Brain-machine interface turns fiction into reality – 02/20/2024 – Luciano Melo

For decades, devices installed inside the skull have improved biological functions to alleviate some clinical conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease and certain epilepsies. Electronic implants have also been bringing hearing to people with specific causes of deafness for some time now. These devices are the pioneers of brain-machine interfaces used in medicine. But there are new directions that deviate, as we will see, from traditional medicine. Thanks to this emerging field, an individual unable to speak or move have the chance, with mechanical support, to communicate or to move. In these cases, electrodes capture the electrical activity of neurons, and algorithms produced by artificial intelligence decode it to produce a robotic action. As a synthesis, an individual controls machines with thought. However, these devices are not yet produced on an industrial scale and must be improved.

The country that masters this science will guarantee a privileged position. A China runs and invests heavily. As a result, its publications on this topic grow in relevance and numbers. However, the greatest advances and most visionary perspectives come from the USA. Mark Zuckerberg, the American owner of Facebook, plans to launch a brain-machine interface that will make communication through the mind possible. According to the billionaire’s plans, sensors on the skin will detect neural spikes and electrical waves so that they can be transformed into words. People with disabilities will be able to express themselves appropriately.

The task of reading the brain is arduous, a mission susceptible to a lot of interference. A mental command, whether to speak or to move a limb, is a set of electrical signals, produced in conjunction with many others, with or without purposes. The brain is always busy, carrying out its routine, in conscious and unconscious processes. Therefore, to interpret a specific mental order, it is necessary to have a precise filter that ignores noise, but does not miss pertinent, but possibly subtle, desires. Another obstacle, the brain is plastic, which means changeable. In this way, the mental activity used to produce a movement is improved and will be different from what it was last week. When someone discovers that there are more types of oranges than limes or pears the electrical signals for the word “orange” change. And they will transform again when this same person learns that “orange” also designates a subject involved in dishonest practices. Therefore, an effective brain-machine interface will have to recalibrate itself automatically and consider that an electrode can change position and capture signals differently.

To date, there is no device capable of accurately reproducing speech using electrodes on the skin. But when the sensors are placed in direct contact with the neurons, the task progresses. In this case, the barriers made up of skin, bones and membranes are overcome, and the signal is captured clearer and more intense. The disadvantage is that implantation requires surgery, always with immediate and late risks. Intracranial sensors were placed in humans when there was more of a well-established purpose, not just an experiment for a machine to perform a will, but the invasive monitoring of epilepsies. The devices are neither permanent nor reimplantable.

Here then is billionaire Elon Musk. After sacrificing 1,500 monkeys in tests, he obtained approval from the American regulatory agency to use intracranial chips in humans. Months later, Musk announced that his company, Neuralink, had implanted its brain-computer interface in a person for the first time, designed to record thoughts related to movement. The entrepreneur has a commercial intention and wants to one day sell this chip or one of its derivatives. And its strategy is surprising for being invasive, something that differs from most startups that don’t even penetrate the scalp.

Musk’s ultimate goal makes Zuckerberg look like an ordinary slob. The owner of Neuralink aims to obtain the best brain signal, the richest and purest, to understand all neurological functioning. To this end, he contributes a lot of money, an intangible monetary dream for universities around the world. The billionaire wants to build a world in which the brain-computer interface makes the human brain indistinguishable from artificial intelligence. The company’s future aspirations include telepathy, enhanced sensory and motor skills, and digital immortality. The gaming experience can also be very immersive.

Will one day the application of brain-machine interface translate human thoughts into speech, but without losing the refinements of intonation, rhythm and accent? The imagination can be reproduced precisely for images, texts or any type of object? Can we extract the essence of a person’s ego and transfer it to software? Will we be able to understand consciousness and what exists before it, thought and pre-cognition? Will electronic resources change how we compete or cooperate with our peers, and will acquiring the best or worst technology determine success or failure, not only professionally, but personally? What will privacy be like in a universe in which machines will access biological information, intangible to human reasoning? Or are we just talking about a factoid, and the mind will remain a great mystery?

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