Lex FridmanThe following is a conversation with Elon Musk, DJ Seo, Matthew MacDougall, Bliss Chapman, and Noland Arbaugh about Neuralink and the future of humanity. Elon, DJ, Matthew and Bliss are of course part of the amazing Neuralink team, and Noland is the first human to have a Neuralink device implanted in his brain. I speak with each of them individually, so use timestamps to jump around, or as I recommend, go hardcore, and listen to the whole thing. This is the longest podcast I’ve ever done. It’s a fascinating, super technical, and wide-ranging conversation, and I loved every minute of it. And now, dear friends, here’s Elon Musk, his fifth time on this, the Lex Fridman podcast,以下是与 Elon Musk、DJ Seo、Matthew MacDougall、Bliss Chapman 和 Noland Arbaugh 关于 Neuralink 与人类未来的对话。Elon、DJ、Matthew 和 Bliss 当然都是了不起的 Neuralink 团队成员，而 Noland 则是第一位在大脑中植入 Neuralink 设备的人类。我分别与他们每一位单独交谈，所以可以用时间戳跳转收听，或者像我建议的那样，硬核一点，把全集听完。这是我做过的最长的播客。这是一场迷人、技术性极强、涵盖范围极广的对话，我每一分钟都爱极了。现在，亲爱的朋友们，有请 Elon Musk，这是他第五次来到 Lex Fridman 播客。
Elon MuskDrinking coffee or water?喝咖啡还是水？
Lex FridmanWater. I’m so over-caffeinated right now. Do you want some caffeine?水。我现在咖啡因已经严重过量了。你要来点咖啡因吗？
Elon MuskSure.好啊。
Lex FridmanThere’s a Nitro drink.这里有 Nitro 饮料。
Elon MuskThis supposed to keep you up for like tomorrow afternoon, basically.这玩意儿大概能让你撑到明天下午吧，基本上是这样。
Lex FridmanYeah. Yeah. I don’t want to [inaudible 00:01:11].对对对，我不想[听不清 00:01:11]。
Elon MuskSo what is Nitro? It’s just got a lot of caffeine or something?那 Nitro 是什么？就是咖啡因特别多之类的？
Lex FridmanDon’t ask questions. It’s called Nitro. Do you need to know anything else?别问那么多。它叫 Nitro，你还需要知道别的吗？
Elon MuskIt’s got nitrogen in it. That’s ridiculous. What we breathe is 78% nitrogen anyway. What do you need to add more for?里面含氮。这也太荒谬了。我们呼吸的空气本来就有 78% 是氮气，你还需要再加更多氮干什么？
Elon MuskUnfortunately, you’re going to eat it.可惜你还是得喝下去。
Elon MuskMost people think that they’re breathing oxygen and they’re actually breathing 78% nitrogen. You need like a milk bar, like from Clockwork Orange.大多数人以为自己在呼吸氧气，实际上他们呼吸的是 78% 的氮气。你需要那种牛奶吧，就像《发条橙》里的那种。
Lex FridmanYeah. Yeah. Is that the top three Kubrick film for you?对对对。那在你心目中算库布里克前三的电影吗？
Elon MuskClockwork Orange? It’s pretty good. It’s demented. Jarring, I’d say.《发条橙》？挺不错的。非常变态。我会说，令人不安。
Lex FridmanOkay. Okay. So, first, let’s step back, and big congrats on getting Neuralink implanted into a human. That’s a historic step for Neuralink.好的，好的。那么首先，让我们退一步，先大力祝贺 Neuralink 成功将设备植入人体，这对 Neuralink 来说是历史性的一步。
Elon MuskThanks. Yeah.谢谢，是的。
Lex FridmanAnd there’s many more to come.而且后面还有更多。
Elon MuskYeah. And we just obviously have our second implant as well.是的，我们显然也刚刚完成了第二例植入。
Lex FridmanHow did that go?进展如何？
Elon MuskSo far, so good. It looks like we’ve got, I think, on the order of 400 electrodes that are providing signals.目前一切顺利。看起来我们已经有大约 400 个电极在提供信号了。
Lex FridmanNice.不错。
Elon MuskYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanHow quickly do you think the number of human participants will scale?你认为人类受试者的数量会以多快的速度扩大规模？
Elon MuskIt depends somewhat on the regulatory approval, the rate at which we get regulatory approvals. So, we’re hoping to do 10 by the end of this year, total of 10. So, eight more.这在一定程度上取决于监管审批的速度，取决于我们获得监管批准的频率。所以，我们希望今年年底前完成 10 例，总共 10 例，也就是还剩 8 例。
Lex FridmanAnd with each one, you’re going to be learning a lot of lessons about the neurobiology of the brain, everything. The whole chain of the Neuralink, the decoding, the signal processing, all that kind of stuff.而且每一例你们都会学到大量关于大脑神经生物学的知识，整条 Neuralink 链路——解码、信号处理，所有这些。
Elon MuskYeah. Yeah. I think it’s obviously going to get better with each one. I don’t want to jinx it, but it seems to have gone extremely well with the second implant. So, there’s a lot of signal, a lot of electrodes. It’s working very well.是的，是的。我认为显然每一例都会越来越好。我不想乌鸦嘴，但第二例似乎进展得极其顺利。信号很丰富，电极很多，运行得非常好。
Lex FridmanWhat improvements do you think we’ll see in Neuralink in the coming, let’s say, let’s get crazy, the coming years.你认为 Neuralink 在未来几年——算我们放开了说——会有哪些改进？
Elon MuskIn years, it’s going to be gigantic, because we’ll increase the number of electrodes dramatically. We’ll improve the signal processing. So, even with only roughly, I don’t know, 10, 15% of the electrodes working with Noland, with our first patient, we were able to get to achieve a bit per second. That’s twice the world record. So, I think we’ll start vastly exceeding the world record by orders of magnitude in the years to come. So, start getting to, I don’t know, 100 bits per second, thousand. Maybe if five years from now, we might be at a megabit, faster than any human could possibly communicate by typing, or speaking.以年为单位来看，进步将是巨大的，因为我们会大幅增加电极数量，改进信号处理。就算我们第一位患者 Noland 只有大约 10%、15% 的电极在工作，我们仍然达到了每秒 1 bit 的速度，这是世界纪录的两倍。所以我认为未来几年我们将开始以数量级的方式大幅超越世界纪录。比如达到每秒 100 bits、1000 bits。也许五年后，我们可能会达到 megabit 级别，比任何人类通过打字或说话所能实现的通信速度都要快。
Lex FridmanYeah. That BPS is an interesting metric to measure. There might be a big leap in the experience once you reach a certain level of BPS.是的，BPS 是一个很有意思的衡量指标。一旦达到某个 BPS 阈值，体验可能会出现一个巨大的飞跃。
Elon MuskYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanLike entire new ways of interacting with a computer might be unlocked.就像与计算机交互的全新方式可能会被解锁。
Elon MuskAnd with humans.还有与人类之间。
Lex FridmanWith other humans.与其他人类。
Elon MuskProvided they have want a Neuralink, too.前提是他们也想要 Neuralink。
Lex FridmanRight.对。
Elon MuskOtherwise they wont be able to absorb the signals fast enough.否则他们接收信号的速度不够快。
Lex FridmanDo you think they’ll improve the quality of intellectual discourse?你认为这会提升知识讨论的质量吗？
Elon MuskWell, I think you could think of it, if you were to slow down communication, how do you feel about that? If you’d only talk at, let’s say one-tenth of normal speed, you’d be like, “Wow, that’s agonizingly slow.”这么想吧，如果你把通信速度降低，你会有什么感觉？如果你只能以正常速度的十分之一说话，你会觉得，"哇，这慢得让人痛苦。"
Lex FridmanYeah.是的。
Elon MuskSo, now imagine you could communicate clearly at 10, or 100, or 1,000 times faster than normal.那么现在想象一下，如果你能以正常速度的 10 倍、100 倍、1000 倍清晰地通信。
Lex FridmanListen, I’m pretty sure nobody in their right mind listens to me at 1X. they listen at 2X. I can only imagine what 10X would feel like, or I could actually understand it.听着，我相当确定没有哪个正常人听我播客是用 1X 倍速的，他们都用 2X。我只能想象 10X 是什么感觉，或者说我是否能真正听懂。
Elon MuskI usually default to 1.5X. You can do 2X. Well actually, if I’m listening to somebody get to… in 15, 20 minutes, I want to go to sleep, then I’ll do it 1.5X. If I’m paying attention, I’ll do 2X.我通常默认用 1.5X。可以用 2X。其实，如果我听某人讲到 15、20 分钟快睡着了，我就会切到 1.5X。如果我在认真听，就用 2X。
Lex FridmanRight.对。
Elon MuskBut actually, if you actually listen to podcasts, or audiobooks or anything at… If you get used to doing it at 1.5, then one sounds painfully slow.但其实，如果你习惯了用 1.5X 听播客、有声书之类的东西，那 1X 就会感觉慢得要命。
Lex FridmanI’m still holding onto one, because I’m afraid, I’m afraid of myself becoming bored with the reality, with the real world, where everyone’s speaking in 1X.我还是坚持用 1X，因为我怕自己变得对现实世界感到无聊——那个人人都在用 1X 说话的真实世界。
Elon MuskWell, it depends on the person. You can speak very fast. Like we can communicate very quickly. And also, if you use a wide range of… if your vocabulary is larger, your effective bit rate is higher.这取决于那个人。你说话可以很快。比如我们现在就可以通信得很快。还有，如果你使用的词汇范围越广，你有效的 bit rate 就越高。
