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Neuralink looks to the public to solve a seemingly impossible problem

Elon Musk's quest to wirelessly connect human brains with machines has run into a seemingly impossible obstacle, experts say. The company is now asking the public for help finding a solution.

Musk's startup Neuralink, which is in the early stages of testing in human subjects, is pitched as a brain implant that will let people control computers and other devices using their thoughts. Some of Musk's predictions for the technology include letting paralyzed people "walk again and use their arms normally."

Turning brain signals into computer inputs means transmitting a lot of data very quickly. A problem for Neuralink is that the implant generates about 200 times more brain data per second than it can currently wirelessly transmit. Now, the company is seeking a new algorithm that can transmit this data in a smaller package — a process called compression — through a public challenge.

As a barebones web page announcing the Neuralink Compression Challenge posted on Thursday explains, "[greater than] 200x compression is needed." The winning solution must also run in real time, and at low power.

Hugh_Jeggs ,

I've got some of those bags you put your clothes in then seal with a vacuum cleaner, if that's any use

Luvs2Spuj ,

He's such a genius, why would he look for additional help? All these claims are such shit. Remember when Tesla would be fully self driving and we would all whizzing around in tunnels? Fuck this guy.

BobGnarley ,

Tesla is a load of shit for sure but SpaceX and this Neuralink of it really does what its supposed to, actually contribute to humanity. Especially this.

Voroxpete ,

Brain machine interface development has been around for a lot longer than nueralink. Musk is just better at getting his stuff into the headlines. Yes, the idea is good and beneficial to humanity, but then so are electric cars. That's part of Musk's grift. He latches onto something genuinely good and turns it into his pet project so that any criticism of how he does it can easily be deflected, because he's automatically the good guy just for being there at all.

MonkderDritte ,

They want to add compression to the implant?

And how does the brainwave data look? I'm sure they have some samples?

partial_accumen ,

They want to add compression to the implant?

They're making their own silicon for their sensor so adding an on-die ASIC for a specific compression method sounds pretty attainable.

Cosmicomical ,

What does this have to do with the question?
Having samples of the data they want to compress is fundamental if you hope to find an algorythm to compress 200x.

partial_accumen ,

What does this have to do with the question? Having samples of the data they want to compress is fundamental if you hope to find an algorythm to compress 200x.

There were two questions asked. I answered for part of the first question. I have no information on the second question (samples). You're welcome to do your own googling to see if you can find an answer.

drdiddlybadger ,
@drdiddlybadger@pawb.social avatar

That isn't at all their problem their problem is scar tissue buildup that they haven't even bothered addressing. Wtf are they doing talking about data compression when they can't even maintain connection.

Modern_medicine_isnt ,

Cause there are always more patients... but more data will let them get more press when it enables more interesting demos.

Cocodapuf ,

You really think they only have one problem to solve? If that were the case this would be relatively easy.

BarbecueCowboy ,

There were rumors of that and a lot of other complications in the animal trials. I don't think we ever got proof, but a lot of irregularities that were explained away. Could be a lot more problems coming.

Evotech ,

Did they try middle out compression?

nifty ,
@nifty@lemmy.world avatar

This seems more like a hardware issue than a compression algorithm issue, but I could be wrong

SharkAttak ,
@SharkAttak@kbin.social avatar

Why should we? What's in it for us?

AngryCommieKender ,

You can have a free "flamethrower" cigarette lighter. The company is bankrupt, and musk has a warehouse if the things he didn't sell.

Gsus4 ,
@Gsus4@mander.xyz avatar

Nothing, but then you could patent it and license it to anyone but elon :) are you motivated yet?

QuadratureSurfer ,
@QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world avatar

A job interview! (I wish I was joking).

The reward for developing this miraculous leap forward in technology? A job interview, according to Neuralink employee Bliss Chapman. There is no mention of monetary compensation on the web page.

BobGnarley ,

I mean damn bro helping humans potentially walk again is a pretty big "for us" thing if you think about it in terms of humankind and not just yourself. Like imagine if someone were trying to cure cancer with the help of the public and you're all like "well what the fuck is in it for ME though?"

cestvrai ,

Imagine we all pooled our resources to fund medical research through taxes only for private companies to exploit the technology and jack up the prices…

A brain implant for rich people isn’t necessarily “for us”.

SharkAttak ,
@SharkAttak@kbin.social avatar

Oh but I'm not saying this out of selfishness, the problem for me is not the cancer cure in itself, but who is doing the research..

  • the experiments on monkeys were questionable in method and nature, and led to death and madness;
  • the other chip installed in a human has already lost the majority of connection wires;
    and not to forget, it's not been specified how the public giving the ideas, would benefit from it. Musk is not exactly known as the phylanthropic kind.
AA5B ,

Already solved by evolution. This is the same problem as all of us have with visual data. We’ve evolved to need much less data transfer by doing some image processing first. Same deal. Stick some processors in there so you only need to transfer processed results, not raw data

Nomecks ,

Listen Elon, I have three words that will blow your mind: Middle out compression!

AbidanYre ,

That's a lot more civil than the three words I have for him.

SuperFola ,
@SuperFola@programming.dev avatar

Just add 199 more transmistters

dariusj18 ,

Did they try Stack overflow?

RobotZap10000 ,

Why would you ever want to do that?! Marked as duplicated. Shove a cactus up your ass.

bus_factor ,

Why not skip the middle man and ask ChatGPT directly?

billiam0202 ,

*GrokAI

You know, Xitter's shittier AI.

bus_factor ,

Fair, I was thinking in the context of Stack Overflow.

kibiz0r ,

How do you send 200x as much data?

You don’t. The external system needs to run an approximation of the internal system, which the internal system will also run and only transmit differences.

There you go. Solved it. (By delegating to a new problem.)

palordrolap ,

Surprised they haven't tried to train a neural network to find a compression algorithm specifically for their sort of data.

There's a ridiculous irony in the fact they haven't, and it's still ironic even if they have and have thrown the idea out as a failure. Or a dystopian nightmare.

But if it is the latter, they might help save time and effort by telling "the public" what avenues have already failed, or that they don't want purely AI-generated solutions. Someone's bound to try it otherwise.

orclev ,

They did, but then Elon insisted they add a virtual neuralink into it and now the neural network is braindead.

random_character_a ,
@random_character_a@lemmy.world avatar

Zombie signal not strong enough to make people think Elon is excentric genius and not an loud moron?

dullbananas ,
@dullbananas@lemmy.ca avatar

Submit your algorithms under GPL

potatopotato ,

AGPL just in case they try to put your brain waves into the cloud

orclev ,

GPLv3, make it really radioactive to them.

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