a bunch of wires measuring differential voltages inside the brain not on surface of the skull. So you get a much better specificity in the signals (think of it as resolution). even if you out 1000 probes on a skull you wouldn't get much information.

Is it EEG? or any other tech?

Musk says "Blindsight is the next @Neuralink product after Telepathy."

Let's see, I think after that, the next product should be Magic Missle. Or maybe Sanctuary?

I’ll believe this when it’s independently verified.

It is fascinating. But looking at this guy condition, playing games would be IMHO not the prio. I would hook up the remote controlling to a robotic exoskeleton, for just be back and function normal. I guess that also can be detected ( intention to move feet or hands in any direction ).

But let's see, we are really at the beginning.

Well I don't think those exoskeletons even really exist yet. So baby steps.

Of course, but that’s going to take so much more time and effort. You can see how much joy this man is in just having the autonomy to move a mouse again. That’s honestly amazing.

I don't think it can simultaneously control the dozens of degrees of freedom that a robot would have. Yet. You only need three degrees of freedom for a mouse with button. That alone is transformational for a quadriplegic.

there is good works done in this article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06094-5

https://www.cea.fr/english/Pages/News/brain-computer-interfa...

Better than an exoskeleton is a second implant below his C4/5 to reconnect his spinal chord with his brain via wifi.

That is very likely neuralink’s plan

IIRC they are doing that test in pigs right now

Neurolink has already said that this is the plan. This is one of the first steps.

They are solving the easiest things first of course

Your idea is that the priority should have been, instead of first getting a mouse working on his laptop, to hook him up to some kind of robotic exoskeleton?

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