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Robotics Medicine Technology

A Closer Look At Elon Musk's Neuralink Surgical Robot (techcrunch.com) 44

Earlier today, Elon Musk demonstrated his startup Neuralink's brain link device working in a pig named Gertrude. While the science and the device itself were front-and-center at the presentation, the surgical robot the company debuted is equally as important because it's designed to handle the full surgical installation process. "That includes opening up the scalp, removing a portion of the skull, inserting the hundreds of 'thread' electrodes 6mm deep along with the accompanying chip, then closing the incision," reports CNET. TechCrunch takes a closer look at the robot: The rounded polycarbonate sci-fi design of the brain surgeon bot looks like something out of the Portal franchise, but it's actually the creation of Vancouver-based industrial design firm Woke Studio. To be clear, Musk's engineers and scientists have created the underlying technology, but Woke built the robot's look and user experience, as well as the behind-the-ear communication end piece that Neuralink has shown in prior presentations. Neuralink's bot features clean white (required for ensuring sterility, per Woke), arcing lines and smooth surfaces for a look that at once flags its advanced technical capabilities, but also contains some soothing and more approachable elements, which is wise considering what the machine is intended to do.

Woke says the Neuralink surgical robot can be separated into three main parts: The head, the body and base. The head of the robot is that helmet-like piece, which actually holds the head of the patient. It also includes a guide for the surgical needle, as well as embedded cameras and sensors to map the patent's brain. The intent of the design of this piece, which includes a mint-colored interior, is to give the robot "an anthroprmorphic characteristic" that helps distract from the invasive nature of the procedure. There are also single-use disposable bags that line the interior of the helmet for sterile operation. The Neuralink robot also has a "body," that humped rear assembly, which includes all the parts responsible for the motion of the robot as it sets up from the procedure. The third element is the base, which basically keeps the whole thing from tipping over, and apparently also contains the computing brains of the brain-bot itself.

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A Closer Look At Elon Musk's Neuralink Surgical Robot

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  • I've seen what happens when you give Tesla software autonomous control of a car. If you think it's a good idea to let Tesla software control a device drilling holes in your skull and threading wires into your brain... well perhaps you deserve what you get.
    • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Saturday August 29, 2020 @01:46AM (#60451994)

      First of all, there was only few accidents out of billions of miles driven and over a million cars on the road. If you are so stupid to think a few accidents means something is unsafe you probably should go in ANY car. AS for these implants, I am pretty sure the people who would get this implants in the beginning are quadriplegics looking to gain some abilities they lost. They of course would be aware of the risks and taking a calculated chance because this technology could help a LOT of people. Sad people like you would have banned automobiles, airplanes, and rockets with your cynicism and pessimistic outlook.

      • by doom ( 14564 )

        If you are so stupid to think a few accidents means something is unsafe you probably should go in ANY car.

        That's been my policy for years. If you ask me it's stunningly obvious. I mean, you must've heard this one: "driving is the most dangerous thing most people do". Given that, it's pretty obvious you should try to do less of it, right?

    • by DrXym ( 126579 )
      Well it's not Tesla per se but it's backed by the same huckster lying through his teeth to sell the tech. There may be some neurological conditions & disabilities that a neural implant may eventually help with. It doesn't mean this implant will do so, certainly not in its current form or necessarily ever since presumably they would have to demonstrate a treatment and have it pass clinical trials. Wheeling out some pig and proclaiming or insinuating it'll cure parkinsons, dementia, spinal injuries etc. i
      • Sure, neural implants are great. I have a friend with a neural implant to control Parkinsons. The problem I'm commenting on is the software controlled surgical robot to install the Neuralink.
        • by DrXym ( 126579 )
          I think the robot is the most plausible thing about the sales pitch and that isn't saying much.
    • https://www.marxists.org/archi... [marxists.org]
      "Take, as a starting point, the perfect man such as the doctors, the eugenists and the public health officers between them hope to make of humanity: a man living perhaps an average of a hundred and twenty years but still mortal, and increasingly feeling the burden of this mortality. Already Shaw in his mystical fashion cries out for life to give us hundreds of years to experience, learn and understand; but without the vitalist's faith in the efficacy of human will we shall h

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  • by fred911 ( 83970 ) on Friday August 28, 2020 @11:37PM (#60451866) Journal

    So they've built a device that can currently connect 1024 neurons in a human brain. With the device they've currently proved able to connect to neurons, and predict their state, how do you do the same with 86 billion neurons? And once you've done that, how do you export that much data [and the error correction overhead] externally before it's stale? Not to mention, interpretation is just as significant a challenge.

