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AI Technology

Ctrl-labs CEO: We'll Have Neural Interfaces In Less Than 5 Years (venturebeat.com) 53

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
An anonymous reader writes: It can be a bit difficult to wrap your brain around what exactly neural interface startup Ctrl-labs is doing with technology. That's ironic, given that Ctrl-labs wants to let your brain directly use technology by translating mental intent into action. We caught up with Ctrl-labs CEO Thomas Reardon at Web Summit 2019 earlier this month to understand exactly how the brain-machine interface works. Founded in 2015, Ctrl-labs is a New York-based startup developing a wristband that translates musculoneural signals into machine-interpretable commands. But not for long -- Facebook acquired Ctrl-labs in September 2019. The acquisition hasn't closed yet, so Reardon has not spoken to anyone at the social media giant since signing the agreement. He was, however, eager to tell us more about the neural interface technology so we could glean why Facebook (and the tech industry at large) is interested.
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Ctrl-labs CEO: We'll Have Neural Interfaces In Less Than 5 Years More

Ctrl-labs CEO: We'll Have Neural Interfaces In Less Than 5 Years

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  • It's a good thing they are utterly full of shit, because the potential for the abuse of the technology is much greater than it's potential to bring more (needed?) convenience to increasingly Wall-E like consumers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by spun ( 1352 )

      Neural interface: yesterday, today and tomorrow's technology of tomorrow!

    • *its

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      You overstate the case nearly as much as he does.

      Current technologies of "brain reading" and "muscle reading" are very low bandwidth, and some of them require shielding from external stimuli (of various sorts...both neural and electronic).

      Some variations may well help amputees, or "locked in" cases, or even provide decent haptic feedback in games. At the moment, and with current technology, to go much further requires brain surgery. Transdermal magnetic stimuli is powerful, but isn't easy to use, and stil

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Implanted electrodes are all non-permanent at this time. Even cochlear implants (that are not strictly nerve interfaces, but are one step removed and hence easier) are non-permanent. Research into permanent electrodes has been going on since the 1970s and the problem is far from solved.

    • You are letting your imagination run miles ahead. What he means by "neural interface" is not something that can read your subconscious or even conscious "thoughts" but rather some piece of hardware that with some training (of your brain) can move a mouse on screen or control a gadget.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. And there is no way to do this in less than a few decades. All that is doable now is some non-permanent primitive signal recording. Creating permanent electrodes for nerve (and brain) interfaces has been a research topic since the first cochlear implants in the 1970s, but it is nowhere near solved. Anything less will not have the connection needed to make this useful.

  • Prosthetic (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LazarusQLong ( 5486838 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @02:01PM (#59436074)
    This would be great for amputee's! Imagine if your prosthetic worked more or less just how your original limb had worked!

    Of course, me, I am hoping for the day when I can upload 'me' into a machine... this frail body I have now has nowhere near the longevity I would prefer it to have!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by spun ( 1352 )

      Oh hey, yeah, an immortal machine mind sounds great. Until hackers get a hold of your consciousness and put you in a virtual hell forever. If religious wingnuts can't have heaven for themselves, they can certainly ensure that evil doers who have uploaded their consciousness to avoid the divine judgement that follows death get punished, for all eternity. You won't even be able to close your eyes, or sleep. The torment will be unending and millions of times worse than a real physical body could ever endure.

      Ha

    • Current neural interface research isn't about perfecting "mind reading." The rely on neuro-plasticity to teach the brain how to control the software instead of the software learning how to understand to the brain.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @02:09PM (#59436116)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      I don't know about that, Musk's Neuralink can implant (IIRC) 1500 connections directly into the brain now. A monkey in Brasil taught a monkey in Virginia across the Internet how to receive a treat through their brain interfaces. Control of prosthetics is already quite advanced. I'm considerably more optimistic than you, but then I might be following the field more closely than you.

    • Depending on what you mean by "this tech", it's already here, e.g. the big story last month about a paralyzed man being able to "walk" using a brain-machine interface controlling a robotic exoskeleton. That follows on decades of smaller-scale development. There are hundreds of thousands of people with a cochlear implant, which is a type of brain-machine interface. Saying it's "five years away" is about this particular company's implementation. Fusion power is nowhere near this point.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Fusion power has never been "5 years away" except in demented press reporting.

