It brings me comfort to know that such a fallback will eventually exist, should I need one.
Note that specialists are saying that another promising drug from Scholar Rock [3] would probably prevent any further weakening if used in conjunction with my current treatment. Unfortunately, the FDA takes a long time to approve new medications and I have heard this one is particularly special because there is potential for abuse by athletes.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_muscular_atrophy
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusinersen
[3]: https://scholarrock.com/our-pipeline/spinal-muscular-atrophy...
Strangely that simple example was the most powerful part for me. I've done that so many times and it was such a fun experience. Now he gets to re-live that joy (and follow up shame) again!
- These types of BCI are effectively an array of switches. You typically map a motor thought eg. "Move your arm up" => Moving the cursor up. This maybe how then you control a game such as chess if it has keyboard shortcuts. Eye movement could be done in the same way but there are easier ways. Interestingly to measure these motor commands you dont really need intracortical BCI. You can do it with surface EEG. Sticking it inside your head - closer to centres where you can measure intentional thought makes the signal cleaner and more reliable
- The big breakthroughs is really making this intracortical stuff safer and long term. Its getting there. But this isnt it
The big wins out there - are in speech BCI. Thats hardcore. Even the two main studies doing this - each of the participants requires a LOT of training time to make a Machine model work efficiently.
Apple has done great stuff with eye tracking on Vision Pro, but it required completely rewriting the UI for literally everything. Not something we have the luxury of doing for accessibility for quadriplegics.
Source: built an eye tracker and eye-controlled UI at a startup and got acquired by Google
I'm not sure I can believe this "This system is likely already working better than an eye tracker would for cursor control" - the training to use this stuff isnt just 'magic'. I do agree though with "and it will certainly improve" - yeah iterate.. iterate..
But sure - "the potential" is the key thing in all this. Just the cost to benefit ratio is pretty dramatic right now.
He appears to just think about where the mouse should go and then be able to click and click-and-hold. Seems like multiple inputs which an eye tracker wouldn't do. Unless maybe its just configured to click when the cursor pauses on a spot?
Also the user experience seems better than attaching electrodes to your head. It seems to just work wirelessly. It is always there and sometimes he has to recharge it.
Yeah - this is wireless. Better than some systems which have been, no joke, a box at the top of your head with a HDMI cable in it..
> He appears to just think about where the mouse should go and then be able to click and click-and-hold. Seems like multiple inputs which an eye tracker wouldn't do. Unless maybe its just configured to click when the cursor pauses on a spot?
This is really the key question. The dwell technique you note is what most eyetrackers do (although far better to use a binary technique - eg a blink - to select because of the midas touch effect). Its built into to Windows/MacOS and iOS now. I have a sneaky feeling the reason why its chess is you can encode the positions "X1 to Y2". You can then do a transformer model to decode intentional speech..
If that is the case - then if a person actually speaks whats the benefit right now for this indvidual? (yes - that he doesnt have to say it. BUT sub-vocal speech is already achievable without invasive surgery..)
Further clarification: when doing conventional EEG, the signal quality is so fragile that even blinking can produce recording artifact.
Also, there's the whole "put a shower cap with conductive gel" things that makes it very impractical for every day use.
You are correct in that one could add more inputs but that only works if you can use the inputs. The individual in the video has full control of his head which many people do not. All I can do, for example, is use like two fingers.
Look at the starship program for an example of where you can get in 20 iterations
Personally, I think the most exciting part of Neuralink and other companies working on BCIs is the fact that they're trying to keep these implants in long-term, and scale the deployment significantly. Most academic BCI research thus far has just been trials, without patients getting to keep the implants long term.
Still early days for this tech but it seems impressive.
Civ 6 is drivable completely with the mouse, and other than editing gold amounts in trade offers a little more quickly there’s not much reason to use anything but a mouse for it.
Neuralink has now achieved product market fit
Factorio on the other hand took a while for me to start liking but that’s because it has a huge learning curve. I eventually got into it but it’s not something I crave playing.
I supposed we could just jack in directly, though I really don't want surgery latching onto my optic nerve.
[0] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9633-calculating-the-....
