Neuralink’s Newest Brain Chip Isn’t What You Think（原声文稿）

This robot is putting a computer chip into a human brain.

This is Neuralink's next -gen R1 surgical robot, and it's one of several new ways scientists are now combining your brain with a computer, which sounds like science fiction because it is, but not anymore.

And you need to know about this right now, because human clinical trials are happening, and this tech is moving fast, and some people want to use it to make you superhuman.

So it could be like Jordy Loforge in Star Trek and you can see in Radar, you can see in infrared. Captain, we can do it.

But I think most people are missing what's really huge if true here.

This story isn't about trying to make us more like machines.

It's actually one of the most cutting -edge ways to keep us human.

The first step, if you want a brain chip, is you need to scan your brain.

If you took your brain out of your head, it'd be about as heavy as a supermarket chicken.

And if you touched it, it would feel like... Oh, squishy. Whoa.

It's firmer than I thought.

It feels like the inside of a kiwi. It feels like a mango.

It feels like wires, everything a fruit.

It feels like a wet hot dog. I don't like it.

About a fifth of the blood from your every heartbeat goes into your brain.

And the fact that it's pulsating is really alarming.

And you've probably heard that your brain is like a computer.

And at first, that comparison works, because your brain and a computer are both really just processors, right? Input in, output out.

You hit a key and your computer processes that and sends it to the monitor.

You see a cup about to fall off the table and your brain processes that and then and sends a signal to your arm to catch it.

But if the human brain is a computer, it is by far the most complicated computer we've ever seen.

There are more connections in there than galaxies in the observable universe.

So if you wanna become superhuman, you need to hack that processor.

Over 200 years ago, we figured out that your brain uses electrical signals to send little messages.

And those messages travel all throughout your body, along basically think of them like a series of super highways.

And as our tech improved, we got better and better at reading those messages as they tell your body what to do. So in a way, your brain IS you.

I sometimes imagine I'm trapped up here and I'm operating this squishy meat robot with little signals and then getting signals back from my senses.

And you can watch this happening.

In this brain scan, if you try and move your hand, what's lighting up here is actually a rush of blood bringing oxygen to this one part of your brain, where it fuels neurons which fire electrical and chemical signals to pass the message along, sell the cell down your spine, out your arm until it gets to your hand and says, hey, move.

When he's moving his left hand, we'll see a signal in the right side of the brain and the right hand will produce a signal on the left side. And you see those folds?

What I think is really cool is if you could peel your skull back and look inside, what you'd see is that your brain folds are unique. You've got a brain fingerprint.

What's not unique though is where your brain processes information.

Different regions are responsible for handling different tasks, so if you or I are looking at something, we're both using this part, or speaking, this part, or moving our hands. That's this part.

This little region called the hand knob. And so now we know that his hand knob is right there. Exactly.

Your hand knob is inside your motor cortex, and that motor cortex is the key that unlocks brain -computer interfaces today.

This is where we want to put our threads to record motor intent. Intent. This is really important.

When I first heard about brain chips, I thought, oh my god, they're gonna be able to read my thoughts.

But that's not how this tech actually works. At least, not yet.

What they're actually doing is reading your intention to move.

Because when your brain fires that signal down the highway to move your hand, it feels instantaneous, but it's not.

It takes time for that signal to move from point A, where intention starts in my brain to point B, where the action happens in my hand.

And the brain -computer interface wants to read the signal along the highway. So before the action, but after the thought.

So what's happening is not, read my brain and tell me my dog's name.

But it is, I'm trying to speak my dog's name, Thor, and it can read those signals on the way to my mouth. So it's like neural lip reading, essentially.

Lip reading, not mind reading.

The message is already being sent. It's the job of the brain -computer interface to reroute where it's going.

We initially had a wire version, so this is a standard USB -C connector that was going through the skin. You plugged a USB -C into someone's head.

So there was a moment where we actually plugged it to download data and it felt like the matrix. This version was 2018 -2019. Wow, that's way more recent than I thought.

What you can read from a brain chip depends on where you place it, not just the location in the brain, but how exactly you get it in there.

A few decades ago, they could place electrodes on the outside of your head, like this, and they still use this today.