  • Most people can't control their mouths, and that is connected by natural wiring. How do we expect them to control something artificial?

  • This kind of overly-optimistic predictions pop up every now and then.

    Like this one:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show... [anandtech.com]

    It looks like some of them may actually be feasible in some truncated form, for example real-time ray-tracing. It was hyped quite a bit in the 2005-2006 timeframe and then it went completely quiet. Now we start to hear about it again. Let's see.

  • Neural interfaces all the way down on our way to Mars, on a rocket made from graphene, powered by EM drive and driven by quantum computer with human-like AI.

    • Paid for by BitCoins mined in the asteroid belt!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Not quite. There is a chance that brain->computer will be solved on both signal processing and electrode side in the next 50 years or so. There is no chance that humans will get to mars in any meaningful way in the next 50 years or that we will get "human like" AI (i.e. AGI).

  • Facebook (Score:3)

    by Bobrick ( 5220289 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @02:23PM (#59436192)
    Right, I can't imagine something more terrifying than wearing a device that transmits my brain signals directly to Facebook. I guess that makes sense in a world where Google and Amazon have no problem convincing people to let them put an always-on, internet-connected microphone and camera in their home. I miss the dystopias I'd see in movies and read about in books as a kid... the citizens of today are way too goddamn welcoming of this hellworld.

    • Right, I can't imagine something more terrifying than wearing a device that transmits my brain signals directly to Facebook.

      Oh, I think Facebook has something even worse in mind. They want to transmit signals from Facebook through the device into your brain, to control it.

      Well, you won't need to decide to vote for any more . . . Facebook will make the choice for you, and put it into your brain.

  • It only works one direction, we promise!

  • I imagined a security system built around this... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <marktNO@SPAMnerdflat.com> on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @02:35PM (#59436256) Journal
    ... in particular, I imagined a neural interface being tied to a system which necessitated that the purpose for accessing information on that system was entirely voluntary, and not because of external coersion or duress. If a system was so protected, then third parties who might otherwise try and get a person to surrender any confidential information from it would recognize that any kind of interrogation techniques or methods of coersion they may try to employ to get the person to unlock the data for them would be fruitless, because while under such coercion, the person would not be able to access the data for them even if he or she wanted to, and so others would not even try.

    Not even the $5 wrench attack [xkcd.com] would help.

  • 20 hour work week (Score:4, Funny)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @02:45PM (#59436306) Journal

    Will the neural interfaces come before or after the flying cars, thorium reactors, and jetpacks for all?

    Maybe they'll all come in the Year of Linux on the Desktop!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      Will the neural interfaces come before or after the flying cars, thorium reactors, and jetpacks for all?

      Maybe they'll all come in the Year of Linux on the Desktop!

      Hey, it would remove one of the main drawbacks of jetpacks-needing to sue your hands to steer. Just use the neural interface to steer.

  • ....you actually develop your wristband first? These guys are like little kids, fed by drunken VC money.

  • I'll look forward to using it with fusion powered my flying car.

  • But I can’t find the “labs” key on any of mine.

  • If the neural interfaces can read our minds, then would we be able to "think" to other people who are also hooked up to such interfaces and share thoughts or ideas directly without having to take the time to describe them in words?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      The things do exist...but they've got *LOTS* of limits. E.g., they can learn what word you are thinking of, but only from a small list of choices. And you have to cooperate in the training. And, IIRC, they also need to be shielded from electromagnetic interference. And...

      Well, that "5 years" comment is basically unbelievable for any wide spread use. But they could do better now than they did with Hawkings' setup.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Reading signals from the brain is one thing and works to some degree today. Detail readings and in particular permanent electrodes are unsolved. But putting things back in the brain, i.e. the other data-flow direction, is completely unsolved.

  • according to this: https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org] They are going to start early next year on human trials?

  • Really, he did. He's proud of it, even.

    https://www.ctrl-labs.com/peop... [ctrl-labs.com]

  • It's bad enough that people spend all their time instagramming, Facebooking, texting, sexting. Now they're going to be 24/7 embedded in the web?! This is how the iBorg get their start.

  • #TheMonstersOfTheID.

  • Does this mean we can be dueling Akihiko Kabaya soon?

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