Tiny spoiler warning I guess though not really, it’s just background world building that was used as motivation for side character’s growth. In the book, there was a Hitler-esque villain who existed long before the characters were born. The villain killed many billions of people. But through cloning, the societies of Earth punish this villain for their entire life by feeding them torturous scenarios through their brain implants. These were scenarios like being chased and eaten by a tiger, running naked through a frozen tundra, execution, etc.
The clone thought it was entirely real because it was all in their brain implant, even though they were safe in a jail cell. And as an extra Black Mirror-y twist, anyone in that society could tune in with their own implant to watch the clone being tortured.
I’m not really trying to cast doom and gloom on this brain implant tech, I think it’s neat. I was just reminded of the book I read when you mentioned simulating tactile impressions and virtual worlds. Pleasant simulations would be great, but even “benignly” scary ones like a virtual haunted house in your brain could be terrifying. (As someone who hates haunted houses.)
Seems pretty obvious to me that these ideas originated long ago in the scientific world and were (beautifully) expanded upon by science fiction authors (again, many decades ago).
Such online training might be necessary to deal with brain plasticity - ie. The optimal set of neurons to read to determine X/Y mouse movement right now might not be the same set it was an hour ago.
Such plasticity can be seen in regular humans too when they say 'whoa, I haven't used a pen for months - let me get used to writing again!'.
But giving it the benefit of the doubt, this looks mind blowing to me !
It was kind of known that the research and tech is almost there for a while already, but seeing the demonstration live like that - incredible !
But then it takes me back to those Musk companies - maybe it's just a repackaged already available research presented in a nice way - making us believe it could be 'deployed' in real world, while in reality it can only be done in a very controlled environment. And we are led to believe that we are '2 weeks away' from it being widely available. Hope we're wrong here.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/tesla-faked-autopilot-video-engin...
While not an Musk company, it is worth remembering Theranos demos being convincingly faked as well. I don't know if it is happening here but it does happen.
The mouse seems to move very nicely and smoothly (60 FPS?) which presumably means the neural net which converts raw sensor data to mouse movements is running in ~15 milliseconds.
Most neural nets don't do a forward pass in 15ms unless they're either tiny or the GPU is very powerful.
Let's see, I think after that, the next product should be Magic Missle. Or maybe Sanctuary?
But let's see, we are really at the beginning.
IIRC they are doing that test in pigs right now
They are solving the easiest things first of course
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06094-5
https://www.cea.fr/english/Pages/News/brain-computer-interfa...
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/12/16/brain-...
[2015] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/paralyzed-woman-op...
[2013] With a non-invasive interface: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1741-2560/10/4/04...
[2011] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
It will be quite a while before we know if they've managed to mitigate the issues enough to last a lifetime (and support upgrades), but it's better than previous devices.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/apple-vision-pro/tan42...
Not saying which is better - it's certainly different though.
You can not just reel off every bullet point on the marketing slides without support as if it is the truth.
I want to stress that giving a person a few years is a big deal. It's not something to scoff at. Even a few months can really help someone out.
They’d be doing research man
In 1 month he's launched the largest rocket ever, done one of the first successful brain implants ever and released a pretty amazing version of FSD.
No other billionaires have done even 1 of those things. Even if he was a buffoon he deserves credit foe the audacity.
Or that time they lied about 120,000 defective suspensions that broke causing crashes and fatalities and then blamed their customers and covered it up so they would not have to issue a recall in the US (they were forced to issue a recall for the issue in China)? [2]
A decade of unequivocal lies about delivering autonomous vehicles [3] while knowingly killing tens to hundreds.
But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRYS5VWXZts
[2] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-mu....
[3] https://dawnproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Elon-Musk...
By the same logic, this video would not be faked even if in fact it's the same chess move he tried for 2 months and it's the only one working, and also another patient died.
Not saying it's the case - clearly not. But yeah, let's be real.
But it may be fake in the sense that it's not viable for a long term use and / or necessitates a very controlled environment. That would indeed match the pattern for Musk companies - articulate a grandiose vision, show a working demo to amaze the world, then show progress on some scale but without disclosing the issues that actually would make to product not viable or not financially viable in the long term, and sell the hell out of it to investors.