But that's kind of like being in a blimp, flying over a stadium, trying to figure out what sort of game is being played below.

You can sort of see what's happening, but you're way too far away to get specific information.

You can still kind of get a sense of how the game is going by the general booze the cheers of the home crowd, but you actually don't know what's really happening in the game.

To find out what's really going on, we need to get inside the stadium.

But as you try and get that clearer signal, you're trying to balance how much information you get with bandwidth versus invasiveness because human brain.

The more specific game time information you want, the closer to the playing field you need to be.

So for example, another company, Synchron, has a really groundbreaking option to avoid neurosurgery altogether.

What they do is they send an implant through a vein in the neck that sits on a blood vessel above the motor cortex.

So now you're in the stadium. And importantly, this isn't very invasive.

But you're in the nosebleeds. You can see the game better, but you're still pretty far from the action. Let's get closer.

You can actually put arrays on top of the brain. That's the bet that precision neuroscience is taking.

Precision, which is our company, uses a sensor array that has tiny little platinum electrodes in a film that coats the brain surface.

Their device is as small as a postage stamp.

It needs to be inserted through a small slit in the skull. That's brain surgery, so it's more invasive.

But now you're much closer to the field. You can definitely see the score and you have a wide view.

But there's another option. The final approach requires going directly into your brain tissue.

So if you wanna actually get off the microphones into the huddle that the players are having, you then need to actually go into the brain.

Like with this little device. It's made up of metal and silicon.

It looks a little scary, and yet it's been used in humans since 2004, making it one of the oldest and most trusted brain -computer interfaces.

It's called the Utah Array.

It can identify individual neurons firing, making it extremely precise at reading those little messages.

It's like putting the microphone inside the huddle.

But to zoom out, all of these different approaches come with different benefits and trade -offs.

The main trade -off with the Utah Array is that it's very rigid and your brain is not.

As your brain is moving, you know, this is still causes scarring every time.

Norling wanted to put the microphone in the huddle, but they wanted to do it in a way that would move with your brain. So they built this. What am I looking at here? It's beautiful.

So, what you're looking at, there are hundreds and hundreds of those ultra -thin, flexible wires that we call threads.

This is Neuralink's brain chip, the N1 implant. They call it the link.

The part of this implant that goes into the brain is only about four to five millimeters.

And if you look at each individual thread through a microscope, you see those dots?

Those are each electrodes, the microphones.

And these things record those tiny electrical chatters from the neurons, and then there's electronics to amplify them, process them, you know, filter them at the frequency band that we're interested in.

That's over a thousand little microphones listening in to the messages your brain is sending.

Then it takes those messages and sends it via Bluetooth to a device.

No more sticking a USB in your brain. The trouble is, your brain is amazing, but it's also a hostile place.

It doesn't want a computer chip in there We're about to go into the clean room where they make the link and to do that I need to go as they just said full bunny But wait, Honestly, I think I feel my coolest in a clean room outfit The reason why we have to put all of this on is not to protect us from the chips.

It's to protect the chips from us We're so dirty one of the biggest problems that they had to solve was how to power this device Because you really don't want it getting too hot and then frying your brain tissue You don't really care if your phone is heating while it's on a charging pad, whereas in this case, we do care.

And you definitely can't risk it leaking, or something leaking into it, which means you have to be really careful about how you build and test these devices.

To make sure these are as brain -friendly as possible, they assemble and test them all here.

So when all is said and done, this entire implant is going to sit flush with my skull, covered by skin, completely invisible from the outside. just to be clear, not on me, not today. But I will try and insert one into someone else. Ready to implant the chip?

So what we're looking at is a 3D printed head of Dan, who you spoke to earlier.

And the brain is based on Dan's real brain scans.

So this is a highly realistic model that we can practice on.

And when I say realistic, uncomfortably realistic.

As you can see, each individual threads are very tiny and flexible so that it would be impossible for any person to be able to handle them and manipulate them by hand.

This meant Neuralink had to do something no other company had.

They had to invent a robot to implant the device. This is the next gen R1 surgical robot.

Its main job is to put a computer chip in people's brains. And this is the first time they're unveiling it.