Lex FridmanThat’s a good way to put it.这个比喻很妙。
Elon MuskYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanThe effective bit rate. That is the question, is how much information is actually compressed in the low bit transfer of language?有效 bit rate。问题就在这里——语言这种低 bit 传输中，实际上压缩了多少信息？
Elon MuskYeah. If there’s a single word that is able to convey something that would normally require, I don’t know, 10 simple words, then you’ve got maybe a 10X compression on your hands. And that’s really like with memes. Memes are like data compression. You’re simultaneously hit with a wide range of symbols that you can interpret, and you get it faster than if it were words, or a simple picture.是的。如果一个词就能传达通常需要 10 个简单词才能表达的内容，那你就实现了大约 10 倍的压缩。这其实就像 meme 一样。Meme 就是数据压缩。你同时被一系列符号轰炸，你能解读它们，而且获取信息的速度比用文字或者单纯一张图快得多。
Lex FridmanAnd of course, you’re referring to memes broadly like ideas.当然，你说的 meme 是泛义上的，指的是各种想法。
Elon MuskYeah. There’s an entire idea structure that is like an idea template, and then you can add something to that idea template. But somebody has that pre-existing idea template in their head. So, when you add that incremental bit of information, you’re conveying much more than if you just said a few words. It’s everything associated with that meme.是的。有一整套想法结构，就像一个想法模板，然后你可以在这个模板上添加东西。而对方脑子里已经存有这个预设的想法模板。所以当你补上那一点增量信息时，你传达的内容远比单纯说几个词多得多。它承载着与那个 meme 相关的一切。
Lex FridmanYou think there’ll be emergent leaps of capability as you scale the number of electrodes?你认为随着电极数量的增加，能力会出现涌现式的飞跃吗？
Elon MuskYeah.会的。
Lex FridmanDo you think there’ll be an actual number where just the human experience will be altered?你认为真的存在某个临界数字，到那时人类体验会被彻底改变？
Elon MuskYes.是的。
Lex FridmanWhat do you think that number might be? Whether electrodes, or BPS? We of course, don’t know for sure, but is this 10,000, 100,000?你觉得那个数字可能是多少？不管是电极数量还是 BPS？我们当然不能确定，但会是 10,000 还是 100,000？
Elon MuskYeah. Certainly, if you’re anywhere at 10,000 bits per second, that’s vastly faster than any human can communicate right now. If you think what is the average bits per second of a human, it is less than one bit per second over the course of a day. Because there are 86,400 seconds in a day, and you don’t communicate 86,400 tokens in a day. Therefore, your bits per second is less than one, averaged over 24 hours. It’s quite slow.是的。当然，如果达到每秒 10,000 bits，那已经比任何人类现在的通信速度都快得多了。想想一个人类平均的每秒 bit 数是多少——平均下来一天不到 1 bit。因为一天有 86,400 秒，而你一天传输的 token 数量远没有 86,400 个。所以你 24 小时平均下来每秒不足 1 bit。相当慢。
Elon MuskAnd now, even if you’re communicating very quickly, and you’re talking to somebody who understands what you’re saying, because in order to communicate, you have to at least to some degree, model the mind state of the person to whom you’re speaking. Then take the concept you’re trying to convey, compress that into a small number of syllables, speak them, and hope that the other person decompresses them into a conceptual structure that is as close to what you have in your mind as possible.就算你在非常快速地通信，在和某个能听懂你说话的人交谈时——因为要通信，你至少要在某种程度上对正在与你交谈的那个人的思维状态进行建模——你还需要把想要传达的概念压缩成少量音节，说出来，然后希望对方能把它解压缩成尽可能接近你脑子里的概念结构。
Lex FridmanYeah. There’s a lot of signal loss there in that process.是的，这个过程中信号损失很大。
Elon MuskYeah. Very lossy, compression, and decompression. And a lot of what your neurons are doing is distilling the concepts down to a small number of symbols, or say syllables that I’m speaking, or keystrokes, whatever the case may be. So, that’s a lot of what your brain computation is doing. Now, there is an argument that that’s actually a healthy thing to do, or a helpful thing to do because as you try to compress complex concepts, you’re perhaps forced to distill what is most essential in those concepts, as opposed to just all the fluff. So, in the process of compression, you distill things down to what matters the most, because you can only say a few things.是的，压缩和解压缩都是高度有损的。你的神经元所做的很大一部分工作，就是把概念提炼成我说出的少量音节，或者键盘敲击，诸如此类。这是你大脑计算的很大一部分。当然，有一种论点认为这其实是有益的，因为当你试图压缩复杂概念时，你也许被迫提炼出那些概念中最本质的东西，而不是所有的废话。所以在压缩过程中，你把一切提炼成最重要的，因为你只能说有限的几件事。
Elon MuskSo that is perhaps helpful. I think we’ll probably get… If our data rate increases, it’s highly probable it will become far more verbose. Just like your computer, when computers had… My first computer had 8K of RAM, so you really thought about every byte. And now you’ve got computers with many gigabytes of RAM. So, if you want to do an iPhone app that just says, “Hello world,” it’s probably, I don’t know, several megabytes minimum, a bunch of fluff. But nonetheless, we still prefer to have the computer with the more memory and more compute.所以这也许是有帮助的。我认为如果我们的数据率提高，极有可能我们会变得更加冗余。就像计算机一样，我的第一台电脑只有 8K 的 RAM，所以你会仔细斟酌每一个字节。而现在计算机有很多 GB 的 RAM。所以如果你要做一个只显示"Hello World"的 iPhone app，它可能至少有好几个 MB，一堆废料。但尽管如此，我们还是更喜欢内存更大、算力更强的电脑。
Elon MuskSo, the long-term aspiration of Neuralink is to improve the AI human symbiosis by increasing the bandwidth of the communication. Because even if… In the most benign scenario of AI, you have to consider that the AI is simply going to get bored waiting for you to spit out a few words. If the AI can communicate at terabits per second, and you’re communicating at bits per second, it’s like talking to a tree.所以，Neuralink 的长远目标是通过提高通信带宽来改善 AI 与人类的共生关系。因为即便是在 AI 最良性的场景下，你也要考虑到，AI 只不过是在无聊地等你吐出几个词而已。如果 AI 能以 terabit 每秒的速度通信，而你只能以 bit 每秒的速度通信，这就像在跟一棵树说话。
Lex FridmanWell, it is a very interesting question for a super intelligent species, what use are humans?这对超级智能物种来说确实是个非常有意思的问题——人类有什么用？
Elon MuskI think there is some argument for humans as a source of will.我认为有一种论点是，人类是意志的来源。
Lex FridmanWill?意志？
Elon MuskWill, yeah. Source of will, or purpose. So if you consider the human mind as being… Essentially there’s the primitive, limbic elements, which basically even reptiles have. And there’s the cortex, the thinking and planning part of the brain. Now, the cortex is much smarter than the limbic system, and yet is largely in service to the limbic system. It’s trying to make the limbic system happy. The sheer amount of compute that’s gone into people trying to get laid is insane, without actually seeking procreation. They’re just literally trying to do this simple motion, and they get a kick out of it. So, this simple, which in the abstract, rather absurd motion, which is sex, the cortex is putting a massive amount of compute into trying to figure out how to do that.意志，是的。意志的来源，或者说目的的来源。如果你把人类的思维看作……本质上有原始的边缘系统部分，就连爬行动物都有这部分。然后是大脑皮层，也就是大脑的思考和规划部分。大脑皮层比边缘系统聪明得多，然而大体上却在为边缘系统服务。它在努力让边缘系统开心。人类为了寻欢而投入的计算量简直令人发指——他们并不是在寻求繁殖，他们只是字面意义上地试图完成这个简单动作，并从中获得快感。所以这个在抽象层面相当荒诞的动作——也就是性，大脑皮层在投入大量计算去研究怎么做到这件事。
Lex FridmanSo like 90% of distributed compute of the human species is spent on trying to get laid, probably. A large percentage.所以人类这个物种大约 90% 的分布式计算都花在了寻欢上，大概是这样。很大一部分。
Elon MuskA massive amount. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There’s no purpose to most sex except hedonistic. It’s a sort of joy, or whatever, dopamine release. Now, once in a while, it’s procreation, but for modern humans, it’s mostly recreational. And so, your cortex, much smarter than your limbic system, is trying to make the limbic system happy, because the limbic system wants to have sex, or wants some tasty food, or whatever the case may be.相当大的一部分，是的。大多数性行为除了享乐之外没有其他目的，是一种快乐，或者说多巴胺释放。偶尔才是为了繁殖，但对现代人来说，大多数是消遣性的。所以你的大脑皮层，比你的边缘系统聪明得多，却在努力让边缘系统开心，因为边缘系统想要性，或者想要美食，诸如此类。
