Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to turn cloud-based AI into an extension of our brains

Elon Musk has been working on a Neuralink, a human-computer brain interface company, in whatever spare moments he has between running Tesla and also running SpaceX. Neuralink’s ultimate aim may actually be the most ambitious of all three of his companies, surprisingly, and a new exploration of the foundational ideas behind Neuralink on Wait But Why goes deep within what Musk hopes to achieve by creating better, higher-bandwidth connections between our brains and computers.

Musk has confirmed that he will indeed occupy the CEO role at Neuralink, which means he’ll be the CEO of three separate companies. But Neuralink’s goals definitely sound the most science fictional of all three of his ventures, which is saying something considering Musk’s SpaceX is all about making humans an intergalactic colonial species.

Basically, Musk seems to want to achieve a communications leap equivalent in impact to when humans came up with language – this proved an incredibly efficient way to convey thoughts socially at the time, but what Neuralink aims to do is increase that efficiency by multiple factors of magnitude. Person-to-person, Musk’s vision would enable direct “uncompressed” communication of concepts between people, instead of having to effectively “compress” your original thought by translating it into language, and then having the other party “decompress” the package you send them linguistically, which is always a lossy process.

Neuralink’s tech would also be able to help humans keep pace with the rapid advances in AI, and would achieve this by basically integrating AI with human consciousness. Neuralink’s tech would enable human use of AI as just an additional faculty – like our sense of selves or other higher in-brain thought faculties. Making it possible to connect with such high bandwith directly into the brain would allow us to integrate cloud-based AI computing within our selves in a way that’s indistinguishable from our core selves, Musk proposes, much like how most people would now find it difficult to separate their statements and expressions in language from the parts of the brain that generate them.

This tech is still far away from any kind of broad commercial application – maybe farther than a SpaceX trip to Mars. Musk says that it’s probably going to be at least “eight to 10 years” before tech the company produces can be used by someone without a disability. Neuralink is aiming to create therapeutic applications of its tech first, which will likely help as it seeks the necessary regulatory approvals for human trials.

Musk taking on a third CEO role is bound to raise eyebrows among his company’s investors, but Neuralink’s mission is in keeping with the aim of his other two companies: All three focus on solving problems that present what Musk would term existential threats – Neuralink’s agenda of countering AI not least among them.

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Alphabet starts collecting health info to better predict disease

For one thing, Verily will sequence the genomes of all 10,000 subjects. That's no mean feat when it costs several thousand dollars per person, but it might help explain the genetic conditions that lead to certain illnesses. The firm also wants to analyze protein sets and the microscopic ecosystems inside the subjects' bodies. Participants will get results throughout the study, so they won't have to wait long to comb over their own data.

With that said, don't expect to hear about any insights for a while. Investigator Adrian Hernandez tells CNBC that it'll be "at least" 5 years before the knowledge from the study is useful to the public. Also, the research fields are still young enough that there's no guarantee they'll be useful to the healthier people in the study. In a sense, though, that's the point. Even if the information from healthy Baseline subjects doesn't turn up anything interesting, it'll tell scientists where to focus their research. And for Verily, this would tell it to shift its attention to its numerous other projects.

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Chef Angela Dimayuga issues the perfect rejection of Ivanka Trump’s lifestyle brand

As she posted about on Instagram, Angela Dimayuga—the executive chef at Mission Chinese Food—was approached by a writer from Ivanka Trump’s website about doing an interview that spotlighted Dimayuga as a female entrepreneur. Dimayuga wrote this in response:

Hi Adi,

Thank you for thinking of me. I’m glad you are a fan of my work so much that you want to provide more visibility for my career to inspire “other working women.” However, I’m for women who actually empower other women.

I don’t believe that IvankaTrump.com is truly “a non-political platform of empowerment for [women]”. So long as the name Trump is involved, it is political and frankly, an option for the IvankaTrump.com business to make a profit.

I don’t see anything empowering about defunding Planned Parenthood, barring asylum from women refugees, rolling back safeguards for equal pay, and treating POC/LGBT and the communities that support these groups like second class citizens.

As a queer person of color and daughter of immigrant parents I am not interested in being profiled as an aspirational figure for those that support a brand and a President that slyly disparages female empowerment. Sharing my story with a brand and family that silences our same voices is futile.

Thank you for the consideration.

Dimayuga also spoke to Elle about her response, explaining, “People, especially in marginalized communities are feeling more encouraged to speak and have their voices and narratives heard, and we all want to hear from them. We are beginning to be both more willing to share with no bullshit, and at the same time learning how to be better listeners.” You can see Dimayuga's message if you click through the Instagram below:

http://my.onmedic.com/2pvbb8B

[Photo: Ali Shaker/VOA]

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Apple might have a secret team working on glucose sensor technology for diabetes

Apple has hired a group of biomedical researchers to work on a secret project to monitor diabetic patients using sensors, according to a CNBC report.

An estimated 371 million people have the disease worldwide and in the last few years, several tech companies have been trying to come up with better solutions to help those afflicted. Virta, a newly launched startup tackling type 2 diabetes that promises to completely cure patients by remotely monitoring behaviors. Livongo Health is another startup in the Bay Area that just raised $52.5 million to launch its blood sugar monitoring product.

Normally, patients monitor their glucose by pricking themselves to get a blood sample so not having to do that any more would be a real game-changer. One person told CNBC Apple is developing optical sensors that shine a light through the skin to measure glucose.

However, others have tried to come up with technology to bypass pricking before and it’s proven tough to do. Alphabet’s life science company Verily has also tried to take on the disease with a smart contact lens that measures blood glucose levels through the eye but some reports suggest the now three-year-old project isn’t going well.

But Apple’s project has been going on for at least five years, according to the report, and is now to the point where it’s ready to conduct feasibility trials. Apple has also reportedly hired consultants to help it jump through the inevitable regulatory hoops as well.

The team is said to be made up of Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies and possibly 30 other people — at least a dozen of whom could have come from a frenzy of hires Apple made from the biomedical field, including companies like ZONARE, Vital Connect, Sano and Medtronic.

While we can’t confirm details of the project with Apple (we’ve reached out but have not heard back yet), it would fit well with one of the company’s earlier visions. Steve Jobs believed Apple would one day be at the intersection of technology and biology, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of him. The Apple Watch is already there, counting steps, calories burned, taking our heart rate and other biological measures. Add on a sensor you can take with you wherever you go and able to detect glucose levels without drawing blood and you’ve officially transformed an entire industry.

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23andMe Now Provides Risk Information for 10 Genetic Diseases and Conditions

Discussing the limits of artificial intelligence