This semi -autonomous robot makes brain surgery look easy.

Special cameras map the brain surface where the implant will go.

And then paired with extra sensors, it updates the map in real time to avoid the tiny blood vessels on the surface of the brain.

And then, one by one, this extremely fine needle grabs a thread of the implant and sinks it into the brain.

Each thread only takes about one and a half seconds to insert. Holy cow.

So once I have a brain chip, what can I actually do with it?

Think about it. What would you want to do?

What is your optimistic sci -fi future for yourself personally with a brain chip?

First, I'd say controlling stuff with my mind.

Like I was a kid that loved Matilda.

This would be sending out messages in a way that allows me to control other things, like a computer or a robot. They're already doing that.

This is the neural lip reading that companies are already getting really good at, hitching a ride on your neural highway to get those outputs from your motor cortex with some very cool use cases in real people.

And then the even more sci -fi future would be putting information back into my brain, Like, that scene in The Matrix where Neo downloads new skills, like getting totally new senses, like Geordi in Star Trek, or like having completely new experiences, but putting new info in has remained a big challenge.

I think we're very far from the Keanu Reeves version, but it kind of gives you a sense of where the arrow of progress might be headed in some, you know, some future state.

This wouldn't be like riding the highway.

This would be creating a new one. In The Matrix, he's having a full sensory experience.

You'd have to cover almost all of the brain and master reading all of those outputs at once, all while writing back a totally different reality than your body is actually experiencing.

Which means inputting things into all parts of your brain that experience, smells, and touch, and everything else that makes up your reality.

A process that's complicated by the fact that your brain actually isn't a computer.

Because a computer separates out things like memory and processing.

But your brain intertwines them, locking together all experiences into one reality.

Our brains are constantly learning and rewiring and reworking based on all the experiences that you've ever had.

And if you're inputting really different information, like seeing in radar, like Geordi, what would your experience of that be?

Would it look like this or this or this? We don't really know.

That's not that it's impossible, just there's so much left to figure out here.

When you realize just how much goes into making your reality real, those sci -fi movies do move a bit farther into the future because creating a new highway is much harder than riding the one that already exists.

So for now, scientists in this field are mostly focusing on that first idea, reading the electrical signals in your motor cortex to control stuff with your mind.

Today, people can convert intentions into actual speech, move cursors, play video games, and even control robotic arms with brain implants.

And if we can get a better handle on those inputs, we could dramatically improve those experiences.

I'm sure you've seen the scene in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker has his prosthetic hand and then the little robot touches each fingertip and he can feel it.

So that's essentially what we'd like to be able to do. Which for some is a life -changing thing. And press that top load? Hello, how are you doing today?

You just got your voice back.

I came into this story thinking brain chips meant someone could read my mind or put us into the matrix or maybe I'd get supervision.

But the truth is much more real and much more optimistic.

Because right now it's not about what those devices are adding to that superhighway to give new experiences or new senses. It's about what they're giving back.

Because the true use of brain -computer interfaces today is building bridges when that extremely important highway breaks. Imagine again you see that cup falling off the table.

Your brain sends a signal to your hand to grab it, but that message is blocked. That's the reality of a person with paralysis.

Now imagine you can clearly think of what you want to say.

Your brain fires a signal to your mouth to move and say the words. But that signal is blocked.

This is often the reality of a person living with ALS.

Every day, people are facing devastating diagnoses.

And this is the true immediate power of brain -computer interfaces.

Scientists are reading the motor cortex and sending those signals to sensors in other body parts to help people with paralysis walk again.

Adding a brain -computer interface to the visual cortex paired with glasses could input information and restore vision in the blind.

And miraculously, they're reading the signals that are telling the mouth to move and quite literally giving people back their voice. I'm talking to you with my mind.

And this is only the beginning.

And I don't think the limits of what you can and can't do are fully understood.

It still feels a little bit magical and that is part of the whole excitement of being involved in this. They're not hijacking the highway.

They're building a bridge to help restore autonomy, To help create a future where a doctor never has to say, I'm sorry, there's nothing else we can do.

That's the future where machines help keep us human.