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Last week, a post by Elon Musk on X (formerly known as Twitter) caught my eye. The entrepreneur claimed that sticking electrodes in people’s heads is going to lead to a huge increase in the rate of data transfer out of, and into, human brains.

The occasion of Musk’s post was the announcement by Neuralink, his brain-computer interface (BCI) company, that it was officially seeking the first volunteer to receive the “N1,” an implant comprising 1,024 electrodes able to listen in on brain neurons.

This volunteer, the company said, will be someone who has ALS or has been paralyzed due to a spinal cord injury. The point of the experiment is to let them “control external devices with their thoughts”—specifically, move a computer cursor, or control a phone app. There’s little doubt they can do it. Such experiments have been going on for decades.

One difference is that the N1 device has more than twice the number of electrodes as used in previous implant experiments. More electrodes means Neuralink can collect more data from more nerve cells.

That brings us to to Musk’s post, in which he discussed a long-term goal of vastly increasing “bandwidth” between people, or people and machines, by a factor of 1,000 or more. What did he mean, and, I wondered, is this really possible? Are we talking about some kind of fast telepathy where I could tell you about my day in nanoseconds?

Here’s what his X post said:

Musk post that says

After speaking with a few scientists, I can report to you that the idea that a brain implant can speed up communication between, say, you and me, is largely hogwash. However, speeding up the rate at which machines can read from the brain is very real, and it is key to some cutting-edge uses of mind-reading interfaces, like allowing profoundly paralyzed people to “speak” via a computer.

“Bandwidth” in this case simply refers to a rate of data transfer. Scientists have estimated that humans share information at a speed of around 40 bits per second, no matter what language they use. That’s pretty slow. (A computer download is a million times faster). And there are reasons why it might never speed up. Ever have two people talk to you at the same time? Your ears let the information in, but your brain can’t process it. The speed of thinking itself sets a limit on your bandwidth.

“The idea that we’re going to hook up two people with bits of wire and do better than what you and I can do right now, speaking, is folly,” says Lee Miller, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University who works with brain interfaces. “If that’s the plan, I’m not investing.”

Yet scientists concede there are situations in which faster data transfer could allow a fundamental change in how we express ourselves. Say you’ve been mugged and you want to describe the face of your assailant to a sketch artist. Even though you can picture it clearly, it’s going to take a while for you to communicate those details at your spoken-word rate of 40 bits per second.

Yet, in theory, mental images could be communicated directly between minds. Researchers pointed me to the case of Krista and Tatiana Hogan, twins conjoined at the head who share part of their brains. It’s claimed they can see through one another’s eyes, in effect sharing information coming off the retina into the optic nerve at 10 million bits a second.

In fact, Neuralink has started investigating whether its implant electrodes can stimulate the visual cortex of monkeys. Vision produced in this way is extremely crude—essentially, just a few spots of light—but it could get better with more and more electrodes. One day, it might be possible to transmit a picture between two brains over a cable.

“Elon thinks a lot about mental imagery, and I believe he’s imagining a future where the image that I’m thinking of could be presented to you, or stimulated directly in your cortex,” says Vikash Gilja, a professor at the University of California, San Diego.

So that’s where more bandwidth could make a difference—not in speeding up speech, but in unexpected forms of thought transfer. It’s also possible, for example, to detect emotional states, like whether a person is depressed, by measuring the brain. Those feelings are not only hard to describe, but you might not

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By: Antonio Regalado
Title: Elon Musk wants more bandwidth between people and machines. Do we need it?
Sourced From: www.technologyreview.com/2023/09/29/1080472/elon-musk-bandwidth-brains/
Published Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

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The Download: abandoning carbon offsets, and creating new materials

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This is today’s edition of The Download our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

The University of California has all but dropped carbon offsets—and thinks you should, too

In the fall of 2018, the University of California tasked a team of researchers with identifying projects from which it could confidently purchase carbon offsets that would reliably cancel out greenhouse gas emissions across its campuses. They found next to nothing.

The findings helped prompt the entire university system to radically rethink its sustainability plans. Now the researchers are sharing the lessons they learned over the course of the project, in the hopes of helping other universities and organizations consider what role, if any, offsets should play in sustainability strategies, MIT Technology Review can report.

The project’s leaders have three main takeaways for what others should do. Read our story to find out what they are.

—James Temple

Google DeepMind’s new AI tool helped create more than 700 new materials

The news: Google DeepMind has created a tool that uses deep learning to dramatically speed up the process of discovering new materials. The technology, which is called graphical networks for material exploration (GNoME), has already been used to predict structures for 2.2 million new materials, of which more than 700 have gone on to be created and tested in the lab.