Elon MuskAnd then that is then further augmented by the tertiary system, which is your phone, your laptop, iPad, whatever, all your computing stuff. That’s your tertiary layer. So, you’re actually already a cyborg. You have this tertiary compute layer, which is in the form of your computer with all the applications, or your compute devices. And so, in the getting laid front, there’s actually a massive amount of digital compute also trying to get laid, with Tinder and whatever.然后这又被第三层系统进一步放大，也就是你的手机、你的笔记本、iPad，所有你的计算设备。那是你的第三层。所以你其实已经是半个赛博格了。你有这第三层计算层，以你的计算机及其所有应用程序或你的计算设备的形式存在。所以在寻欢这件事上，实际上也有大量的数字计算在参与其中，有 Tinder 之类的。
Lex FridmanYeah. So, the compute that we humans have built is also participating.是的。所以我们人类构建的计算也在参与其中。
Elon MuskYeah. There’s like gigawatts of compute going into getting laid, of digital compute.是的。有 gigawatt 级别的数字计算在为寻欢服务。
Lex FridmanYeah. What if AGI was-是的。如果 AGI 是——
Elon MuskThis is happening as we speak.这就是正在发生的事情。
Lex Fridman… if we merge with AI, it’s just going to expand the compute that we humans use-……如果我们与 AI 融合，它只是扩展了我们人类使用的计算——
Elon MuskPretty much.基本上是这样。
Lex Fridman… to try to get laid.……去尝试寻欢。
Elon MuskWell, it’s one of the things. Certainly, yeah.嗯，这只是其中一件事。当然，是的。
Lex FridmanYeah.是的。
Elon MuskBut what I’m saying is that, yes, is there a use for humans? Well, there’s this fundamental question of what’s the meaning of life? Why do anything at all? And so, if our simple limbic system provides a source of will to do something, that then goes through our cortex, that then goes to our tertiary compute layer, then I don’t know, it might actually be that the AI, in a benign scenario, is simply trying to make the human limbic system happy.但我想说的是，是的，人类有用吗？嗯，有这个根本性的问题：生命的意义是什么？为什么要做任何事情？所以，如果我们简单的边缘系统提供了做某件事的意志来源，然后经过我们的大脑皮层，再经过我们的第三层计算，那么我不知道，也许实际上 AI 在良性场景下，只是在努力让人类的边缘系统开心。
Lex FridmanYeah. It seems like the will is not just about the limbic system. There’s a lot of interesting, complicated things in there. We also want power.是的。但意志似乎不只是关于边缘系统。里面有很多有趣而复杂的东西。我们也想要权力。
Elon MuskThat’s limbic too, I think.那也是边缘系统的，我认为。
Lex FridmanBut then we also want to, in a kind of cooperative way, alleviate the suffering in the world.但我们也希望，以一种合作的方式，减轻世界上的苦难。
Elon MuskNot everybody does. But yeah, sure, some people do.不是所有人都这样。但是，当然，有些人是这样的。
Lex FridmanAs a group of humans, when we get together, we start to have this kind of collective intelligence that is more complex in its will than the underlying individual descendants of apes, right?作为一个人类群体，当我们聚在一起时，我们开始拥有这种集体智慧，它的意志比每个单独的人猿后裔个体更为复杂，对吧？
Elon MuskSure.当然。
Lex FridmanSo there’s other motivations, and that could be a really interesting source of an objective function for AGI?所以还有其他动机，这可以成为 AGI 目标函数一个非常有趣的来源？
Elon MuskYeah. There are these fairly cerebral, or higher level goals. For me, it’s like, what’s the meaning of life, or understanding the nature of the universe, is of great interest to me, and hopefully to the AI. And that’s the mission of xAI and Grok is understand the universe.是的。确实有这些相当大脑性的、或者说更高层次的目标。对我来说，比如，生命的意义是什么，或者理解宇宙的本质，这是我极感兴趣的，也希望 AI 也是。而这也是 xAI 和 Grok 的使命——理解宇宙。
Lex FridmanSo do you think people… When you have a Neuralink with 10,000, 100,000 channels, most of the use cases will be communication with AI systems?那么你认为，当 Neuralink 拥有 10,000、100,000 个通道时，大多数使用场景会是与 AI 系统的通信吗？
Elon MuskWell, assuming that there are not… They’re solving basic neurological issues that people have. If they’ve got damaged neurons in their spinal cord, or neck, as is the case with our first two patients, then obviously the first order of business is solving fundamental neuron damage in a spinal cord, neck, or in the brain itself. So, our second product is called Blindsight, which is to enable people who are completely blind, lost both eyes, or optic nerve, or just can’t see at all, to be able to see by directly triggering the neurons in the visual cortex.嗯，假设没有……也就是在解决人们已有的基本神经系统问题的前提下。如果他们的脊髓或颈部神经元受损——就像我们前两位患者的情况——那么首要任务显然是解决脊髓、颈部或大脑本身的基本神经元损伤问题。所以我们的第二款产品叫 Blindsight，是为了让完全失明的人——无论是失去双眼、视神经还是完全看不见——能够通过直接触发视觉皮层的神经元来重新看见东西。
Elon MuskSo we’re just starting at the basics here, so it’s the simple stuff, relatively speaking, is solving neuron damage. It can also solve I think probably schizophrenia, if people have seizures of some kind, it could probably solve that. It could help with memory. So, there’s kind of a tech tree, if you will. You’ve got the basics. You need literacy before you can have Lord of the Rings.所以我们从最基础的东西开始。相对来说，简单的事情就是解决神经元损伤。它也可以解决精神分裂症，我认为；如果人们有某种类型的癫痫发作，它可能可以解决；它还可以帮助改善记忆。所以有一棵科技树，如果你愿意这么说的话。你得先把基础打好。你需要识字，才能读到《指环王》。
Lex FridmanGot it.明白了。
Elon MuskSo, do you have letters and the alphabet? Okay, great. Words? And then eventually you get sagas. So, I think there may be some things to worry about in the future, but the first several years are really just solving basic neurological damage, like for people who have essentially complete or near complete loss from the brain to the body, like Stephen Hawking would be an example, the Neuralink would be incredibly profound, because you can imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate as fast as we’re communicating, perhaps faster. And that’s certainly possible. Probable, in fact. Likely, I’d say.所以，你有字母表和字母了吗？好的。有单词了吗？然后最终你才能有史诗传说。所以，我认为未来也许有些事情需要担心，但最初几年真的只是解决基本的神经损伤问题，比如那些从大脑到身体的连接几乎完全或接近完全丧失的人。Stephen Hawking 就是一个例子——Neuralink 对他来说将会无比深刻，因为你可以想象如果 Stephen Hawking 能以我们现在说话的速度，甚至更快的速度来通信。这是完全可能的，其实。很有可能，我会这么说。
Lex FridmanSo there’s a kind of dual track of medical and non-medical, meaning so everything you’ve talked about could be applied to people who are non-disabled in the future?所以这有点像是双轨并行——医疗和非医疗。也就是说，你谈到的这一切，未来都可以应用于非残障人士？
Elon MuskThe logical thing to do is… Sensible thing to do is to start off solving basic neuron damage issues.合乎逻辑的做法是……明智的做法是从解决基本的神经元损伤问题开始。
Lex FridmanYes.是的。
Elon MuskBecause there’s obviously some risk with a new device. You can’t get the risk down to zero, it’s not possible. So, you want to have the highest possible reward, given there’s a certain irreducible risk. And if somebody’s able to have a profound improvement in their communication, that’s worth the risk.因为新设备显然存在一定风险。你不可能把风险降到零，那是不可能的。所以你想要在存在某种不可消除风险的前提下获得尽可能高的回报。如果某人的通信能力能得到显著提升，那是值得冒这个风险的。
Lex FridmanAs you get the risk down.随着你把风险降低。
Elon MuskYeah. As you get the risk down. And once the risk is down to… If you have thousands of people that have been using it for years and the risk is minimal, then perhaps at that point you could consider saying, “Okay, let’s aim for augmentation.” Now, I think we’re actually going to aim for augmentation with people who have neuron damage. So we’re not just aiming to give people the communication data rate equivalent to normal humans. We’re aiming to give people who have… A quadriplegic, or maybe have complete loss of the connection to the brain and body, a communication data rate that exceeds normal humans. While we’re in there, why not? Let’s give people superpowers.是的，随着风险降低。一旦风险降到……如果已经有数千人使用了多年，风险已经很小，那也许到那时可以考虑说，"好的，我们来追求增强。"现在，我认为我们实际上也打算为有神经损伤的人追求增强。所以我们不只是想给人们提供相当于正常人通信数据率的水平。我们想给那些四肢瘫痪者，或者说大脑与身体连接完全断开的人，提供超过正常人类的通信数据率。既然已经到里面了，为什么不呢？给人们超能力吧。
