Is Elon Musk over-hyping his brain-hacking

Neuralink tech?

Rory Cellan-Jones
Technology correspondent
@BBCRoryCJon Twitter

Published
11 hours ago

IMAGE COPYRIGHTNEURALINK
image captionElon Musk live-streamed a progress report on his Neuralink technology
late last week
He is the most charismatic figure in technology with some amazing achievements to
his name, from making electric cars desirable to developing rockets that can return
to earth and be reused.
But dare to suggest that anything Elon Musk does is not groundbreaking or visionary
and you can expect a backlash from the great man and his army of passionate fans.
That is what happened when a British academic criticised Musk's demo on Friday of his
Neuralink project - and the retaliation he faced was largely my fault.
Neuralink is a hugely ambitious plan to link the human brain to a computer. It might
eventually allow people with conditions such as Parkinson's disease to control their
physical movements or manipulate machines via the power of thought.
There are plenty of scientists already at work in this field. But Musk has far greater
ambitions than most, talking of developing "superhuman cognition" - enhancing the
human brain in part to combat the threat he sees from artificial intelligence.
Friday night's demo involved a pig called Gertrude fitted with what the tech tycoon
described as a "Fitbit in your skull". A tiny device recorded the animal's neural activity
and sent it wirelessly to a screen.
A series of beeps happened every time her snout was touched, indicating activity in the
part of her brain seeking out food. "I think this is incredibly profound", commented Musk.
Some neuroscience experts were not quite as impressed.
media captionGertrude the pig had the chip implanted two months ago
The UK's Science Media Centre, which does a good job of trying to make complex
scientific stories accessible, put out a press release quoting Prof Andrew Jackson,
professor of neural interfaces at Newcastle University.
"I don't think there was anything revolutionary in the presentation," he said.
"But they are working through the engineering challenges of placing multiple electrodes
into the brain.
"In terms of their technology, 1,024 channels is not that impressive these days, but the
electronics to relay them wirelessly is state-of-the-art, and the robotic implantation is
nice.
"The biggest challenge is what you do with all this brain data. The demonstrations were
actually quite underwhelming in this regard, and didn't show anything that hasn't been
done before."
He went on to question why Neuralink's work was not being published in peer-reviewed
papers.
I took his words and his summary of the demo - "this is solid engineering but mediocre
neuroscience" - and posted a tweet.
Within hours Musk tweeted this reply: "It is unfortunately common for many in
academia to overweight the value of ideas and underweight bringing them to fruition.
For example, the idea of going to the moon is trivial, but going to the moon is hard."
Many of his 38 million followers appeared to agree, some rather forcefully.
"Academia's full of people who think they're the smartest guy in the room at any given
moment, but are in fact kinda dumb," wrote one.
Another said: "If we waited for peer reviews for the Tesla we would still be waiting for
the product. Make it and they will come."
And a tired cliche about teachers was also rolled out.
"That is the difference between an academic (those who can, do, and those that can't,
teach) and an industrial visionary that gets things done."
Brain enhancing
This morning, I contacted Prof Jackson to apologise for provoking this Twitter pile-on.
He laughed and said he was not very active on social media. In any case, he added,
Musk had said worse things about other people.
 IMAGE COPYRIGHTNEURALINK
image captionMr Musk said the initial Neuralink device had enough range to connect to
a nearby smartphone via Bluetooth
Far from being stuck in an ivory tower, Prof Jackson is involved in practical research.
He has explored helping spinal injury patients by relaying signals from their brains to
their spinal cords to restore some arm movements.
He makes no great claim to be at the forefront of human computer-interface research
but knows the field well, and can point to academics who have made significant
advances without receiving the publicity that Musk enjoys.
He stressed that he had not intended to appear negative.
"Everyone who's been working in this field for a while is excited by the possibilities that
come when you get big tech companies and enthusiastic supporters trying to put money
behind this," he said.
But while he was impressed by Neuralink's technology, he said he was sceptical about
the talk of using it to read and write memories and otherwise enhance brain functions.
He explained that, while neuroscientists have made progress in understanding how the
brain controls movement, how it processes thoughts and memories is still a mystery.
• Neuralink: Elon Musk unveils pig with chip in its brain
• Elon Musk reveals brain-hacking plans
• Elon Musk creates Neuralink brain electrode firm

For all his achievements, Musk has a tendency to exaggerate how quickly his
technology will advance.
Four years ago, he told me that within a couple of years, a Tesla would be able to drive
itself solo across the US, stopping to recharge itself along the way. That has yet to
happen.
And his prediction that Tesla would have one million robotaxis on the roads by this
year now seems fanciful.
It was only this weekend that the firm's cars received a software update to their
Autopilot system to recognise speed-limit signs, something you might have thought
essential for safe autonomous driving.
The whole point of tech visionaries is that they think big.
But without the academics of whom he has been critical, Musk's dream of enhancing
the human brain with a digital interface is unlikely to be realised.
And here's the irony - the stated aim of the demo with Gertrude the pig was to
encourage scientists to come and join Neuralink. Those following him on Twitter may
not be convinced it is worth coming along for the ride.