If you look closely, all his companies work like that. Yes, including Tesla ! Their car business is at the point where they may start loosing money again - competition, slowdown in EV subsides, but also factors that allowed them to reach an apparent profitability - for example, their service is nonexistent, while it used to be great. Basically they sold millions of cars, while their service centers are still scaled for thousands, not millions. This will a big financial liability, but not really visible in their financial for now.
But hey, they already transitioned to another business that promise to make even more money in the future with other promising tech ! AI anybody ?
Also after reviewing your post history, it’s overwhelmingly you shitting on the same stocks with really ridiculous hyperbole and not much else. And a warren buffet quote thrown in for good measure.
I haven't seen 12.3 but other versions had some frightening mistakes in videos. It feels like it will eternally be 90% there but never actually reach the end goal of completely autonomy.
Personally I love Autopilot even if I only use it to drive on the freeways for me when I'm tired.
But do think saying this demo is fake based on to aggressive timelines for self driving is a stretch.
See the part where he says: "That is not a question mark." That is called making a clear and direct, unequivocal, unqualified, statement that he knew for certain was wrong. That is called lying.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-doubles-down-on-cl...
Thank the stars someone is not judging you so harshly.
In his situation, no sane person of even average intelligence would have any cause to believe that Tesla would have autonomous vehicles by the end of the year.
At the time the statement was made, 5 years after Tesla began development, Tesla had not even begun testing with no driver. It has been 5 years since then and FSD is still 10,000x worse than human drivers and they have still not even begun testing with no driver.
He was lying beyond any reasonable doubt.
As to your laundry list of marketing slide bullet points. Can you please identify how a list of claimed accomplishments proves a unrelated statement is not a lie?
I can see how it could prove someone is a habitual liar since Elon Musk has not delivered safer-than-human “self-driving cars”, “cheaper underground tunnel boring machines”, or “high resolution BCIs” so half of your supporting statements are outright fabrications that you made zero effort to validate before repeating.
If that is the standard of proof you apply, then I would thank the stars if people would judge me as uncritically. I could make up any fantasy and people would eat it up because how could they know I am lying, maybe I am just a colossal moron, but also a genius visionary.
You literally have no idea what work he's exposed to from his engineering teams, and you have become the thing you hate by making authoritative sounding statements about subjects which you cannot know everything.
If you can't prevent yourself from making such statements, I'm not sure how you expect anyone else to.
qed
In case you did not notice, it is Elon Musk who made the unequivocal, unqualified, direct, positive assertion that the cars would be self-driving by end of 2019. That demands clear and convincing evidence. To assert the absence of clear and convincing, as I have done, only demands establishing it is unclear or unconvincing, it does not reverse the standard to require me to prove the negative in a clear and convincing manner. You have failed to even apply to basic standards of burdens of proof as is commonly seen by those parroting the pernicious lies of Elon Musk.
But sure, let us assume my standard of proof is clear and convincing.
In 2019, they had not even begun testing with no human driver. I will repeat that, they had not even tested the claim at all in any official capacity. We know this because you are required to get a driverless testing permit before you begin testing and you must publicly report any driverless testing miles. Tesla has reported 0 miles as of 2024 as they have so far failed to even receive a permit. This is because they have not even done any driverless testing with a safety driver since 2016. 5 years after "That is not a question mark." they have still not even started testing.
In 2019, they were unable to detect and respond to "Do Not Enter" signs. 5 years later, they still can not detect and respond to "Do Not Enter" signs. You would have to be a colossal moron to believe the car will be better than a human driver when it still can not even handle the, what, 5th most common road sign? The road sign that tells you not to drive down a dangerous street. No normal person would believe the car will be ready within 1 year if it can not even handle common road signs and has been completely untested.
As to what he is exposed to from his engineering teams. We know from sworn testimony by the, now current director of Autopilot, that Elon Musk was made aware that the 2016 Autonomy Day demo introducing their self-driving system was done over multiple takes, using technology they have repeatedly declared they will not use in production products (such as HD mapping), and literally crashed during at least one of the takes [1]. Despite this, he still directed the initial frame of the video to state: "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself." That is direct and clear deception meant to insinuate the system is ready when the engineers directly and clearly indicate that it is not. Elon Musk demonstrably, literally, has a past record on this exact topic of being intentionally deceptive.