Why it matters: From EV batteries to solar cells to microchips, new materials can supercharge technological breakthroughs. But discovering them usually takes months or even years of trial-and-error research. Thanks to GNoME, the number of known stable materials has grown almost tenfold, to 421,000. Read the full story.

—June Kim

The X Prize is taking aim at aging with a new $101 million award

Money can’t buy happiness, but X Prize founder Peter Diamandis hopes it might be able to buy better health. The X Prize Foundation, which funds global competitions to spark development of breakthrough technologies, has announced a new $101 million prize—the largest yet—to address the mental and physical decline that comes with aging.

The winners will have to prove by 2030 that their intervention can turn back the clock in older adults by at least a decade in three key areas: cognition, immunity, and muscle function. Its organizers are hoping the large prize will convince hundreds or even thousands of teams to compete. Read the full story.

—Cassandra Willyard

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Ilya Sutskever is leaving the OpenAI board  
But the chief scientist is staying at the firm—for now. (Bloomberg $)
Microsoft has been added as a non voting member of the board. (NYT $)
Sam Altman says he initially felt furious after being asked to return to the company. (The Verge)
Inside the mind of OpenAI’s chief scientist. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Elon Musk isn’t playing nice with X’s worried advertisers
In fact, he went on a foul-mouthed rant railing against them. (CNBC)
Disney boss Bob Iger was a target of Musk’s ire. (WP $)
Musk just can’t help himself. (Slate $)

3 Next year is going to be even hotter
🌡
Thanks, in part, to the El Niño weather phenomenon. (FT $)
Methane is due to be a hot topic at COP28. (Economist $)+ Climate action is gaining momentum. So are the disasters. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Google has agreed to pay Canadian news outlets $100 million a year
It’s a rare win for publishers in their fight to get Big Tech to pay for content. (Motherboard)
Supporters say it’s the first step towards creating a sustainable news ecosystem. (BBC)

5 India is determined to clean up the Ganges river
The sacred waterway is incredibly polluted. Cleaning it up is both a holy and a scientific mission. (Wired $)
El Paso was “drought-proof.” Climate change is pushing its limits. (MIT Technology Review)

6 US border control is planning to trial Palmer Luckey’s AI surveillance towers
The autonomous towers track objects even in the coldest conditions. (404 Media)

7 Inside one man’s mission to track America’s gun violence
No one federal agency charts it, so Dan Kois has stepped up to fill the void. (Bloomberg $)

8 Please don’t follow TikTok’s dating advice
It’s bleak at best, outrageously sexist at worst. (Vox)
Here’s how the net’s newest matchmakers help you find love. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Cutting virtual grass is deeply satisfying
Just ask the video games fans transfixed by maintaining their lawns. (The Guardian)

10 What Spotify

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By: Rhiannon Williams
Title: The Download: abandoning carbon offsets, and creating new materials
Sourced From: www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/30/1084123/the-download-abandoning-carbon-offsets-and-creating-new-materials/
Published Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2023 13:10:00 +0000

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https://mansbrand.com/sustainability-starts-with-the-data-center/

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Sustainability starts with the data center

MIT Hitachi V5 110723 Cover

When asked why he targeted banks, notorious criminal Willie Sutton reportedly answered, “Because that’s where the money is.” Similarly, when thoughtful organizations target sustainability, they look to their data centers—because that’s where the carbon emissions are.

MIT Hitachi V5 110723 Cover 1

The International Energy Agency (IEA) attributes about 1.5% of total global electricity use to data centers and data transmission networks. This figure is much higher, however, in countries with booming data storage sectors: in Ireland, 18% of electricity consumption was attributable to data centers in 2022, and in Denmark, it is projected to reach 15% by 2030. And while there have been encouraging shifts toward green-energy sources and increased deployment of energy-efficient hardware and software, organizations need to accelerate their data center sustainability efforts to meet ambitious net-zero targets.

For data center operators, options for boosting sustainability include shifting energy sources, upgrading physical infrastructure and hardware, improving and automating workflows, and updating the software that manages data center storage. Hitachi Vantara estimates that emissions attributable to data storage infrastructure can be reduced as much as 96% by using a combination of these approaches.

Critics might counter that, though data center decarbonization is a worthy social goal, it also imposes expenses that a company focused on its bottom line can ill afford. This, however, is a shortsighted view.

Data center decarbonization initiatives can provide an impetus that enables organizations to modernize, optimize, and automate their data centers. This leads directly to improved performance of mission-critical applications, as well as a smaller, denser, more efficient data center footprint—which then creates savings via reduced energy costs. And modern data storage and management solutions, beyond supporting sustainability, also create a unified platform for innovation and new business models through advanced data analytics, machine learning, and AI.

