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Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) technology can sound like science fiction—with just a thought, the brain can move a computer mouse, type a sentence, or choose a song from a playlist. Earlier this year, a video went viral of a quadriplegic using a BCI brain implant to control a computer. As Ramses Alcaide, CEO of BCI startup Neurable, explained on a recent episode of Double Take, the technology is soon coming to a headset near you.
I guess the next step that I see is, we are going to have millions and eventually billions of people with headsets on that record their brain activities. It is just going to become the new norm. Every earbud and headphone is just going to have the tech. It is going to be as everyday as an accelerometer inside your phone. The next step is going to be, how do we use that artificial intelligence (AI) to provide value to a person?
Neurable, which counts the US Army as its biggest customer, is bringing to market a pair of headphones outfitted with BCI technology that can read electrical signals from the brain to measure concentration, fatigue and other metrics.
The headphones, they have these silver bands on the inside of the ear cup, and they record your brain activity, and then we use our AI inside the system to boost the brain signal, so you are able to get really high quality brain data and then apply all the different applications that have been available even as early as the 1980s, but now inside an everyday device, essentially … the technology that is most used for that type of recording is called EEG or electroencephalography. It is used a lot in sleep clinics, epilepsy clinics, etc. But now we can start to bring it to every day.
This so-called non-invasive form of BCI, Alcaide explains, does not quite have the motor neuron capabilities of surgically implanted devices. But using AI to “boost the signal,” non-invasive BCI can render accurate readings of what the brain is doing, in Alcaide’s view.
We cannot do (read) thoughts. That is definitely invasive. That is going to require surgery. What we can do is pick up large electrical global activation of your brain, and then make inferences on what to do with that.
From Alcaide’s perspective, the degree to which BCI is investable, and an addressable market can be calculated, depends on whether you are talking about invasive or non-invasive use cases.
In invasive areas … those are going to be very specialized. As much as Elon (Musk) likes to discuss that Neuralink is going to be in everybody’s brain, do you really want to go in to get surgery every single year? Because that is the reality of a surgical system. It damages your brain, and then eventually you need to get the implant put back in. Someone who is going to do that is somebody who is a quadriplegic, who cannot communicate to loved ones. What about everybody else? For everybody else, you have these non-invasive systems, and they may not be able to get to the same level of data capability as moving an electric wheelchair or controlling an exoskeleton. But what we can do is track other things like your cognitive state, do simple commands in controlling an augmented reality (AR) system, or tracking a person’s focus to have them do healthy brain habits, or even tracking things like Alzheimer’s over long periods of time. There is still a ton of value.
Alcaide envisions a future where BCI is used for consciously controlling augmented reality devices and voice assistants, and for reading a person’s mental state, providing precision medicine or changing environments to help maintain focus for longer.
He believes data privacy is a key consideration for BCI, though he argues it is no more invasive than what cell phones and internet browsers capture about one’s thoughts.
You own your data. If you want to delete it, you tell us, we delete it for you simply within the app itself. We do not limit access as to whether you share your data or not. For example, some devices will only enable you to have access to specific parts if you provide your data. We say, ‘Hey, we are going to make it work with or without your data, so you still get the benefit of it, but if you want to help us and you want to help the scientific community, we would love to have your data as well.’
To hear more, subscribe to “Double Take” on your podcast app of choice or view An AI Mindset episode page to listen in your browser.
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