Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

"But we're extremely bandwidth-constrained in that interface between the cortex and that tertiary digital form of yourself. And helping solve that bandwidth constraint would be, I think, very important in the future as well. Yeah."

After working and consulting with labs while building/hacking software/hardware for neural interfaces and seeing where the field is now, I have very little hope. Too much bureaucracy, and too much (darpa) money going after red queens races (lets not even get started at all the private/nih money flowing into some labs funding even more technologically incompetent PI's) at least in neuroimaging, and companies lining up to get MIT postdocs to peddle their latest and greatest toys.

I even had to find someone willing to write my grant and go through the submission process for an abstract (not even the full proposal) for DARPA-BAA-16-33, because despite calling for "BTO seeks unconventional approaches that are outside the mainstream, challenge assumptions, and have the potential to radically change established practice, lead to extraordinary outcomes, and create entirely new fields.", apparently an email submission is just not ok despite having co authored in this area and currently designing BCI related hardware and software in the open in my free time compared to a lot of newly minted assoc. profs struggling to get their matlab scripts (that someone else probably wrote years ago) to run on cluster their uni just spend 10's of millions on again this year expanding, forget understanding how any of the machines from which data is collected (and can barely analyze themselves) actually work…

Yeah… semonga berhasil ;)

By that, he's referring to the brain-computer interface [0], right? Or is it broader than that?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain–computer_interface

I assume so, but very general/handwavy with his wording, rather than on potential specific applications (of potential future mainstream use), which would help.

I think most people on this forum would be interested in how such can be related to gaming, but I know researchers that who be interested in cheaper/as or more accurate mapping (think "realtime" volumetric [mni-brain like] relative powermaps calc'd from beamforming/dsp on n-electrode arrays along the scalp at x sampling rates, and canceling out influences in the impedances due to rotational moments in the head [prob using gyros/3-axis accelerometers] and potential moisture build up along the scalp) for as much a 2-3 hours of scan time on a fmri/meg now, as well as being able to collect more data outside of the "lab" (and other brain states as well).

> apparently an email submission is just not ok despite having co authored in this area and currently designing BCI related hardware and software in the open in my free time

I'm not sure of the specifics, but this comes across as very entitled and narcissistic, but I assume that's most likely a case of misinterpretation of your point . That said, if they have a submission process, expect to go through it. It's entirely possibly they get a ton of useless submissions and inquiries through email, and part of their process is to ignore those. If an applicant can't be bothered to go through the initial steps to get onto the short list for consideration, why should they think that's a good candidate to be throwing money at, regardless of their resume?

>If an applicant can't be bothered to go through the initial steps to get onto the short list for consideration, why should they think that's a good candidate to be throwing money at, regardless of their resume?

That's a fair question. I'd like to ask a question in response: if an applicant has worked under/helped/seen those who could be bothered the jump through the hoops to get on the short of consideration and then funded, walked away because someone threw money at them to work on financial/trading software (thus enabling and "freed" to pursued related research work in more detail in their spare time), why shouldn't they throw money at such candidate despite considering how far throwing more of the same into neuroimaging research has gotten us thus far?

Personally, jumping through arbitrary/superficial hoops is not a game I want to play (plenty of others are good at that, and I wish them all the best, darpa's latest and greatest ways at dealing with signal 2 noise issue is their problem, and anyone should feel free to point that out), I'm having much more fun playing my own game from my fancy apt all the away across the world, while still working with those don't want to waste my time (and mine there's). Luckly for others and folks like me, darpa aren't the only folks interested, and money isn't the only "limited" resource of consideration.

> I'd like to ask a question in response ... why shouldn't they throw money at such candidate

Because they don't see that candidate. Your indication that your email was sufficient implies a few underlying assumptions which may or may not be true: a) They have enough staff to actively monitor this mailbox for submissions, b) there aren't too many useless submissions that make it unlikely the staff will be able to find the useful ones, c) that even if the staff exists, it doesn't require some bureaucratic hurdle to be met so it can be allocated to this use, d) that the staff assigned to monitoring this source is capable of assessing your accomplishments and how they relate to the grant in question.

Since there is a grant process, I think it's likely that whatever resources they do have are allocated towards assessing entries that come in through that process. There's probably more than enough work to be done in that department, such that monitoring mailboxes for the odd useful non-conformant applicant is not a priority. Even so, I assume if the stars aligned and someone happened to see the email, and knew the applicant was uniquely qualified or had time to research the person, then it's likely it might be followed up on (depending on how much interest that person had in this particular grant or field).

The important thing to consider in this is that none of these scenarios have anything to do with how qualified the applicant is. Taking issue with them not persuing you in this process when I think it's likely your application may have never even seen human eyes seems an odd response to me. The little information I have to go on makes it sound like you did the equivalent of applying for an engineering position at Apple by walking into the nearest Apple store and dropping off your resume. I'd expect about the same level of success with that. Sure, the store manager might pass it on, or know someone who is interested, but really, that's not their job or responsibility.

>Because they don't see that candidate.

>The important thing to consider in this is that none of these scenarios have anything to do with how qualified the applicant is.

I know this, which is why I kinda of have no faith in these kinds of initiatives (the kinds Elon is inadvertently/or not parading over) since most of effort involved goes into being seen, the people behind the "process" could care less of after such funds have been allocated as to what becomes of them. I've seen enough people do work behinds the scenes (and how far south/delayed projects go after they leave), actually making things happen for those who do go through the "process" in labs/orgs to not really care too deeply about getting through this hurdle that's ultimately meaningless in the scope of the work.

Things are moving forward overall, just a bit slowly than they have to (although I've made more related useful for stuff for others in less time after not working in labs directly anymore).

>The little information I have to go on makes it sound like you did the equivalent of applying for an engineering position at Apple by walking into the nearest Apple store and dropping off your resume.

I've talked about similar issues before on HN (with others also in similar positions with their work in research <-> industry) in more depth with more links and such, so its not really worth going into here.

Fair enough. You obviously have more experience in this area than I do.