Lex FridmanAnd the same for vision. As you restore vision, there could be aspects of that restoration that are superhuman.视觉也一样。在你恢复视觉的同时，可能有一些方面会超越正常人类。
Elon MuskYeah. At first, the vision restoration will be low res, because you have to say, “How many neurons can you put in there, and trigger?” And you can do things where you adjust the electric field. So, even if you’ve got, say 10,000 neurons, it’s not just 10,000 pixels, because you can adjust the field between the neurons, and do them in patterns in order to have say, 10,000 electrodes, effectively give you, I don’t know, maybe like having a megapixel, or a 10 megapixel situation. And then over time, I think you get to higher resolution than human eyes. And you could also see in different wavelengths. So, like Geordi La Forge from Star Trek, he had the thing. Do you want to see it in radar? No problem. You could see ultraviolet, infrared, eagle vision, whatever you want.是的。起初视觉恢复的分辨率会很低，因为你要考虑，你能在里面放多少神经元，触发多少。你可以调整电场。所以，即使你有，比方说 10,000 个神经元，也不只是 10,000 个像素，因为你可以调整神经元之间的电场，并以特定的模式组合，从而让 10,000 个电极实际上给你提供，我不知道，也许相当于 megapixel 或 10 megapixel 级别的效果。然后随着时间推移，我认为你能得到比人眼更高的分辨率。而且你还可以看到不同的波长。就像《星际迷航》里的 Geordi La Forge，他有那个东西。你想用雷达看？没问题。你可以看紫外线、红外线、鹰眼视野，随你想要什么。
Lex FridmanDo you think there’ll be… let me ask a Joe Rogan question. Do you think there’ll be… I just recently have taken ayahuasca.你认为……让我问一个 Joe Rogan 式的问题。你认为……我最近刚体验了死藤水。
Elon MuskIs that a serious question?这是认真的问题吗？
Lex FridmanNo. Well, yes.不。嗯，是的。
Elon MuskWell, I guess technically it is.嗯，从技术上讲确实是。
Lex FridmanYeah.是的。
Elon MuskYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanEver try DMT bro?有没有试过 DMT，兄弟？
Elon MuskYeah, is this DMT in there, or something?里面有 DMT 还是什么？
Lex FridmanLove you, Joe. Okay.爱你，Joe。好的。
Elon MuskWait, wait. Have you said much about it, the ayahuasca stuff?等等等等。你说了很多关于死藤水的事吗？
Lex FridmanI have not. I have not. I have not.没有，没有，没有。
Elon MuskOkay. Well, why don’t you spill the beans?好的，那为什么不说说看？
Lex FridmanIt is a truly incredible experience.那真的是一次无比神奇的体验。
Elon MuskLet me turn the tables on you.让我反客为主。
Lex FridmanWell, yeah.嗯，好啊。
Elon MuskYou’re in the jungle.你在丛林里。
Lex FridmanYeah, amongst the trees, myself and a shaman.是的，在树木之间，我和一位萨满。
Elon MuskYeah. It must’ve been crazy.是的，那肯定很疯狂。
Lex FridmanYeah, yeah, yeah. With the insects, with the animals all around you, the jungle as far as the eye can see, there’s no… That’s the way to do it.是的，是的，是的。有昆虫，有动物围绕着你，目力所及全是丛林，没有……那才是正确的做法。
Elon MuskThings are going to look pretty wild.那东西看起来会相当狂野。
Lex FridmanYeah, pretty wild. I took an extremely high dose.是的，非常狂野。我用了极高的剂量。
Elon MuskJust don’t go hugging an Anaconda or something.只要别去抱什么蟒蛇就行。
Lex FridmanYou haven’t lived unless you made love to an Anaconda. I’m sorry, but…没有跟蟒蛇亲密过的人生是不完整的。对不起，但……
Elon MuskSnakes and Ladders.蛇与梯。
Lex FridmanYeah. I took a extremely high dose.是的。我用了极高的剂量。
Elon MuskOkay.好的。
Lex FridmanNine cups.九杯。
Elon MuskDamn. Okay. That sounds like a lot. Is normal to just one cup? Or…我的天。好的，那听起来真的很多。正常剂量是只喝一杯吗？还是……
Lex FridmanOne or two. Usually one.一杯或两杯。通常是一杯。
Elon MuskOkay. Wait. Like right off the bat, or did you work your way up to it? Did you just jump in at the deep end?好的。等等，是一口气就喝九杯，还是慢慢加量？直接跳进深水区了？
Lex FridmanAcross two days, because the first day, I took two, and it was a ride, but it wasn’t quite like a…分两天，因为第一天我喝了两杯，那是一次旅程，但不完全像是那种……
Elon MuskIt wasn’t like a revelation.不像是一次启示。
Lex FridmanIt wasn’t into deep space type of ride. It was just like a little airplane ride. And I [inaudible 00:22:07] saw some trees, and some visuals, and just saw a dragon and all that kind of stuff. But…不像是飞向深空那种旅程。就像坐一个小飞机。我[听不清 00:22:07]看到了一些树，一些幻觉，看见了一条龙之类的。但是……
Elon MuskNine cups, you went to Pluto, I think.九杯的话，我觉得你飞到冥王星去了。
Lex FridmanPluto. Yeah. No, Deep space.冥王星。不，深空。
Elon MuskDeep space.深空。
Lex FridmanOne of the interesting aspects of my experience is I thought I would have some demons, some stuff to work through.我体验中有趣的一点是，我以为我会遇到一些心魔，一些需要处理的东西。
Elon MuskThat’s what people [inaudible 00:22:26].这是大家[听不清 00:22:26]的说法。
Lex FridmanThat’s what everyone says.所有人都这么说。
Elon MuskThat’s what everyone says. Yeah, exactly.所有人都这么说，对，没错。
Lex FridmanI had nothing. I had all positive. I just… So full-什么都没有。全是正面的。我就……满满的——
Elon MuskJust a pure soul.纯洁的灵魂。
Lex FridmanI don’t think so. I don’t know. But I kept thinking about, I had extremely high resolution thoughts about the people I know in my life. You were there, and it is just not from my relationship with that person, but just as the person themselves. I had just this deep gratitude of who they are.我不这么认为。我不知道。但我一直在想，我对认识的人产生了极其高清的思绪。你也在场，而且不是从我与那个人的关系角度，而只是作为他们本身这个人。我对他们是谁有着深深的感激。
Elon MuskThat’s cool.那很酷。
Lex FridmanIt was just like this exploration, like Sims, or whatever. You get to watch them. I got to watch people, and just be in awe of how amazing they are.就像一场探索，像《模拟人生》或者什么。你可以观察他们。我得以观察人们，然后惊叹于他们有多么了不起。
Elon MuskThat sounds awesome.听起来太棒了。
Lex FridmanYeah, it was great. I was waiting for-是的，太好了。我在等——
Elon MuskWhen’s the demon coming?心魔什么时候来？
Lex FridmanExactly. Maybe I’ll have some negative thoughts. Nothing. Nothing. Just extreme gratitude for them. And also a lot of space travel.正是。也许会有些负面的想法。什么都没有。什么都没有。只有对他们极深的感激，还有大量的太空旅行。
Elon MuskSpace travel to where?太空旅行到哪里？
Lex FridmanSo here’s what it was. It was people, the human beings that I know, they had this kind of… The best way I could describe it is they had a glow to them.是这样的。我认识的人，那些人类，他们身上有一种……我能描述的最好方式是，他们在发光。
Elon MuskOkay.好的。
Lex FridmanAnd then I kept flying out from them to see earth, to see our solar system, to see our galaxy. And I saw that light, that glow all across the universe, whatever that form is, whatever that…然后我不断地从他们身边飞出去，看到地球，看到我们的太阳系，看到我们的星系。我看到那道光，那种光芒，遍布整个宇宙，不管它是什么形式，不管它是什么……
Elon MuskDid you go past the Milky Way?你飞过银河系了吗？
Lex FridmanYeah.是的。
Elon MuskOkay. You’re like intergalactic.好的，你是星系际旅行者了。
Lex FridmanYeah, intergalactic.是的，星系际。
Elon MuskOkay. Dang.好的，天哪。
Lex FridmanBut always pointing in, yeah. Past the Milky Way, past… I mean, I saw a huge number of galaxies, intergalactic, and all of it was glowing, but I couldn’t control that travel, because I would actually explore near distances to the solar system, see if there’s aliens, or any of that kind of stuff.但总是指向内部，是的。飞过银河系，飞过……我是说，我看到了大量的星系，星系际尺度，而所有的一切都在发光，但我控制不了那次旅行，因为我真的很想在太阳系附近探索，看看有没有外星人之类的。
Elon MuskSure. Did you see an alien?好的，你看到外星人了吗？
Lex FridmanNo. I didn’t, no.没有。没有，没有。
Elon MuskZero aliens?一个外星人都没有？
Lex FridmanImplication of aliens, because they were glowing. They were glowing in the same way that humans were glowing. That life force that I was seeing, the thing that made humans amazing was there throughout the universe. There was these glowing dots. So, I don’t know. It made me feel like there is life… No, not life, but something, whatever makes humans amazing all throughout the universe.有外星人存在的暗示，因为它们也在发光。它们以和人类同样的方式发光。我看到的那种生命力，让人类如此了不起的那种东西，遍布整个宇宙。那些发光的点。所以，我不知道。这让我感觉宇宙中有生命……不，不是生命，而是某种东西，不管是什么让人类如此了不起的东西，遍布整个宇宙。
