Sunday Newsletter (No. 3): Telepathic technology, therapeutic gaming and health data
jivan.substack.com
“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.” - Marcus Aurelius Here’s a few interesting things that have been happening recently: Brain technology. How the brain works is largely still a mystery. Neural activity controls human functions, from unconscious activities such as breathing, to conscious actions such as movement and communication. These functions can be lost as a result of disease or injury. The goal of brain machine interfaces (BMIs) is to restore such functions by recording brain signals and using these signals to create a desired output function, such as movement of a prosthetic limb or controlling a computer cursor. BMI research emerged in the 1950s and the technology has been rapidly progressing in recent years. This week, Kernel, a biotech startup focused on non-invasive brain recording technology, announced a $53 million funding round. Their products include ‘Speller’, which allows a person to spell out words simply by looking at the letters on a screen, and ‘Sound ID’, which reads brain signals to work out the sound a person is listening to. Neuralink is another company in the BMI space, founded by Elon Musk. This week, he announced that there would be an update on Neuralink’s progress on 28th August, the first update from the company in about a year. Musk’s initial goal is to use this technology to treat patients with neurological conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease, but his future vision is that Neuralink will allow direct brain-to-brain communication between people (essentially telepathy). Using this technology for the treatment of medical conditions makes sense, but ethical considerations arise in cases where it could be used to enhance mental or physical functions in healthy people.
Sunday Newsletter (No. 3): Telepathic technology, therapeutic gaming and health data
Sunday Newsletter (No. 3): Telepathic…
Sunday Newsletter (No. 3): Telepathic technology, therapeutic gaming and health data
“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.” - Marcus Aurelius Here’s a few interesting things that have been happening recently: Brain technology. How the brain works is largely still a mystery. Neural activity controls human functions, from unconscious activities such as breathing, to conscious actions such as movement and communication. These functions can be lost as a result of disease or injury. The goal of brain machine interfaces (BMIs) is to restore such functions by recording brain signals and using these signals to create a desired output function, such as movement of a prosthetic limb or controlling a computer cursor. BMI research emerged in the 1950s and the technology has been rapidly progressing in recent years. This week, Kernel, a biotech startup focused on non-invasive brain recording technology, announced a $53 million funding round. Their products include ‘Speller’, which allows a person to spell out words simply by looking at the letters on a screen, and ‘Sound ID’, which reads brain signals to work out the sound a person is listening to. Neuralink is another company in the BMI space, founded by Elon Musk. This week, he announced that there would be an update on Neuralink’s progress on 28th August, the first update from the company in about a year. Musk’s initial goal is to use this technology to treat patients with neurological conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease, but his future vision is that Neuralink will allow direct brain-to-brain communication between people (essentially telepathy). Using this technology for the treatment of medical conditions makes sense, but ethical considerations arise in cases where it could be used to enhance mental or physical functions in healthy people.