Top Tech Voices Podcast S2 E3: Neuro-Tech and Brain Interfaces

I genuinely loved this episode but let me start with the thing that got me more than anything else. The moment Prof. Seth mentions they did a study with 40,000 people just to figure out whether we all see colours the same way. 40,000 people. For a question I would have just shrugged off with "who knows". That quietly blew my mind more than all the sci fi brain implant stuff honestly.

Because it made me think about every argument I have ever had where I was absolutely certain the other person was just being stubborn. What if they were genuinely seeing something different and had no way to explain it, same as I had no way to explain it to them.

Also I feel like nobody is talking about the mental monoculture point he sneaks in near the end. The idea that people might literally have to train themselves to think in a specific way just to make BCI technology work, and only people who can afford the expensive version get to keep thinking however they want. That one has been sitting with me all day.

Here's my feedback on this podcast,

1.The meditation and attention stuff kept getting touched on and then dropped and I kept wishing it would go somewhere. There is clearly so much there. I would love a whole episode on just that, maybe with someone who specifically studies the neuroscience of meditation.

2.The ethics side of BCIs also felt like it needed way more room. I could see Prof. Seth had so much more to say about neural bycatch and privacy and mental monoculture but because there was so much ground to cover it all got a bit rushed.

3.One small format thing I noticed. There were a few moments where four or five questions got asked at once and some really interesting threads like the free will discussion and the analog brain point at the end felt like they were just getting good when the topic switched. I would personally love to see each idea get more space to breathe.

The discussion between Ms. Anderson and Dr. Seth was very fascinating. They touched upon so many interesting subtopics of our brain and thoughts that my mind is still reeling. Maybe it is a little dark, but I always thought what a cruel experiment it would be to raise a child in total isolation teaching him/her a completely wrong presentation of the physical world, as we know it. Say we called something red, when it is blue or hot when cold. But maybe that is why the world seems to be so messed up now.

Some observations:
NOTE: For what it’s worth, my observations are based on my conscience and unconscious experiences therefore probably all messed up.

- As mentioned by Dr. Seth, our mind and thoughts are often limited when we hang out in an “echo” chamber, which we often bring about through our social media addiction.

- Mediation can work in both a negative and positive influence if you limit external communication.

- It was mentioned that evidence is often needed to test our thoughts and we have a tendency to pick a test to support them. In the real world we call these “white” or “grey” box tests since we already have some idea as to what we expect to happen. A better solution might be a “black” box test, assuming we know very little about the environment.

- I like the model of brain as an analog computer. Where does “fuzzy” logic come in?

Two last questions (for now):
- As brain implants become more evasive, how to we deal with faults?

- I can see an implant needing a firmware upgrade. How secure do wireless upgrades need to be, so a person isn’t hacked?

Finally, I hope Dr. Seth will not take any offense, but in the promo for the series, his picture makes him look like a character from Harry Potter. I’m glad the video did him better justice. Must be my subconscious speaking.

When this episode started, I thought the discussion was a bit too abstract; conceptual at a level well above usefulness.  "Do we all see the same color green?"  When they finally got to the brain computer interfaces, the content became much more real.  It somewhat validated the early discourse.  I was very impressed with Professor Seth's humanity.  He studies conscious with a conscience.  I like that he isn't so enamored with his research that he can't see potential negative applications.

He did set a mental sticky bomb for me though.  Echo chambers.  Echo chambers amplify polarization.  It's a positive feedback loop.  We have identified the problem that is creating stress in our society and culture.  How do you fix it?  Censorship isn't the right answer.  People don't want to be manipulated - and yet we are.  I liked his take on the dress illusion/interpretation as a way to possibly open people's minds that others might not see things as you do.  What is the next step?  I don't know.  I'd like to get back to just being a geek.

Did anyone else think of Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy?  Yeah, he whistles - but you know there's some BCI action going on there somewhere.

I knew we were living in a science fiction world  the moment I first  saw robot dogs.   So an IP number for each brain.  Why not?

Are we going to live long enough to witness that every brain gets its own IP address? The implications of this sounds very much like science fiction for now, but the more time passes the more ideas and dreams of fictional stories in books and movies become reality.

With the recent 'AI' developments, I won't even try to predict the future at all.

Very engaging episode, definitely food for thought.

I often use the famous “dress” image in my computer vision lectures as an example of how human perception can mislead us. While it’s commonly described as an illusion, it’s really about interpretation. If you measure the pixel values, for example using ImageJ, you’ll find that in the supposedly “white” regions, the red and green components are actually lower than the blue, indicating that the color is in fact blue. Of course, this doesn’t reveal the true color of the dress, since illumination conditions play a crucial role. The full explanation is well documented on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress).

Around the 38-minute mark, Anil Seth argues that the brain is not a computer, later refining the comparison by likening it more to an analog system. This brought back memories of early analog computer prototypes I encountered in my youth. Ultimately, digital computers, even those based on vacuum tubes, proved more efficient and scalable. Still, it’s interesting to imagine how analog computing might have evolved if it had kept pace technologically. Neural networks, the backbone of modern AI, largely implemented as software on digital hardware, are relatively inefficient compared to what an analog neural network could achieve, for instance, using operational amplifiers to perform summation and activation functions directly in hardware. Interestingly comparable technology in camera technology, so called neuromorphic cameras are now entering the scene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_camera).

Finally, I’d like to touch on the discussion of free will at around 24 minutes. This debate goes back centuries. In the 16th century, Martin Luther’s De Servo Arbitrio (“On the Bondage of the Will”) argued that humans cannot freely choose between good and evil, but depend entirely on divine grace for salvation. This was written in response to Erasmus’ earlier defence of free will. That said, Anil Seth seems to approach the concept from a different, less theological perspective (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Bondage_of_the_Will).

have a look what goldmine i found on internet today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBYSpR8N6pc

With Neuralink and Synchron moving toward high-volume production this year, we’re crossing a line where our most private thoughts could technically be 'data points.' If a BCI can decode my intent to move a cursor, how long until it can decode my unspoken emotions or political leanings? Do we need a 'Neural Bill of Rights' before this goes mainstream?

This episode pretty much shows why folks get caught up in conspiracy theories without much trouble. If our minds are basically just making educated guesses all the time, then it makes sense that once we really believe something, our brains will just keep looking for things that confirm it.

That dress thing, for example, the one I saw as blue and black, really showed how the same thing can look completely different to different people. So, think about news, social media, or even beliefs. Things can really get out of hand quickly in those situations.

I also liked the meditation part; it felt like I was training my brain to stop guessing so much and just focus on what was right there. The BCI part was a little concerning, you know? What if machines start trying to figure out what our messy brain signals mean, and they guess wrong, but people believe what the machine says?

Just a thought, maybe you could put that dress illusion in the post; it usually gets people talking.This didn't just explain things; it made me wonder about how much of what I think I know is actually true. I saw that how is it?

Whales I believe do have the means to communicate through sound.  Whether or not they have the variety in their vocal range to support a rich and varied language is another thing.  Wales and crows are held back by their lack of limbs.  Opposable thumbs are among our gifts.