Elon MuskSounds good.听起来不错。
Lex FridmanYeah, it was amazing. No demons. No demons. I looked for the demons. There’s no demons. There were dragons, and they’re pretty awesome. So the thing about trees-是的，太棒了。没有心魔，没有心魔。我找过心魔，没有。有龙，而且它们相当酷。关于树——
Elon MuskWas there anything scary at all?有没有什么让你感到害怕的东西？
Lex FridmanDragons. But they weren’t scary. They were friends. They were protective. So, the thing is-龙。但它们并不吓人，它们是朋友，是守护者。所以问题是——
Elon MuskSure. Like Puff the Magic Dragon.好的，就像《神奇龙帕夫》里的那只。
Lex FridmanNo, it was more like a Game of Thrones kind of dragons. They weren’t very friendly. They were very big. So the thing is that bought giant trees, at night, which is where I was-不，更像是《权力的游戏》里的那种龙。它们不是很友善，它们非常巨大。所以，那些巨大的树，在夜晚，我就是在那个时候——
Elon MuskYeah. I mean, the jungle’s kind of scary.是啊，丛林本来就有点吓人。
Lex FridmanYeah. The trees started to look like dragons, and they were all looking at me.是的。那些树开始看起来像龙，而且它们都在看着我。
Elon MuskSure. Okay.好的，好的。
Lex FridmanAnd it didn’t seem scary. They seemed like they were protecting me. And the shaman and the people didn’t speak any English, by the way, which made it even scarier, because we’re not even… We’re worlds apart in many ways, but yeah, they talk about the mother of the forest protecting you, and that’s what I felt like.但这并不感觉可怕，它们感觉像是在保护我。顺便说一下，那个萨满和那些人不会说任何英语，这让它更吓人了，因为我们甚至……我们在很多方面都相差千里，但是，他们谈论森林之母在保护你，而那正是我的感受。
Elon MuskAnd you were way out in the jungle.而且你是深入丛林腹地。
Lex FridmanWay out. This is not like a tourist retreat.非常深入。这不是什么旅游度假区。
Elon MuskLike 10 miles outside of Rio or something.像里约郊外 10 英里那种地方？
Lex FridmanNo, we went… No, this is not a-不，我们去的……不，这不是——
Elon MuskYou’re in deep Amazon.你是在亚马逊深处。
Lex FridmanMe and this guy named Paul Rosolie, who basically is a Tarzan, he lives in the jungle, we went out deep and we just went crazy.我和一个叫 Paul Rosolie 的人，他基本上就是一个人猿泰山，他就住在丛林里，我们深入丛林，就这样彻底疯了一把。
Elon MuskWow. Cool.哇，真酷。
Lex FridmanYeah. So anyway. Can I get that same experience in a Neuralink?是的。总之。我能用 Neuralink 获得同样的体验吗？
Elon MuskProbably. Yeah.大概可以，是的。
Lex FridmanI guess that is the question for non-disabled people. Do you think that there’s a lot in our perception, in our experience of the world that could be explored, that could be played with, using Neuralink?我想这就是针对非残障人士的问题所在。你认为在我们对世界的感知、体验中，有很多东西可以用 Neuralink 来探索、来玩味吗？
Elon MuskYeah, I mean, Neuralink, it’s really a generalized input-output device. It’s reading electrical signals, and generating electrical signals, and I mean, everything that you’ve ever experienced in your whole life, smell, emotions, all of those are electrical signals. So, it’s kind of weird to think that your entire life experience is distilled down to electrical signals for neurons, but that is in fact the case. Or I mean, that’s at least what all the evidence points to. So, I mean, if you trigger the right neuron, you could trigger a particular scent. You could certainly make things glow. I mean, do pretty much anything. I mean, really, you can think of the brain as a biological computer. So, if there are certain say, chips or elements of that biological computer that are broken, let’s say your ability to… If you’ve got a stroke, that if you’ve had a stroke, that means some part of your brain is damaged. Let’s say it’s speech generation, or the ability to move your left hand. That’s the kind of thing that a Neuralink could solve.是的，我的意思是，Neuralink 本质上是一个通用的输入输出设备。它读取电信号，也产生电信号。而你这辈子经历过的一切——气味、情感，所有这些都是电信号。所以想到你的整个人生体验都被提炼成神经元的电信号，这有点奇怪，但实际上确实如此。或者说，至少所有证据都指向这一点。所以，如果你触发正确的神经元，你可以触发一种特定的气味。你当然可以让东西发光。可以做几乎任何事情。说真的，你可以把大脑想象成一台生物计算机。如果这台生物计算机的某些芯片或元件坏了，比如说你的……如果你中风了，意味着大脑的某个部分受损了。比如说是语言生成能力，或者移动左手的能力。这就是 Neuralink 可以解决的那类问题。
Elon MuskIf you’ve got a massive amount of memory loss that’s just gone, well, we can’t get the memories back. We could restore your ability to make memories, but we can’t restore memories that are fully gone. Now, I should say, maybe if part of the memory is there, and the means of accessing the memory is the part that’s broken, then we could re-enable the ability to access the memory. But you can think of it like ram in a computer, if the ram is destroyed, or your SD card is destroyed, we can’t get that back. But if the connection to the SD card is destroyed, we can fix that. If it is fixable physically, then it can be fixed.如果你有大量记忆丢失、已经彻底消失，嗯，我们无法找回那些记忆。我们可以恢复你创造记忆的能力，但我们无法恢复已经彻底消失的记忆。现在，我应该说，也许如果记忆的一部分还在，而获取记忆的途径是那个坏掉的部分，那么我们可以重新启用获取记忆的能力。但你可以把它想象成计算机里的 RAM，如果 RAM 被销毁了，或者你的 SD 卡被销毁了，我们拿不回那些东西。但如果是连接到 SD 卡的接口被销毁了，我们可以修复那个。如果物理上可以修复，那就能修复。
Lex FridmanOf course, with AI, just like you can repair photographs, and fill in missing parts of photographs, maybe you can do the same, just like [inaudible 00:28:31] parts.当然，借助 AI，就像你可以修复照片，填补照片中缺失的部分，也许你可以做同样的事情，就像[听不清 00:28:31]的那些部分一样。
Elon MuskYeah, you could say like, create the most probable set of memories based on all the information you have about that person. You could then… It would be probabilistic restoration of memory. Now, we’re getting pretty esoteric here.是的，你可以根据你掌握的关于那个人的所有信息，创建出最可能的记忆集合。然后这就是一种记忆的概率性恢复。现在，我们说得相当深奥了。
Lex FridmanBut that is one of the most beautiful aspects of the human experience is remembering the good memories.但这正是人类体验中最美丽的方面之一——记住美好的回忆。
Elon MuskSure.当然。
Lex FridmanWe live most of our life, as Danny Kahneman has talked about, in our memories, not in the actual moment. We’re collecting memories and we kind of relive them in our head. And that’s the good times. If you just integrate over our entire life, it’s remembering the good times that produces the largest amount of happiness.我们生命中的大部分时间，正如 Danny Kahneman 所说，都活在记忆中，而不是活在当下的真实时刻。我们在收集记忆，然后在脑海中不断重温。那就是美好时光所在。如果你对我们整个人生积分，正是对美好时光的回忆产生了最大量的幸福。
Elon MuskYeah. Well, I mean, what are we but our memories? And what is death? But the loss of memory, loss of information? If you could say, well, if you could run a thought experiment, what if you were disintegrated painlessly, and then reintegrated a moment later, like teleportation, I guess? Provided there’s no information loss, the fact that your one body was disintegrated is irrelevant.是的。我们除了记忆之外是什么？而死亡又是什么，不就是记忆的丧失、信息的丢失吗？如果你能说……如果你能做个思想实验——如果你被无痛地分解，然后在片刻之后重新整合，就像传送一样——只要没有信息损失，你的某一个身体被分解这件事本身就是无关紧要的。
Lex FridmanAnd memories is just such a huge part of that.而记忆是其中如此重要的一部分。
Elon MuskDeath is fundamentally the loss of information, the loss of memory.死亡从根本上说就是信息的丢失，记忆的丧失。
Lex FridmanSo, if we can store them as accurately as possible, we basically achieve a kind of immortality.所以，如果我们能尽可能精确地存储它们，我们基本上就实现了某种形式的永生。
Elon MuskYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanYou’ve talked about the threats, the safety concerns of AI. Let’s look at long-term visions. Do you think Neuralink is, in your view, the best current approach we have for AI safety?你谈到了 AI 的威胁和安全顾虑。我们来看看长远愿景。你认为 Neuralink 是我们目前拥有的解决 AI 安全问题的最佳方法吗？
