Name: Brainstorm Tech 2023: The World's First Superhumans
Uploaded: 2023-07-12
Duration: 15 min 53 s
Description: Presenter: Taryn Southern, Chief Storytelling Officer, Blackrock Neurotech

Presenter: Taryn Southern, Chief Storytelling Officer, Blackrock Neurotech 

Brainstorm Tech 2023: The World's First Superhumans

Conferences

We are moving along to another fascinating conversation. Imagine being able to type, create and operate with just your thoughts. Long considered the stuff of sci fi lore. Thanks to implantable brain computer interfaces, also known as BCIS, superhuman abilities are now a reality. A new surge of investment in the fields of neurotechnology and an A I of course, is bound to enable BCIS with new capabilities. But what are they going to be? And more importantly, are we ready for them? Our next present has one of the most awesome titles around Karen Southern is Black Rock Neuro Tech's Chief storytelling officer. She's a strategist, a pioneering creator and award winning filmmaker who's passionate about the intersection of humans and tech as chief storytelling officer at Blackrock Neuro Tech. Her work gives audiences a front row seat to the future. So here to tell us more about the world's first superhumans. Please welcome Karen Southern. Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here to talk about one of my favorite subjects and a topic that quite frankly has long fascinated the public imagination. So first and foremost, I wanted to see how many of you have been asked this question in elementary school. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Quite a few of you? Right. And we all had our answers. We've listened to comic books and TV, shows and movies. So we had a pretty good sense of what we wanted. Superhuman strength, the ability to see through walls, supersonic hearing. But what if we lived in a world where this wasn't just an exercise of the imagination? What if we lived in a world where this was actually a reality where you could move objects with your mind, you could sense touch through an external object, even type up to 90 characters per minute with 94% accuracy. All with just your thoughts. Now, what most people don't realize is these kinds of superhuman abilities are no longer the stuff of sci fi films but rather a full reality. So for the past two decades in labs across the country, dozens of research participants have made headlines like the ones you see here for defying human limitation, restoring function, even gaining new senses. Now, these individuals don't have capes and they certainly don't star in Blockbuster movies, but they are charting new frontiers for science and they are helping us redefine what it means to be human. These are some of the world's first superhumans and what is powering their abilities is the incredible advancements in the world of brain computer interfaces. So what does a brain computer interface. It's essentially a technology that allows a brain to connect directly to a computer or as Arthur C Clark would say magic. Now, for the past seven or so years, I have been very fortunate to have a front row seat in actually getting to see this magic play out. So this is me back in I think 2017. So from 2016 to 2019, I co directed and produced a film that followed three patients, a woman with Parkinson's a blind man and a man with paralysis as they underwent invasive brain surgery in hopes that they could restore function that they thought would be forever lost. The film premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2019 and really kicked off my passion for this incredible field. Now, while I was making this movie, one company's name kept coming up again and again and again, Black Rock Neuro Tech, not to be confused with the private asset management firm named after Black Rock Utah. This company based just 30 miles from here in Salt Lake City was responsible for the development and deployment of one very key technology this the Utah array. Now, while I realize it looks a little bit like a medieval hairbrush, this tiny brain implant is responsible for thousands of brain computer interface studies around the world and can accomplish some pretty amazing things. So this is what a BCI rendering looks like. And if you look at the top circle, you'll see, you'll barely see that there are several tiny micro electrode Utah arrays implanted in the cortex. Each of these arrays has 100 silicone micro electrodes and each of those electrodes connect to a single neuron in the brain. So what happens is these electrodes take the signals from the neurons, send them to a decoder where they are translated into a kind of digital code. And that digital code is sent to digital devices like wheelchairs, computers and robotic arms. Since 2004, we've had dozens of people implanted with this array and used as part of a BCI in order to move, feel and communicate again. These individuals typically have paralysis or other neurodegenerative disorders such as ALS. So I'd love for you to meet one of these humans, Nathan Copeland and Nathan is a wonderful person. And in 2004, he was unfortunate to be involved in a terrible auto accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down. He fell into a deep dark depression and felt like he was going to be a burden for the rest of his life on his family and friends. Then years later, he was invited to sign up for an experimental research study out at University of Pittsburgh where he would have four micro electrode arrays implanted in his brain. Now, Nathan is a self professed Cyborg. And for the last seven years, he has pioneered a number of firsts in the field. One of those is that he is the first human to have a rays implanted in his sensory cortex, which means he can actually feel a robotic arm when it is touched. Essentially the sensations feel like they are coming from his own arm. And so this is actually a video from his youtube channel BC. Can do better. Please subscribe to him on youtube. This is him operating the robotic arm to make cocktails. This is him operating the robotic arm to feed himself his favorite Taco Bell meal here he is playing his favorite video game. And in the last piece, you can see him creating digital art and he is doing all of this with incredible precision with just his thoughts. So these are a few of Nathan's BCI powered art pieces. His very first piece is the one on the lower right? It's a bunch of scribbles on a white canvas and he made that in 2017 with Microsoft paint and that was sold for $120,000 last year at a charity auction. Nathan is also the first pioneer to sell one of his VC I powered artworks as an NFT which he did in 2020 for 2.5. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, he is the first pioneer to fist bump, a standing us president with a BCI controlled robotic arm. Nathan is moving his hand with his brain. And so when he was giving me a fist bump for shaking my hand. These are his own uh signals that he's sending out that are manipulating, which, you know, pretty amazing precision. Even Obama said at the end of this meeting to everyone in the audience, I'm not really sure if you can all quite grasp what's going on here. But Nathan is not the only superhuman in his ranks. This is James Johnson. James was an artist, a respiratory nurse and a therapist who volunteered in hospitals across the country. Until in 2017, he was in a terrible para motor accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. And he was in a medically induced coma for three months. Following his rehabilitation from that coma, he was invited to participate in an experimental research study with Caltech where he has since done a number of incredible things with his BCI. This video here is a short clip of him doing his absolute favorite activity with his BC. And it will also give you a little sense of how this all works. All right. So what we have here is our view into James's brain. Each one of those neurons is telling us something about what James wants or experiences in the world. And we can use that to train statistical models and allow his brain activity to drive motion of the cursor. I'm imagining following that cursor kind of like a playstation controller. I think that I can control the computer, the cursor just by thinking about it is mind blowing. But now I'm gonna apply it to what I have to do the most Photoshop. So right now I'm just going to do a simple blend of three different photos and we're going to put her face in the background. Get like a soft brush that allows me to fade and make my brush a little bigger. I'm just gonna update, we can create a new Bob Ross series with you in Photoshop. So as you can see, um James is incredible. I mean, his Photoshop skills are better than mine here is actually some of his most recent work that he's done and it's currently on display at the world's first BCI exhibit in Washington DC. But that's not all James had one more audacious mission that he wanted to accomplish this past year to set out to drive a real world vehicle with just his thoughts. Take a look. Yeah, like why do that? Are you trying to stay in the lane or? Yeah, I'm trying to stabilize it. We're doing pretty, pretty good. Uh This is the first time we've applied what we're doing to a real world event. Me being able to drive from my mind um is pretty impressive and no one else is doing that. So um really happy to be a part of this project getting behind the wheel again, actually sitting in the front seat in the driver's seat. That's gonna be pretty awesome because um it's been almost five years now and five years of sitting in the back seat uh being at the mercy of my teenage son driving, uh it'd be great to finally have some control for myself. So that was James training on a proxy. Did he actually control a real world vehicle with his mind? You will have to follow Black Rock Neuro to find out. So, as you can see from both James and Nathan's stories, you know, both of them have discovered quite practically the implications and possibilities and limitations of this incredible technology. It's inspired new forms of creativity and embodiment for them. It's also given them hope for a future of greater independence. So what's next for the broader world of BCI? Well, at Black Rock, we have an FDA breakthrough designation which means we're working very hard to commercialize our device for people with paralysis. We are also actively testing an auditory nerve implant to improve hearing in people who are deaf who are not eligible for a cochlear implant. And finally, we've been working on a next generation device that is much smaller, much thinner wireless and has up to 10,000 electrodes so it can reach 10,000 neurons. But as we look to the further future, we have to ask ourselves as a society, the question will BCIS one day give us all superpowers. And I've spoken to a number of neurosurgeons who predict that the next 15 to 20 years we will see an increase in brain implants largely due to an aging population. You know, on the one hand, we've got BCIS, which offer incredible promise for things like movement, sensory restoration. We also have other technologies like deep brain stimulation that offer solutions for people with Parkinson's and depression and anxiety. And of course, the breakthroughs will just continue. Ultimately, though I think the best people to ask about the future trajectory of these devices are the superhumans today. The James and Nathans of the world, they say that they just want this technology available to anyone who needs it to restore function, to restore independence, to restore a sense of what it means to be human. And if they end up with a few additional superhuman abilities, they're fine with that too. Thank you so much, Karen. Thank you so much. This is just fascinating and very cool that Black Rock Neuro Tech is just down the street here in Utah. I want to ask you very, very briefly. Um There seems to be this surge in interest and investment in the space. How is that changing things for you and for the company? Yeah, assuming it's good, but it's mostly very good. I mean, there's a huge growing awareness of what's happening in neurotechnology largely because of a few entrepreneurs with big megaphones. Um That being said, it's also created a lot of Elon Musk. It's also created some misconceptions, right? Like the idea of downloading our consciousness to a cloud or competing with AI by becoming ai, I mean, these things are provocative but not exactly plausible. And so I think it's important that we have to level set, not just with society so that we're able to see what's actually happening with these devices. But more so for the patients that really need these uh these products and we want to make sure that we're giving them accurate timelines and that they are really given an opportunity to think deeply about what the opportunities are for them. But all in all, it's been a very exciting time. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for coming and sharing. This is just hugely impactful work. So I appreciate you being with us. Thank you so much. Thank you.