    But I do believe the motivation behind the presentation, recruitment. The possibility of communicating thought without analogue conversion to an analogue recipient without error correction [aside from ''what's that?] or standardized, static rules of interpretation is quite the dream.. isn't it?

    • by neoRUR ( 674398 )

      Well we don't have to probe all of the neurons, only ones that are important for the task.
      The idea is to start recording all the neurons while performing actions so that we can look at the patterns and start building models of how the brain neurons work (Alot of this is already known in neuroscience).
      But as you said, how do you get the wires to all neurons. I will think if it another way. What if 1 person does 10 neurons. and you have implants in 100 million people (or pigs), looking at different parts, the

      • by Motard ( 1553251 )

        Well we don't have to probe all of the neurons, only ones that are important for the task.

        Buying Teslas?

    • You don't need to!

      Our senses and muscles aren't connected directly to all neurons either. It's enough to connect to some, and with training it, the brain will reconfigure to use that new periphery. The brain's amazing that way. It doesn't take long until a robotic arm attached via only very few electrodes, uses normally, to feed yourself.

      A neurally connected car would soon feel like a normal part of your body.

      (Of course I don't trust anyone to connect their machinery to my brain. Let alone a for-profit busi

      • by fred911 ( 83970 )

        Good point for autonomic systems. It's obviously the first application or benefit that humans will find from this technology.

        It makes one think. The apex of this technology would be the ability to transfer or communicate creative thought, error free, to another recipient in a timely manner. Currently the digital to analogue [written words, physical expressions, language] to the recipient who also must parse or interpret an observation and then process it digitally with a unique OS has been the bane

        • by physick ( 146658 )

          I doubt that the apex you speak of is achievable: there are areas of the brain known to be involved in producing speech (Broca's area) and understanding it (Wernike's area) but there is no specific area devoted to "creative thought". We'd have to record from a huge number of neurons and still now know which ones were actually responsible for the thoughts.

          But you could get a person to silently say their thoughts and then record from just Broca's area and transmit that. If someone else is standing nearby with

          • However, there has been some success in reading images from the visual cortex - including, if I recall correctly, _imagined_ images (technically, remembered I think).

            Imagine the potential for creative communication if you could transmit such raw imagined images between brains - like having telepathic whiteboards that operate as fast as you can clearly imagine - that would be orders of magnitude faster for communicating complex and detailed concepts. It could also have some very interesting knock-on effects

        • by HiThere ( 15173 )

          I'd bet against him, because it's too early. This is a really early model. If we're comparing with cars, it's one of the models several models before the model T.

          • by fred911 ( 83970 )

            ''I'd bet against him, because it's too early''

            Well, you have more balls than I. I also believe that the value of research in this field in it's infancy has value not yet realized or applied, and that there will be subsequent marketable and useful discoveries made while attempting to solve an incredible goal that we currently believe is unobtainable.

            I mean it's not like he's thinking about how populate mars or anything crazy like that... right?[this is satire.. laugh].

    • Let's pretend we did establish a method of transferring data between brains (kind of like an electronic msg), is there a fundamental limit to the speed we can interpret that data? Somehow we would need to route the incoming data through normal channels (e.g. words or images transformed into ideas/thought), it's possible those channels are the limit, not the sensory processing and decoding of the original signals.

      The alternative to routing the acquisition of the data through existing channels would be to
  • by Stoutlimb ( 143245 ) on Saturday August 29, 2020 @12:56AM (#60451946)

    Initially I was excited, but after reading the description, I'm more reminded by the technology used to create Servitors in the Warhammer 40K universe. I'm unsettled.

  • by praedictus ( 61731 ) on Saturday August 29, 2020 @08:00AM (#60452484) Journal
    Great. If you think we have a problems with opiates, just wait till this technology is used to create wireheads.
    • Wireheads would in many ways I think be a very different kind of problem than we've ever seen before - the first "drug" with zero incremental cost. That would likely accelerate the final decline of hopeless addicts, those who have given up on trying to maintain a normal life in favor of sitting perpetually blissed out and forgetting to eat.

      On the other hand - no cost means no need to sacrifice other aspects of your life (or turn to theft) to fund your addiction. It would likely also be free of inherent sho

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  • It's quite possible that neural implants can help with some forms of brain disease but the way this is being hyped screams snakeoil and hucksterism.
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