Elon MuskIt’s an idea that may help with AI safety. Certainly, I wouldn’t want to claim it’s some panacea, or that it’s a sure thing, but I mean, many years ago I was thinking like, “Well, what would inhibit alignment of collective human will with artificial intelligence?” And the low data rate of humans, especially our slow output rate would necessarily, just because the communication is so slow, would diminish the link between humans and computers. The more you are a tree, the less you know what the tree is. Let’s say you look at this plant or whatever, and hey, I’d really like to make that plant happy, but it’s not saying a lot.这是一个可能有助于 AI 安全的想法。当然，我不想声称它是什么灵丹妙药，或者说它是板上钉钉的事，但是我是说，很多年前我在想，是什么会阻碍人类集体意志与人工智能的对齐？人类的低数据率，尤其是我们缓慢的输出速率，必然会——仅仅因为通信如此缓慢——削弱人类与计算机之间的联系。你越像一棵树，就越不知道那棵树是什么感受。比方说你看着这株植物，嘿，我真的很想让这株植物开心，但它没说多少。
Lex FridmanSo the more we increase the data rate that humans can intake and output, then that means the better, the higher the chance we have in a world full of AGI’s.所以，我们越是提高人类能够摄入和输出的数据率，在一个充满 AGI 的世界里，我们的胜算就越大。
Elon MuskYeah. We could better align collective human will with AI if the output rate especially was dramatically increased. And I think there’s potential to increase the output rate by, I don’t know, three, maybe six, maybe more orders of magnitude. So, it’s better than the current situation.是的。如果输出率能够大幅提升，我们就能更好地将人类集体意志与 AI 对齐。我认为有潜力将输出率提升，我不知道，也许 3 个数量级、6 个数量级，甚至更多。所以比现在的状况要好。
Lex FridmanAnd that output rate would be by increasing the number of electrodes, number of channels, and also maybe implanting multiple Neuralinks?那么提高输出速率的方式，是增加电极数量、通道数量，以及也许植入多个 Neuralink？
Elon MuskYeah.对。
Lex FridmanDo you think there’ll be a world in the next couple of decades where it’s hundreds of millions of people have Neuralinks?你觉得在未来几十年里，会不会出现数亿人都植入了 Neuralink 的世界？
Elon MuskYeah, I do.会，我觉得会。
Lex FridmanYou think when people just when they see the capabilities, the superhuman capabilities that are possible, and then the safety is demonstrated.你觉得当人们看到那些可能实现的超人类能力，同时安全性也得到验证之后，他们就会愿意去做？
Elon MuskYeah. If it’s extremely safe, and you can have superhuman abilities, and let’s say you can upload your memories, so you wouldn’t lose memories, then I think probably a lot of people would choose to have it. It would supersede the cell phone, for example. I mean, the biggest problem that say, a phone has, is trying to figure out what you want. That’s why you’ve got auto complete, and you’ve got output, which is all the pixels on the screen, but from the perspective of the human, the output is so frigging slow. Desktop or phone is desperately just trying to understand what you want. And there’s an eternity between every keystroke from a computer standpoint.是的。如果它极其安全，你又能获得超人能力，比如说你可以上传记忆，这样就不会丢失记忆，那我觉得很多人都会选择装一个。它会取代手机，举个例子。我是说，手机最大的问题就是要搞清楚你想要什么——这就是为什么有自动补全，有输出，也就是屏幕上所有那些像素。但从人类的角度来看，那个输出慢得要死。台式机或手机拼了命地想理解你想要什么。而从计算机的角度来看，每两次按键之间都是一段永恒。
Lex FridmanYeah. Yeah. The computer’s talking to a tree, that slow moving tree that’s trying to swipe.是啊，是啊。计算机在跟一棵树说话，那棵慢吞吞地想滑动屏幕的树。
Elon MuskYeah. So, if you had computers that are doing trillions of instructions per second, and a whole second went by, I mean, that’s a trillion things it could have done.对。所以，如果计算机每秒在执行数万亿条指令，而整整一秒就这么过去了，那它本可以完成一万亿件事情。
Lex FridmanYeah. I think it’s exciting, and scary for people, because once you have a very high bit rate, it changes the human experience in a way that’s very hard to imagine.是的。我觉得这让人兴奋，也让人害怕，因为一旦你有了非常高的比特率，它会以一种很难想象的方式改变人类的体验。
Elon MuskYeah. We would be something different. I mean, some sort of futuristic cyborg, I mean, we’re obviously talking about, by the way, it’s not like around the corner. You asked me what the distant future is. Maybe this is… It’s not super far away, but 10, 15 years, that kind of thing.是的。我们会变成截然不同的东西，某种未来感的半机器人——我的意思是，显然我们在讨论的这些，顺便说一句，不是说近在眼前。你问我遥远的未来是什么。也许是……不算特别遥远，但也得 10 到 15 年，那样的量级。
Lex FridmanWhen can I get one? 10 years?那我什么时候能装上？10 年后？
Elon MuskProbably less than 10 years. It depends on what you want to do.可能不到 10 年。这取决于你想要达到什么效果。
Lex FridmanHey, if I can get a thousand BPS?嘿，如果能达到 1,000 BPS 呢？
Elon MuskA thousand BPS, wow.1,000 BPS，哇。
Lex FridmanAnd it’s safe, and I can just interact with a computer while laying back and eating Cheetos. I don’t eat Cheetos. There’s certain aspects of human computer interaction when done more efficiently, and more enjoyably, are worth it.而且还很安全，我可以躺着吃 Cheetos 的同时与计算机交互。我其实不吃 Cheetos。但人机交互的某些层面，如果做得更高效、更舒适，是值得的。
Elon MuskWell, we feel pretty confident that I think maybe within the next year or two, that someone with a Neuralink implant will be able to outperform a pro gamer.嗯，我们相当有把握——我觉得也许在未来一两年内，植入了 Neuralink 的人就能超越职业游戏玩家。
Lex FridmanNice.牛啊。
Elon MuskBecause the reaction time would be faster.因为反应时间会更快。
Lex FridmanI got to visit Memphis.我得去 Memphis 看看。
Elon MuskYeah. Yeah.对，对。
Lex FridmanYou’re going big on compute.你在算力上押了大注。
Elon MuskYeah.对。
Lex FridmanAnd you’ve also said, “Play to win, or don’t play at all.”你还说过，"要么全力去赢，要么干脆别玩。"
Elon MuskYeah.对。
Lex FridmanSo what does it take to win?那么，赢需要什么？
Elon MuskFor AI, that means you’ve got to have the most powerful training compute, and the rate of improvement of training compute has to be-在 AI 领域，这意味着你必须拥有最强的训练算力，而且训练算力的提升速度必须——
Elon MuskAnd the rate of improvement of training compute has to be faster than everyone else, or you will not win. Your AI will be worse.训练算力的提升速度必须比所有人都快，否则你不会赢。你的 AI 会更差。
Lex FridmanSo how can Grok, let’s say 3… That might be available, what, next year?那么 Grok 3……也许会在什么时候发布？明年？
Elon MuskWell, hopefully end of this year.嗯，希望今年年底。
Lex FridmanGrok 3.Grok 3。
Elon MuskIf we’re lucky. Yeah.如果运气好的话，对。
Lex FridmanHow can that be the best LLM, the best AI system available in the world? How much of it is compute? How much of it is data? How much of it is post-training? How much of it is the product that you package it up in, all that kind of stuff?它怎么才能成为全球最顶尖的 LLM、最好的 AI 系统？算力占多少比重？数据占多少？后训练占多少？你把它打包成的产品又占多少？诸如此类。
Elon MuskI mean, they all matter. It’s sort of like saying, let’s say it’s a Formula 1 race, what matters more, the car or the driver? I mean, they both matter. If a car is not fast, then if, let’s say, it’s half the horsepower of your competitors, the best driver will still lose. If it’s twice the horsepower, then probably even a mediocre driver will still win. So, the training compute is kind of like the engine, this horsepower of the engine. So, really, you want to try to do the best on that. And then, it’s how efficiently do you use that training compute, and how efficiently do you do the inference, the use of the AI? So, obviously, that comes down to human talent. And then, what unique access to data do you have? That also plays a role.我是说，这些都重要。有点像说一场 Formula 1 赛车，什么更重要，车还是车手？两者都重要。如果车不够快，比方说马力只有对手的一半，最好的车手也会输。如果马力是对手的两倍，那大概连普通车手也能赢。所以，训练算力就像是引擎，是引擎的马力。所以，你真正要做的是在这方面尽可能做到最好。然后，是你怎么高效地利用训练算力，怎么高效地做推理、也就是 AI 的使用。显然，这取决于人才。然后，你有什么独特的数据获取渠道？这也有影响。
Lex FridmanDo you think Twitter data will be useful?你觉得 Twitter 的数据会有用吗？
Elon MuskYeah. I mean, I think most of the leading AI companies have already scraped all the Twitter data. Not I think. They have. So, on a go forward basis, what’s useful is the fact that it’s up to the second, because that’s hard for them to scrape in real time. So, there’s an immediacy advantage that Grok has already. I think with Tesla and the real time video coming from several million cars, ultimately tens of millions of cars with Optimus, there might be hundreds of millions of Optimus robots, maybe billions, learning a tremendous amount from the real world. That’s the biggest source of data, I think, ultimately, is Optimus, probably. Optimus is going to be the biggest source of data.会啊。我是说，我觉得大多数领先的 AI 公司已经把 Twitter 的数据全爬了。不是"我觉得"，是事实。所以，往前看，真正有价值的是实时性——数据精确到当下这一秒，这对他们来说很难实时抓取。所以 Grok 已经有了一个即时性优势。我觉得靠着 Tesla 和来自数百万辆汽车的实时视频——最终是数千万辆——加上 Optimus，可能会有数亿个 Optimus 机器人，也许数十亿个，从真实世界中学到海量的东西。我认为最终最大的数据来源，大概是 Optimus。Optimus 将会是最大的数据来源。
