Elon Musk’s quest to wirelessly connect human brains with machines has run into a seemingly impossible obstacle, experts say. The company is now asking the public for help finding a solution.
Musk’s startup Neuralink, which is in the early stages of testing in human subjects, is pitched as a brain implant that will let people control computers and other devices using their thoughts. Some of Musk’s predictions for the technology include letting paralyzed people “walk again and use their arms normally.”
Turning brain signals into computer inputs means transmitting a lot of data very quickly. A problem for Neuralink is that the implant generates about 200 times more brain data per second than it can currently wirelessly transmit. Now, the company is seeking a new algorithm that can transmit this data in a smaller package — a process called compression — through a public challenge.
As a barebones web page announcing the Neuralink Compression Challenge posted on Thursday explains, “[greater than] 200x compression is needed.” The winning solution must also run in real time, and at low power.
Brain machine interface development has been around for a lot longer than nueralink. Musk is just better at getting his stuff into the headlines. Yes, the idea is good and beneficial to humanity, but then so are electric cars. That’s part of Musk’s grift. He latches onto something genuinely good and turns it into his pet project so that any criticism of how he does it can easily be deflected, because he’s automatically the good guy just for being there at all.