As to your statement that I, "literally have no idea what work he's exposed to", turns out I actually do know, so you are wrong on that as well. I actually have mutual friends with one of the former heads of Autopilot in the mid 2010s who repeatedly told Elon Musk that the systems were not ready. Despite that, Elon Musk announced that it would be safer than a human driver on a schedule that the engineers said was impossible (which we now know to be correct as they still can not do it nearly a decade after that deadline). He then fired the team when they failed to do the impossible. Then he fired the next team when they failed to deliver on his promises. Then he fired the next team. Then he fired the next team. Then I think he hired Karpathy, though maybe there were a few more firings in between that. Then he fired that team. Then I think he promoted the loyalist who helped make the deceiving 2016 demo.
He fired like half a dozen teams because they could not meet his insane deadlines showing that his promises were not based in what he learned from his engineering team, but lies in the hopes that a miracle would happen and make his lies into truth. I have not read his biography, but I have been told that this process of: "Promise it is almost ready. Relentlessly drive engineering team. Fail to meet deadline. Fire team so you now have nothing working. Promise the thing that was not working is now almost ready." is well documented.
So yeah. Your arguments consist entirely of logical fallacies and even then they do not hold water.
[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23574198-elluswamy-d...
No normal person has access to custom built supercomputers to train AIs or teams of engineers dedicated to such. It's a weird false equivalency to base your entire argument on and leaves me to conclude that you would feel similarly about anyone engineering something which hasn't previously existed.
> He fired like half a dozen teams because they could not meet his insane deadlines showing that his promises were not based in what he learned from his engineering team, but lies in the hopes that a miracle would happen and make his lies into truth. I have not read his biography, but I have been told that this process of: "Promise it is almost ready. Relentlessly drive engineering team. Fail to meet deadline. Fire team so you now have nothing working. Promise the thing that was not working is now almost ready." is well documented.
If the man wasn't landing rockets, forcing the auto industry to electrify after even California failed to do so, connecting the world with Starlink, and allowing paralyzed people to live more fulfilling lives, you might have an argument? Whatever he's doing seems to work. Seems like a lot of problems just need management that believes the problem can be solved with enough investment and effort.
"In Australia and New Zealand, tall poppy syndrome refers to successful people being criticised. This occurs when their peers believe they are too successful, or are bragging about their success.[1][2] Intense scrutiny and criticism of such a person is termed as "cutting down the tall poppy"."
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome
And no, it is not established that because you cited one person's deposition and "mutual friends with one of the former heads of Autopilot" that you "actually do know" what work Elon is exposed to from his engineering teams. What a weird claim to make when you're not sitting in on the meetings yourself.
I find the thousands of hours of RE work done by https://www.youtube.com/@MunroLive to be a much more credible indicator of the kind of thinking and work that goes on at Tesla.
And again you go to irrelevant arguments. Are you saying that it is okay to lie aggressively just because you happen to get it right in unrelated fields? Because as we see, he is totally and utterly wrong on his self-driving promises. But that is okay because he lies all the time and sometimes it works out? Who cares about the lying as long as we electrify the auto industry. Oh, should we also overlook all the ridiculous racism in the factories as well? And all those people they killed for no reason are just fertilizer for a glorious future, they should be glad that they could be sacrificed.
At this point I am bored of this thread since I have already made my point and all you do is present the bad faith and irrelevant PR bullet points parroted by the Elon Musk cult. Anybody who is actually reading this thread should see how fallacious and morally bankrupt that position is so I am done here. Have fun.
I think it's fair to say that autopilot hasn't worked out as quickly as Musk had hoped. But I also find myself forced in the same breath to acknowledge that Tesla has made a great deal of progress, maybe more than any other car company, at solving a problem I've paid attention to since the DARPA grand challenge days.
I think it's wonderful to have big dreams as a society, and to reach for them, and accomplish them. It's inspiring. Maybe you should take notes. Thanks for expressing yourself.