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My belated thoughts on Neuralink demo. What makes this fascinating is the complete disruption of scientific norms. Scientists don’t do live demos of products in-dev; they don’t wildly over-promise; they refrain from hyperbole; claims are backed up by data. Typically, anyway. 1/
Yet Musk spouted nothing but hyperbole and hype ("AI symbiosis"; "consensual telepathy"; neural devices as cure-alls) & showed a “healthy and happy” pig drinking juice (?) as evidence of safety. There was no data at all, not even a pre-print, to accompany the demo. 2/
All of this makes it very hard to Musk seriously, and the best take on the Neuralink event, by @antonioregalado, rightly calls it “neuroscience theater.” 3/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/30/1007786/elon-musks-neuralink-demo-update-neuroscience-theater/
Still, Musk can’t be easily dismissed b/c he’s throwing gobs of money at Neuralink & is hiring the best scientists/engineers he can find. Academia is slow & $ is hard to come by; Musk is moving fast and breaking things, as @RebeccaDRobbins reported 4/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/25/elon-musk-neuralink-update-brain-machine-implants/
Key points I was looking for: how would Musk resolve his clear desire for a consumer product with what the dev team surely knows, that they *first* need to demonstrate efficacy for a medical indication? And what medical indication, exactly, is Neuralink aiming for? 5/
No clarity on either. Musk frequently used words like "average person" and "consumer" & spoke of many medical indications. B/c Neuralink product just received breakthrough device status from FDA, they must've specified a medical indication; my guess is paralysis. 6/
All the focus on Musk overshadows others' work. On Thursday, Synchron reported receiving FDA breakthrough device status for a stent-like, invasive BCI that *has already been implanted in humans* and *is currently in clinical trials.* 7/ https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200827005748/en/Synchron%E2%80%99s-Stentrode-Brain-Computer-Interface-Receives-Breakthrough-Device
So while Musk is getting all the attention (and selfishly, it’s fun to see public interest in consumer neurotech & neuroethics), important to keep in mind that other companies (& scientists) with less-famous CEOs are working on products that may ultimately have a larger impact 8/
For more on this topic, 2 upcoming events: 1st is a panel on ethics & neurotech dev at the upcoming @neuroethics meeting on Oct 23, w/ myself, Nicole Martinez-Martin, & neurotech industry folks including Chevillet from FB, @DanRizzutoPhD & @ana_maiques https://www.neuroethicssociety.org/program
2nd is a full day virtual conference "BCIs: Innovation, Security & Society" on Nov 19 organized by @yusterafa; I’ll be speaking along with neuroscientists & others involved in consumer & medical neurotech development. Reg is free & open to public:
https://nri.ntc.columbia.edu/events/bci-symposium
https://nri.ntc.columbia.edu/events/bci-symposium
