Short excerpt from a November 17, 2019 YouTube interview titled "Elon Musk: Understanding the Human Brain at Neuralink." Elon Musk contrasts current low-resolution brain measurement (fMRI) with the need for high-precision sensors and stimulation/response experiments (e.g., triggering single neurons to observe perceptual effects), arguing Neuralink can provide deeper insight into how the brain and mind work.
We currently understand very little about the human brain. Do you also hope that the work at neuralink will help us understand more about the human mind, about the brain?
Yeah, I think the work at neuralink will definitely shed a lot of insight into how the brain, the mind, works. Right now, just the data we have regarding how the brain works is very limited. You know, we've got fmri, which is that's kind of like putting a stethoscope on the outside of a factory wall and then putting it all over the factory wall and you can sort of hear the sounds, but you don't know what the machines are doing, really. You can infer a few things, but it's very broad brushstroke. In order to really know what's going on in the brain, you have to have high precision sensors and then you want to have stimulus and response. Like if you trigger a neuron, how do you feel? What do you see? How does it change your perception of.
The world you're speaking to? Physically, just getting close to the brain, being able to measure signals from the brain, will give us sort of open the door inside the factory.
Yes, exactly. Being able to have high precision sensors that tell you what individual neurons are doing and then being able to trigger a neuron and see what the response is in the brain. So you can see the consequences of if you fire this neuron, what happens? How do you feel? What does it change? It'll be really profound to have this in people because people can articulate their change, like if there's a change in mood or if they can tell you if they can see better or hear better or be able to form sentences better or worse, or their memories are jogged or that kind of thing.
