Category Future of BCI

The concept of “the technological singularity” was first described by Vernor Vinge 20 years ago in 1993.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil later popularized and expanded upon it in a more modern context over the next couple decades.

Our philosophy on the mergence of technology and humanity is simple: it’s going to happen, regardless of how we, as a race and as individuals, feel about it. And it won’t really be something you can “opt out” of, at least not on the long tail.

The only question, then, is “how will it happen?”

I used to be skeptical about human-computer interfacing because of the lens I had on a few years back when I first started learning about it in the context of transhumanism and the “negative” agenda to turn people into robots that I was reading about in David Icke books.

But then I realized that was only one angle. One possibility. And, if we and other benevolent players are successful, an improbability.

Part of our mission is to help spearhead this mounting tidal wave in a positive-sum, additive, benevolent way.

As I awakened more deeply to the beautiful ways that smart technology can and already is helping people across almost every aspect of life, including to improve cognition and wellness, I realized something powerful: it is our destiny to evolve with smart technology. This is quite literally how we will take our next evolution as a species.

Technology like BCI will be an incredible magnifier of human intellect, an amplifier of cognition and force multiplier of our inborn capacities to create, perform, and thrive.

As I wrote in an article on my old blog:

Humanity is in the midst of making a massive quantum leap forward that will mark our transition from a primitive, Earthbound, humanoid race to a technologically-driven species capable of innovations orders of magnitude greater than anything we’ve imagined thus far.

Brain-computer interfaces are one subset of that evolution.

In-and-of itself, connecting cognition to technology is not a bad or dangerous or risky thing to do. It’s actually an amazing and bold step forward that, in my view, will be much more transformative than landing on the moon or inventing flight or maybe even the invention of the light bulb was.

If you could take a computer – which is inherently neutral and hundreds of times “smarter” than humans are – and train it to partner with you, almost as a digital twin, so it’s completely in service to you, and connect it to your “quantified self” (your biological and psychological make-up), we’re talking about something than can only be additive if leveraged without contamination or alteration by some outside thing.

This is what the best BCIs can do.

NeuraLink and Synchron are to be applauded for their work but invasive implants just aren’t right for nor needed by the masses just yet. But they can obviously be life-saving for people who need them and are suffering from conditions like paralysis or loss of limbs. Think about having your movement restored after a horrific accident or suddenly being able to communicate your thoughts on a screen after years of being unable to communicate. In those cases, these technologies are likely seen as an absolute Godsend. To others on the very far end of the spectrum, they are a scary entry point to a very uncertain future that involves a desensitized population willing to surgically alter their minds at the drop of a dime, get microchips installed like buying a new outfit at the mall, and be mind-controlled by BCIs run by corporations who’s agendas are iffy.

So much of how you look at not just brain-computer interfacing but mergence with tech and AI in general depends on your perspective.

Just because the Metaverse will exist one day doesn’t mean you have to go into it. Just because certain human-computer technologies will soon hit the market doesn’t mean they’re necessarily “right” for everybody. We should use our own judgment.

So there has to be a certain level of willingness, both collectively, and personally, I think, where we’re going to have to say either “no, I’m just not ready to hook anything up to my body or brain that’s not already biologically a part of myself,” or “you know what, let me see, let me wait and see what happens, I can imagine how technologies like this might work, might be able to help me live a better life, and why would I shut myself off to something like that if it exists?”

In terms of when the singularity is going to happen, Kurzweil postulates it’ll be here by 2045. So, 20 more years, give or take. In terms of how it’ll happen, I see it as three layers or three steps:

1. Body-to-tech (wearables) – already here, been here for a while (FitBit, Apple Watch, etc)
2. Brain-to-computer (BCIs) – already here, still in its infancy, very much a frontier market
3. Consciousness-to-computer – not yet here, but being worked on (memory storage and transfer, uploading human data to computers, etc)

Our mission, of course, is to participate and usher in the future of “step #2” with safe, non-invasive products that are specifically geared for optimization of mental wellbeing.

Our vision is really to connect cognition to content consumption. We want to, and will, make it possible to receive totally tailored device experiences based on your brainwave data and what it indicates you need for maximal performance.

As long as your earbuds are in, they’ll be able to pick up dozens of what are called “features” which are different types of brainwave patterns related to all sorts of dimensions of thought: intentions, desires, inhibitions, emotions, cognitive bandwidth, mood, level of wakefulness, and a lot more. Then they’ll be able to communicate that data to your phone which will have our app, which will be driven by AI, which will receive that data, decipher it, use it to accurately present and predict exactly what you need based on your underlying goal which you will have told the app already.

So, there’s going to be all sorts of really narrow use cases for BCI, and we’re already seeing this in the space. There are firms focusing on sleep enhancement and focus for gamers and epilepsy control and all of these things. But our focus is predictive mental wellbeing, or what I sometimes describe as cognitively-guided device optimization.

To us, this is one of the most important areas of focus as the singularity nears. As tech continues to become more interwoven into all of our lives (and it’s not going away, it’s only getting stronger), we stand at a precipice now where we’re either going to become entirely dependent and addicted to it (which some people already are who we hope to help) or where we’re going to learn to leverage it as our servant instead of our master, which we hope to help push forth.

At any rate, I hope this post sheds a little light into my thinking around all of these topics. There’s certainly a lot more I could go into here but that’ll be for future articles.

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-Michael