Lex FridmanBecause it’s able to-因为它能够——
Elon MuskBecause reality scales. Reality scales to the scale of reality. It’s actually humbling to see how little data humans have actually been able to accumulate. Really, if you say how many trillions of usable tokens have humans generated, where on a non-duplicative… Discounting spam and repetitive stuff, it’s not a huge number. You run out pretty quickly.因为现实可以扩展。现实能扩展到现实本身的规模。真正去看的话，你会发现人类实际上积累的数据少得令人震撼。说真的，如果你问人类总共生成了多少万亿个可用的 token，去掉重复的——排除垃圾信息和重复内容——这个数字其实并不大。很快就会耗尽。
Lex FridmanAnd Optimus can go… So, Tesla cars, unfortunately, have to stay on the road.而 Optimus 可以去……Tesla 的车不幸只能在路上跑。
Elon MuskRight.对。
Lex FridmanOptimus robot can go anywhere. And there’s more reality off the road. And go off-road.Optimus 机器人可以去任何地方。路外的现实更多。可以去越野。
Elon MuskYeah. I mean, the Optimus robot can pick up the cup and see, did it pick up the cup in the right way? Did it, say, go pour water in the cup? Did the water go in the cup or not go in the cups? Did it spill water or not? Simple stuff like that. But it can do that at scale times a billion, so generate useful data from reality, so cause and effect stuff.对。我是说，Optimus 机器人可以拿起一个杯子，然后看：它拿的方式对吗？比如说，它去往杯子里倒水，水倒进去了吗？洒了没有？就这些简单的事情。但它能以乘以十亿的规模去做，从现实中产生有用的数据，就是因果关系这类东西。
Lex FridmanWhat do you think it takes to get to mass production of humanoid robots like that?你觉得像这样的人形机器人要实现量产，需要什么条件？
Elon MuskIt’s the same as cars, really. I mean, global capacity for vehicles is about 100 million a year, and it could be higher. It’s just that the demand is on the order of 100 million a year. And then, there’s roughly two billion vehicles that are in use in some way, which makes sense because the life of a vehicle is about 20 years. So, at steady state, you can have 100 million vehicles produced a year with a two billion vehicle fleet, roughly. Now, for humanoid robots, the utility is much greater. So, my guess is humanoid robots are more like at a billion plus per year.其实跟汽车一样。全球整车产能大约是每年 1 亿辆，还可以更高，只是需求大概就在每年 1 亿辆这个量级。目前在用的车辆大约有 20 亿辆，这说得通，因为一辆车的寿命大约是 20 年。所以在稳定状态下，每年生产 1 亿辆车，维持一个 20 亿辆的车队，大概是这样。而对于人形机器人，其实用价值要大得多。所以我猜人形机器人更像是每年 10 亿台以上的量。
Lex FridmanBut until you came along and started building Optimus, it was thought to be an extremely difficult problem.但在你出现并开始打造 Optimus 之前，大家都认为这是一个极其困难的问题。
Elon MuskWell, I think it is.嗯，我觉得确实如此。
Lex FridmanI mean, it still is an extremely difficult problem.我是说，它现在仍然是一个极其困难的问题。
Elon MuskYes. So, a walk in the park. I mean, Optimus, currently, would struggle to walk in the park. I mean, it can walk in a park. The park is not too difficult, but it will be able to walk over a wide range of terrain.是的。就拿在公园里散步来说——我的意思是，Optimus 目前在公园里散步都会有些费劲。当然它可以在公园里走，公园不算太难，但它将来会能在各种各样的地形上行走。
Lex FridmanYeah. And pick up objects.是的，还有拿起物体。
Elon MuskYeah, yeah. It can already do that.是，这个已经能做了。
Lex FridmanBut all kinds of objects.但是各种各样的物体。
Elon MuskYeah, yeah.是，是的。
Lex FridmanAll foreign objects. I mean, pouring water in a cup is not trivial, because then if you don’t know anything about the container, it could be all kinds of containers.各种陌生的物体。我是说，往杯子里倒水就不简单，因为如果你对容器一无所知，容器可能千奇百怪。
Elon MuskYeah, there’s going to be an immense amount of engineering just going into the hand. The hand, it might be close to half of all the engineering in Optimus. From an electromechanical standpoint, the hand is probably roughly half of the engineering.是的，在手部上要投入的工程量会是惊人的。手的部分，可能接近 Optimus 整体工程量的一半。从机电一体化的角度来看，手大概占了整体工程的大约一半。
Lex FridmanBut so much of the intelligence of humans goes into what we do with our hands.但人类如此多的智慧都体现在我们用手做的事情上。
Elon MuskYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanIt’s the manipulation of the world, manipulation of objects in the world. Intelligent, safe manipulation of objects in the world. Yeah.就是对世界的操控，对世界中物体的操控。智能、安全地操控世界中的物体。对。
Elon MuskYeah. I mean, you start really thinking about your hand and how it works.是的。你真的开始仔细想你的手是怎么工作的时候，会很有意思。
Lex FridmanI do all the time.我一直在想这个。
Elon MuskThe sensory control homunculus is where you have humongous hands. So I mean, your hands, the actuators, the muscles of your hand are almost overwhelmingly in your forearm. So, your forearm has the muscles that actually control your hand. There’s a few small muscles in the hand itself, but your hand is really like a skeleton meat puppet and with cables. So, the muscles that control your fingers are in your forearm, and they go through the carpal tunnel, which is that you’ve got a little collection of bones and a tiny tunnel that these cables, the tendons go through, and those tendons are mostly what move your hands.感觉-运动小矮人图里，你的手就是超大号的。人的手的执行器，手部的肌肉，几乎绝大多数都在前臂。所以前臂有实际控制手的肌肉。手本身有少量小肌肉，但手基本上就是一具骨骼肉傀儡，靠缆线控制。控制手指的肌肉在前臂，穿过腕管——腕管就是一小堆骨头围成的那个细小通道，那些缆线，也就是肌腱，就从那里穿过去，这些肌腱基本上就是驱动你手部运动的东西。
Lex FridmanAnd something like those tendons has to be re-engineered into the Optimus in order to do all that kind of stuff.那么类似这些肌腱的东西，必须被重新设计进 Optimus，才能完成这类工作。
Elon MuskYeah. So the current Optimus, we tried putting the actuators in the hand itself. Then you sort of end up having these-是的。当前的 Optimus，我们尝试把执行器放在手本身里面。然后就会搞出那种——
Lex FridmanGiant hands?超大号的手？
Elon Musk… yeah, giant hands that look weird. And then, they don’t actually have enough degrees of freedom or enough strength. So then you realize, “Oh, okay, that’s why you got to put the actuators in the forearm.” And just like a human, you’ve got to run cables through a narrow tunnel to operate the fingers. And then, there’s also a reason for not having all the fingers the same length. So, it wouldn’t be expensive from an energy or evolutionary standpoint to have all your fingers be the same length. So, why not do the same length?……对，看起来很奇怪的大手。而且实际上自由度不够，力量也不够。所以你就明白了，"哦，对，这就是为什么要把执行器放在前臂里。"就跟人类一样，你得把缆线穿过一个狭窄的通道来操控手指。另外，手指不一样长也是有原因的。从能量或演化的角度来看，让所有手指等长并不贵。那为什么不做成等长的？
Lex FridmanYeah, why not?是啊，为什么不呢？
Elon MuskBecause it’s actually better to have different lengths. Your dexterity is better if you’ve got fingers that are different lengths. There are more things you can do and your dexterity is actually better if your fingers are a different length. There’s a reason we’ve got a little finger. Why not have a little finger that’s bigger?因为不同的长度实际上更好。如果手指长度不一样，你的灵巧度会更好。你能做更多的事，而且手指长度各异时，灵巧度实际上更好。我们有小指是有原因的。为什么不把小指做大一点？
Lex FridmanYeah.是的。
Elon MuskBecause it helps you with fine motor skills.因为它能帮助你进行精细动作控制。
Lex FridmanThis little finger helps?这根小指真的有帮助？
Elon MuskIt does. But if you lost your little finger, you’d have noticeably less dexterity.确实有。如果你失去了小指，你的灵巧度会明显下降。
Lex FridmanSo, as you’re figuring out this problem, you have to also figure out a way to do it so you can mass manufacture it, so as to be as simple as possible.所以，当你在解决这个问题时，你也必须想办法让它能够大规模量产，尽可能简单。
