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The Science Behind Elon Musk鈥檚 Neuralink Brain Chip | WIRED - YouTube
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neuralink elon musk's brain chip company
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recently pushed back on claims that it
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violated animal welfare laws a few years
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ago while testing on monkeys this year
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the company plans to test on human
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subjects but when it does what would
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this major step mean for brain implant
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science
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academics like me have conducted
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clinical trials in people with brain
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implants dr paul niujukian is a
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professor of bioengineering and
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neurosurgery he directs the brain
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interfacing laboratory at stanford
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for about 20 years now academic
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research brain implants
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up until this point more or less have
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almost exclusively been with wires the
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difference that the n1 has the neural
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it's fully implantable it is battery
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powered it is wireless all of this is
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being done over bluetooth protocol let's
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dive into the science behind knurling to
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understand how exactly human brain chips
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work
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[Music]
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the science behind how these implants
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work is
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not that different from how
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you would go about trying to measure the
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energy from a double a battery it's the
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same principle that we're doing with
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these brain implants this is called
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neuroelectrophysiological recording when
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you move your arm to the right certain
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sets of neurons are activated in a
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certain pattern listening in to that
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activity and that pattern you can
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predict very quickly which direction the
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arm is going to move these are the
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neurons that are directly wired to your
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muscle
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unless that pathway from the brain to
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the spinal cord to the muscle is damaged
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the way it is in patients with paralysis
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that pathway is damaged then the neural
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signals those signals from the brain
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aren't going to get down to move the
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muscles but in many cases the signals
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are still present in the brain they're
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just not getting out so if you reach in
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and put something that listens in to
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those neurons and you know what's
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happening to the muscle and that's the
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goal of a brain implant now let's look
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at a timeline of brain interface
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breakthroughs over the years scholars
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have long been interested in how the
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brain works so it's important to view
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these new developments at neuralink as a
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culmination of breakthroughs by brain
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machine interface researchers especially
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in the last few decades for example in
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2002 the first demonstration of
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real-time cursor control in monkeys took
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place
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2008 a monkey controlling a robotic arm
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in three dimensions fed itself 2012 the
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first brain-controlled robotic arm by a
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human
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2017 a human controlled a cursor
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mentally to type out words and sentences
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dr niyozukian was part of the study as
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well as the one in 2018 where a human
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subject mentally controlled a tablet to
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do things like browse the web send
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emails and play games or music
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all that's been done with a couple
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hundred electrodes
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but in 2019 neuralink a private company
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changed the game when it unveiled a pig
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named gertrude with a wireless implant
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that monitored about a thousand neurons
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[Music]
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the neurons are like wiring
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and
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you kind of need an electronic thing to
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solve an electronic problem that was a
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very interesting moment because it
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signaled to the community that they're
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serious they're investing they're
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building hardware from scratch and
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they're putting it in large animals for
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the pig the electrodes were implanted in
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somatosensory cortex allowing them to
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measure sensory activity like that of
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taking a step every time that that
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particular neuron they were listening to
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fired you would hear this little pop or
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click from the audio channel and so the
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moment i heard it right it's like oh
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yeah hold they got neurons you just
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recognize it instantly you know what
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neurons sound like if you've been
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listening to them for decades and that's
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what they were communicating right they
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were they were telling the field we've
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got neurons pay attention and overnight
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it seemed the industry took notice then
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in april of 2021 neurolink released the
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so-called mind pong video pager was the
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name it's a rhesus macaque which is you
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know the type of monkey that is very
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commonly used in this field implanted
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with two of the n1 devices the neural
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link devices performing brain control of
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cursor onscreen that's extremely
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significant because
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here neurolink is showing their new
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hardware their new device in their hands
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works in a monkey that's
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the level that's necessary to convince
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the scientific community to convince the
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fda that
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you're ready to go into human clinical
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trials that's the evidence the fda is
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looking for the recording power of the
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n1 device in pager was eye opening
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because of the sheer number of
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individual electrodes that had been
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implanted there was definitely a lot of
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clever engineering that went in to
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that to build a device that can transmit
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2048 electrodes worth of spiking
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information right of digital ones and
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zeros of spikes over a radio wirelessly
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and when you have that many channels the
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performance that you should be able to
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get should eclipse what we've been able
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to do in the academic field
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you know the maximum number of
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electrodes i've ever recorded from is
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two to three hundred so with all those
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electrodes how does a device like the n1
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get implanted in a subject's brain
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make no mistake this is neurosurgery it
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is not a joke this requires cutting the
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skin
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getting down to skull drilling a hole in
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the skull exposing what's called the
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dura which is this protective layer of
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tissue that surrounds the brain cutting
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the dura folding it back to expose the
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brain and then you get to the surface of
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the brain where you can implant the
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electrodes the biggest risks with these
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types of techniques are infection
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bleeding
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and tissue damage so what would it take
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for the fda to approve clinical trials
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in humans the neurolink device are
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called class 3 medical devices they are
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implantable and they're going into very
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sensitive body cavities that is the
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highest level of scrutiny that the fda
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assigns to medical devices they don't
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have a predecessor there's no previous
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example that's approved and so very
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appropriately they got a high bar they
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have to cross in order to get it
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approved so what neurolink has to do
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next is prepare a very long and
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technical document with all the evidence
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from animal studies that their device is
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safe and effective this document is
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submitted to the fda who has 90 days to
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review and give them an answer if the
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fda says yes then their clinical trial
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is approved and neurolink can enroll and
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recruit human participants we're on the
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cusp of a complete paradigm shift
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this type of technology has the
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potential to transform our treatments
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not just for stroke and paralysis and
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degenerative disease motor degenerative
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diseases but also for pretty much every
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other type of brain disease from
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parkinson's
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to epilepsy to dementias alzheimer's and
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even psychiatric disease
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seeing neuralink and the other companies
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in this space start an industry around
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neuroengineering brain machine
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interfaces neuroprosthetics
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has been a tremendous amount of
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validation for
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neuroscientists and engineers who have
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been working in this space for decades
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how much happier could the scientific
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community be than to give birth
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to an industry
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so will this industry someday lead to
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the creation of cyborg humans with
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superhuman intelligence
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there's all sorts of wild speculation in
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our field
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i think science fiction is wonderful at
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telling very creative and captivating
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stories
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about all sorts of things including
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including brain machine interfaces the
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reality is we are in such early stages
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of this space right where we are just
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barely able to record from neurons that
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control muscles and try to interpret
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something
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meaningful information out of that
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we're going to be in that space for
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decades uh that's where i will focus
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much of my career is understanding
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what's going on with these neurons and
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the circuits that they are working on
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that's where the last 15 years of my
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work has been and the coming several
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decades of my work will focus in on this
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space because that's going to be the
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forefront of neuroscience
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the rest
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i think is fun to think about but i
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don't see how that's going to be
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in the foreseeable future
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[Music]
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