Dave Pearson, research vice president at IDC, says, “Decarbonization and the more efficient energy utilization of the data center are supported by the same technologies that support data center modernization. Modernization has sustainability goals, but obviously it provides all kinds of business benefits, including enabling data analytics and better business processes.”

Download the full report.

This content was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not written by MIT Technology Review’s editorial staff.

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By: MIT Technology Review Insights
Title: Sustainability starts with the data center
Sourced From: www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/30/1083909/sustainability-starts-with-the-data-center/
Published Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2023 15:03:00 +0000

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The Download: the year’s most-read climate stories, and Amazon’s chatbot

This is today’s edition of The Download our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

A look back at the year’s most-read climate stories

2023 has been a big year for climate news. Wildfires, floods and heatwaves displaced and killed thousands of people across the world as extreme weather events worsened, and scientists have concluded the past 12 months were the hottest since records began.

But it’s not exclusively bad news. Our climate experts James Temple and Casey Crownhart have been covering the most promising technologies that could make a difference. Take a look back over some of MIT Technology Review’s most-read climate stories of the year—and make sure you keep up-to-date with all the latest news by subscribing to The Spark, our weekly climate and energy tech newsletter.

+ This geothermal startup showed its wells can be used like a giant underground battery. If Fervo Energy’s field results work at commercial scale, it could become cheaper and easier to green the grid. Read the full story.

+ Helion Energy, a startup backed by Sam Altman, says its first fusion plant is five years away. Experts aren’t so sure.

+ Check out our handy explainer of how heat pumps work—and how they could save you money in the process.

+ Spraying iron particles above the ocean could help to fight climate change. But scientists say far more research still needs to be done. Read the full story.

+ Yes, we have enough materials to power the world with renewable energy. We won’t run out of key ingredients for climate action, but mining comes with social and environmental ramifications. Read the full story.

+ Nonprofits and academic groups are working to help climate-vulnerable regions take part in the high-stakes global debate over solar geoengineering.

+ We were promised smaller nuclear reactors. Where are they? Small modular reactors could be quicker and cheaper to build. Now, they’ve reached a major milestone. Read the full story.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Amazon has launched a new AI chatbot called Q
Not to be confused with OpenAI’s rumored Q* AI model. (NYT $)
It’s designed to help code and manage cloud software for businesses. (Wired $)

2 Elon Musk boosted the dangerous pizzagate conspiracy theory
It’s the latest in a string of long-debunked theories he’s given oxygen to on X. (WP $)
It’s no wonder the platform can’t keep its advertisers. (Motherboard)

3 Apple is winding down its Goldman Sachs credit card partnership
But it’s unclear whether this spells the end of Apple’s foray into finance or not. (WSJ $)

4 There’s no evidence the internet is harming your mental health
Contrary to popular opinion. (FT $)
Your kid’s phone probably isn’t causing depression. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Amazon is disrupting rural mail services across America
Postal workers have been instructed to prioritize the retail giant’s package deliveries, and customers aren’t happy about it. (WP $)

6 High-profile women in AI don’t want to join OpenAI’s all-male board
The board reflects the wider problems within the AI industry. (Wired $)
A prominent female tech influencer’s accounts are run by a man. (404 Media)
Why can’t tech fix its gender problem? (MIT Technology Review)

7 America loves hydrogen 
It’s an attractive green energy—but only if it can be made efficiently. (The Atlantic $)
When hydrogen will help climate change—and when it won’t. (MIT Technology Review)

8 US soldiers are sharing their horrific barracks on a new app  
Hots&Cots is full of images of dirty lodgings and substandard living conditions. (Motherboard)
The future of military tech is heavily AI-based. (Vox)

9 The world’s first AI singer is no Taylor Swift
Her first release is deeply basic, to put it kindly. (Insider $)

10 Those Instagrammable offices aren’t fooling anyone
Workers don’t want to go back, and photogenic spaces won’t change that. (NYT $)

Quote of the day

“The list of abuses is endless…[X] has become a vast global sewer.”

—Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, explains why she’s leaving X after 14 years on the platform, Insider reports.

The big story

How robotic honeybees and hives could help the species fight back

XnY9S

October 2022

Something was wrong, but Thomas Schmickl couldn’t put his finger on it. It was 2007, and the Austrian biologist was spending part of the year at East Tennessee State

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By: Rhiannon Williams
Title: The Download: the year’s most-read climate stories, and Amazon’s chatbot
Sourced From: www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/29/1084048/the-download-the-years-most-read-climate-stories-and-amazons-chatbot/
Published Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2023 13:10:00 +0000

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