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The Internet of Brains Pt. 2

“It’s kind of like a Fitbit in your skull, with tiny wires.”—Elon Musk 

That’s the gist of Neuralink’s YouTube stream Friday. When Musk’s three-year-old brain-machine-interface startup shares an update, of course I have to write about it. 

Setting the scene

Last July, breaking down Neuralink’s previous demo, I wrote: “Not satisfied connecting toasters and toothbrushes to the internet, humanity is now looking to wire and digitize the next biological frontier: brains.” 

• Neuralink is developing an implantable microchip to monitor and decode neural activity. It’s also created a miniature robot to insert the device.

Neuralink has further miniaturized the device and recruited a new animal tester, Gertrude the pig. Gertrude ate and played with hay, and her actions were transmitted to a graph logging neural activity. 

The company says it received a Breakthrough Device designation from the Food and Drug Administration in July. It’s prepping for human trials soon, barring FDA clearance, but didn’t provide any definitive timelines. Initially, Neuralink reported that clinical trials will include people with quadriplegia. 

The endgame

Musk said Neuralink’s device could eventually help treat diseases—anxiety, depression, addiction, and more. And wearers could telepathically summon a Tesla. 

• That raises a very important question….Which will come first: Neuralink developing a regulator-approved brain chip or Tesla developing regulator-approved self-driving technology?

But...with great promises come a healthy dose of skepticism. It’s “neuroscience theater,” MIT Tech Review wrote. Neuroscientists told Reuters the demo “indicated that Neuralink had made great strides but cautioned that longer studies were needed.” 

Big picture, c/o Musk: “We’re not trying to raise money or do anything else, but the the main purpose is to convince great people to come work at Neuralink, and help us bring the product to fruition, make it affordable and reliable and such that anyone who wants one can have one.”

GEOPOLITICS

Export...Paused?

China has taken a page from the U.S. playbook and tightened its AI export restrictions. 

The latest: On Friday, Chinese officials placed new limits on the overseas transfer of emerging technologies. What sorts of technologies? “Such computing and data-processing technologies as text analysis, content recommendation, speech modeling and voice-recognition,” per the WSJ. 

• China’s Ministry of Commerce said it was time to update the export list, since the last changes were made in 2008. 

Why it matters: Because of the only thing we’ve talked about all summer. The export restrictions could affect the sale of TikTok...and subsequently, the stock prices of Oracle, Microsoft, and Walmart. 

From China’s POV, a trade official said ByteDance should “seriously and cautiously” consider a sale of TikTok.

Big picture: We’ve mainly heard from one government in the TikTok saga. But Beijing clearly has a say in any acquisition, too. It could be flexing its muscles to extract more concessions from a U.S. buyer or block a takeover entirely. 

+ Too little, too late? TikTok’s buyer could be announced as soon as tomorrow, CNBC reports.

SPONSORED BY GRAZE

Suburban Dad Attempts To Speak Robot

“Beep boop boop” says Graze, the autonomous, commercial lawn-mowing robot.

“Boop beep I love you boop,” says Doug, local Dad, and proud disrupter of the $100 billion dollar landscaping industry. 

Doug is taking on an industry plagued by low margins by investing in Graze.

He’s so excited about how Graze mowers are eliminating fuel costs and competing in a hyper-competitive market that he didn’t just stop at investing in Graze’s electric and solar technology. He’s also learning to speak the language of autonomous lawn mowers. 

But you don’t have to learn a robot language to help bring the mower of the future to the market. You just have to invest in Graze by the September 18th deadline. 

Invest in Graze today. 

Or as Doug would say, “Beep boop invest now boop”

AI

Grab Your Toolkit

Last week, LinkedIn announced the LinkedIn Fairness Toolkit, a suite of software tools to detect bias in data sets and algorithms. 

LiFT is based on research that LinkedIn started in 2017, and for the past year, the company’s used it to check its own work.

Bias in (hiring) practice 

For LinkedIn—which is powered by thousands of algorithms and serves more than 700 million users—undetected bias can lead to people being unfairly passed over for jobs. Since bias can creep into both data sets and user behavior, LinkedIn engineers designed the toolkit to try and catch both.  

Biased data: Let’s say a data set is skewed—it has a disproportionate number of white candidates, for instance. That could directly result in an artificially inflated number of white candidates frontloaded in a recruiter’s search.

Biased users: “For some recruiters, there would be this sort of disconnect between… goals to hire more diverse candidates and the profiles they were clicking on, the people they were reaching out to,” Stephen Lynch, a senior communications manager with LinkedIn Engineering, told us. LiFT aims to identify that selection bias and then send a “nudge” to the recruiter.  

Big picture: In the past, comparable tools were tied to specific vendors. LinkedIn’s toolkit is now open source, making it available to any company.

BITS & BYTES

Stat: The Tesla Model S Long Range Plus has a battery that will run you 402 miles, according to EPA estimates. Car and Driver breaks down why that number may be a bit iffy. 

Quote: Jio owner Reliance says it’s “net-debt free.” It’s prepping IPOs for its retail and digital units. 

Check out: OneZero has a long read on how to dismantle “surveillance capitalism.”

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WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• The FAA has awarded regulatory approval to Amazon to operate a Prime Air drone delivery fleet.
• Stocks split for Apple and Tesla. 
• Apple terminated Epic Games’ App Store account. 
• Tesla shipped a software update to visually detect speed limit signs.
• Apple could be building a search engine. 
• Google and Facebook have abandoned plans to lay an undersea cable connecting the U.S. and Hong Kong. 
• Bill Gates led an $85 million investment in Kymeta, a satellite connectivity startup. 
• SpaceX completed its 100th mission.

WHAT'S BREWING THIS WEEK

Monday: Zoom earnings.

Tuesday: Samsung Unpacked event. 

Wednesday: MongoDB earnings; SaaStr conference runs through Thursday. 

Thursday: Intel launches Tiger Lake CPU. 

Friday: Google filed for incorporation 22 years ago.

TECH THINGAMABOBS

For “Gods in the machine”: Rest of World has a fascinating article about organized religion delivered through VR. 

For more on Neuralink: Take a closer look at its surgical robot.

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions: 

• Amazon announces Halo wearable
• Desktop Metal to IPO via SPAC
• Tech Trivia—AI basics edition