Is Brain-Computer Interface Technology A Scam?
How can Neuralink account for the unconscious mind? How much of it is real technology, and how much of it is only wishful thinking? #artificialintelligence #metaverse #web3 #neuralink
Last year, the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk boasted on Twitter that he uploaded his brain to the cloud, presumably referring to his brain-computer interface company Neuralink.
Neuralink, which specializes in the development and application of brain-computer interface technology, has conducted experiments on monkeys, through implantable chips, allowing them to play games and type words through their minds.
Brain-computer interface technology has gained a lot of attention in recent years, especially with someone as influential as Elon Musk at the helm touting its wild promises.
However, many people have raised questions about the legitimacy of this technology. It does sound too good to be true, how is “mapping our brain” possible to do that we have not even created robots that can talk exactly like us?
Sophia, a social humanoid robot that was given a Saudi Arabia citizenship. She is the most advanced example of our robots today. Credit : Hanson Robotics
In this blog post, we will examine the evidence and determine whether brain-computer interface technology is an actual possibility or just wishful thinking.
To begin with, brain-computer interface technology is the study of how to connect the brain to external devices for information exchange. It mainly focuses on three aspects: information acquisition, signal translation, and signal execution. Despite the hype, the application of brain-computer interface technology is at best a pseudo-proposition and at worst a gimmicky scam to stoke the fires of Musk Mania. Here are the various reasons :
First of all, while it is true that monkeys in the experiment are able to play games and type words using their minds, these tasks actually only require a limited number of signals, making them relatively easy to achieve. The gaming controls consist of five signals : up, down, left, right, punch and 26 letters to type - all relatively easy to execute. Humans just have no comprehension that monkeys are not that far apart from us, and hence the public gets overexcited about the overhyped Neuralink monkeys.
Credit : Neuralink
The human brain is much more complex than this, and the Neuralink technology is not yet advanced enough to handle the vast amounts of information the brain provides. There is a significant gap between the basic theory of general AI understanding of the brain signals and the advanced human brain processing that requires logical reasoning. It is unrealistic to expect brain-computer interface technology we have now to be able to revolutionize the way we interact with the world.
Secondly, the human brain is not a good interface for a computer. The EEG signals recorded from the brain are often interspersed with continuous signal segments of invalid information, which will affect the accuracy of the translation of these signals into a computer. Think about how chaotic our own minds are! It is challenging to control the brain, to force it to focus on only one thing without distractions. For example, when you are communicating with people at work, you might think of a gazillion different unrelated things during the conversation. These types of disruptive information will be recorded with a brain-computer interface technology and cause confusion. It is very difficult to determine the brain's true intentions and pick which ones should be mapped into the computer’s programming.
According to cognitive neuroscientists, we are conscious of only about 5 percent of our cognitive activity, so most of our decisions, actions, emotions, and behaviour depends on the 95 percent of brain activity that goes beyond our conscious awareness. How can Neuralink account for the unconscious mind?
A Freudian mind model. Credit : Wikipedia
That is why human brain signal is an open set with a very high volume of information. It is not the most suitable organ to be connected to a robot or a computer device. Our hands are actually the most suitable body parts to connect to the computer, as how it has been done so far with PCs, smartphones, and laptops. We use mouse and keyboard to capture action signals and translate our expressions into the computer. The hand-computer interface is more convenient, accurate and effective than brain-computer interface signal acquisitions. The simpler the information dimension is, the easier it is for us to express digitally. The brain is an extremely informative organ, but it has too dense and chaotic an influx of information which makes it not the most ideal channel for computerized expressions.
Despite these limitations, brain-computer interface technology has shown some hopeful applications in the field of healthcare. The brain-computer interface can assist patients with paralysis, acromegaly, Parkinson's disease, and other similar conditions to express themselves via robot and computers’ help.
A patient with amputated arms is moving a robotic arm with his thoughts. The modular robotic prosthesis was developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). Credit : Beckett Mufson
However, for normal and healthy people, the brain-computer interface technology that we currently have now is more of a discussion topic instead of a practical tool. Our brains can command our bodies directly to do way more things than what Neuralink can enable us do.
In conclusion, while the brain-computer interface technology has some useful applications, it is not yet advanced enough to revolutionize the way we interact with the world. The human brain is much more complex than we currently understand, and there is still so much to the infinite human consciousness we cannot measure accurately with any empirical scientific method.
Hence, instead of getting carried away with a marketing buzzword concept, it is better to evaluate the matter objectively.