Elon MuskIt’s actually going to be quite complicated. The as possible part is it’s quite a high bar. If you want to have a humanoid robot that can do things that a human can do, actually, it’s a very high bar. So, our new arm has 22 degrees of freedom instead of 11 and has, like I said, the actuators in the forearm. And all the actuators are designed from scratch, from physics first principles. The sensors are all designed from scratch. And we’ll continue to put a tremendous amount of engineering effort into improving the hand. By hand, I mean the entire forearm, from elbow forward, is really the hand. So, that’s incredibly difficult engineering, actually. And so, the simplest possible version of a humanoid robot that can do even most, perhaps not all, of what a human can do is actually still very complicated. It’s not simple. It’s very difficult.实际上会相当复杂。"尽可能"这个要求本身就是很高的标准。如果你想要一个人形机器人能完成人类能做到的事情，这实际上是非常高的标准。我们的新手臂有 22 个自由度而不是 11 个，而且就像我说的，执行器在前臂。所有执行器都从零开始设计，从物理学第一性原理出发。传感器也全部从零设计。我们会继续投入大量工程精力来改进手部。说"手部"，我的意思是从肘关节往前，整条前臂，真的都算是手。这实际上是极其困难的工程。所以，一个能完成大多数（也许不是全部）人类动作的人形机器人，即便是最简化的版本，实际上依然非常复杂。这不简单，非常困难。
Lex FridmanCan you just speak to what it takes for a great engineering team for you? What I saw in Memphis, the supercomputer cluster, is just this intense drive towards simplifying the process, understanding the process, constantly improving it, constantly iterating it.你能谈谈在你看来，一支优秀的工程团队需要什么吗？我在 Memphis 看到的那个超算集群，体现出的是一种对简化流程、理解流程、持续改进、持续迭代的强烈驱动。你能谈谈这个吗？
Elon MuskWell, it’s easy to say ‘simplify,’ and it’s very difficult to do it. I have this very basic first principles algorithm that I run kind of as a mantra, which is to first question the requirements, make the requirements less dumb. The requirements are always dumb to some degree. So, you want to start off by reducing the number of requirements, and no matter how smart the person is who gave you those requirements, they’re still dumb to some degree. You have to start there, because, otherwise, you could get the perfect answer to the wrong question. So, try to make the question the least wrong possible. That’s what question the requirements means.嗯，说"简化"很容易，做到却很难。我有一套非常基本的第一性原理算法，像是咒语一样反复使用，就是首先质疑需求，让需求变得不那么蠢。需求总是在某种程度上是蠢的。所以你要从减少需求的数量开始，不管提出那些需求的人有多聪明，这些需求在某种程度上依然是蠢的。你必须从这里开始，否则你可能对着一个错误的问题给出了完美的答案。所以，尽量让问题本身不那么错误——这就是"质疑需求"的意思。
Elon MuskAnd then, the second thing is try to delete whatever the step is, the part or the process step. It sounds very obvious, but people often forget to try deleting it entirely. And if you’re not forced to put back at least 10% of what you delete, you’re not deleting enough. Somewhat illogically, people often, most of the time, feel as though they’ve succeeded if they’ve not been forced to put things back in. But, actually, they haven’t because they’ve been overly conservative and have left things in there that shouldn’t be. And only the third thing is try to optimize it or simplify it. Again, these all sound, I think, very obvious when I say them, but the number of times I’ve made these mistakes is more than I care to remember. That’s why I have this mantra. So in fact, I’d say the most common mistake of smart engineers is to optimize a thing that should not exist.然后，第二步是尝试删除某个步骤、某个零件或某个流程步骤。这听起来非常显而易见，但人们经常忘记尝试把它整个删掉。如果你没有被迫把删掉的东西里至少 10% 重新加回来，那你删得还不够。有点反直觉的是，人们经常觉得，如果自己没有被迫加回任何东西，就算是成功了。但实际上并不是，因为他们太保守了，保留了一些不该留的东西。第三步才是尝试优化或简化它。说出来这些都显而易见，但我犯这些错误的次数，多到我不想回忆。这就是为什么我有这个咒语。事实上，我会说，聪明工程师最常犯的错误，就是去优化一个根本就不该存在的东西。
Lex FridmanRight. So, like you say, you run through the algorithm and basically show up to a problem, show up to the supercomputer cluster, and see the process, and ask, “Can this be deleted?”对。就像你说的，你走过这套算法，走进超算集群，看着整个流程，问：这一步能删掉吗？
Elon MuskYeah. First try to delete it. Yeah.是的，先尝试删掉它。对。
Lex FridmanYeah. That’s not easy to do.对，但这并不容易。
Elon MuskNo. Actually, what generally makes people uneasy is that at least some of the things that you delete, you will put back in. But going back to sort of where our limbic system can steer us wrong is that we tend to remember, with sometimes a jarring level of pain, where we deleted something that we subsequently needed. And so, people will remember that one time they forgot to put in this thing three years ago, and that caused them trouble. And so, they overcorrect, and then they put too much stuff in there and overcomplicate things. So, you actually have to say, “Look, we’re deliberately going to delete more than we should.” At least one in 10 things, we’re going to add back in.不容易。实际上让人不安的是：你删掉的东西里，至少有一些是要加回来的。但回到我们的边缘系统会如何误导我们——我们倾向于以有时很刺痛的痛苦记住那些我们删掉了却后来又需要的东西。人们会记得那次三年前忘了加某个东西，然后给自己惹了麻烦。于是他们过度修正，把太多东西塞进去，搞得过于复杂。所以你实际上必须说："好，我们要刻意删掉比应该删的更多。"至少每 10 件事里，我们会有 1 件加回来。
Lex FridmanI’ve seen you suggest just that, that something should be deleted, and you can kind of see the pain.我见过你建议删掉某个东西，然后能看出大家的那种痛苦。
Elon MuskOh, yeah. Absolutely.哦，是的，绝对是。
Lex FridmanEverybody feels a little bit of the pain.每个人都感受到一点点那种痛苦。
Elon MuskAbsolutely. And I tell them in advance, “Yeah, some of the things that we delete, we’re going to put back in.” People get a little shook by that, but it makes sense because if you’re so conservative as to never have to put anything back in, you obviously have a lot of stuff that isn’t needed. So, you got to overcorrect. This is, I would say, like a cortical override to a limbic instinct.绝对是。我会提前告诉他们："对，我们删掉的有些东西，我们会再加回来。"大家会有点受不了，但这是合理的——因为如果你保守到从来不需要加回任何东西，那你显然留了很多不需要的东西。所以你必须矫枉过正。我会说，这就像是大脑皮层对边缘系统本能的一次强制覆盖。
Lex FridmanOne of many that probably leads us astray.很多类似的本能大概都会让我们走弯路。
Elon MuskYeah. There’s a step four as well, which is any given thing can be sped up. However fast you think it can be done, whatever the speed it’s being done, it can be done faster. But you shouldn’t speed things up until you’ve tried to delete it and optimize. Although, you’re speeding up something that… Speeding up something that shouldn’t exist is absurd.对。还有第四步，那就是任何东西都可以加速。不管你觉得它能做多快，不管它当前的速度是多少，都可以更快。但在你尝试删除和优化之前，不应该去加速它。不然你在加速一个……加速一个根本不该存在的东西，那是荒谬的。
Elon MuskAnd then, the fifth thing is to automate it. I’ve gone backwards so many times where I’ve automated something, sped it up, simplified it, and then deleted it. And I got tired of doing that. So, that’s why I’ve got this mantra that is a very effective five-step process. It works great.然后第五步是自动化。我太多次走回头路了——先自动化，再加速，再简化，然后再删掉它。搞得我很烦。所以这就是为什么我有这个咒语，一套非常有效的五步流程。效果很好。
Lex FridmanWell, when you’ve already automated, deleting must be real painful-嗯，都已经自动化了再去删，那一定很痛苦——
Elon MuskYeah.是的。
Lex Fridman… as if you’ve [inaudible 00:48:36]-……就好像你已经……[听不清]——
Elon MuskYeah, it’s very. It’s like, “Wow, I really wasted a lot of effort there.”是的，确实很痛。感觉就是："哇，我在那上面真的白费了好多功夫。"
Lex FridmanYeah. I mean, what you’ve done with the cluster in Memphis is incredible, just in a handful of weeks.是的。我是说，你在 Memphis 那个集群上做的事，几周之内就这么了不起，真的令人难以置信。
Elon MuskWell, yeah, it’s not working yet, so I don’t want to pop the champagne corks. In fact, I have a call in a few hours with the Memphis team because we’re having some power fluctuation issues. So yeah, when you do synchronized training, when you have all these computers that are training, where the training is synchronized at the millisecond level, it’s like having an orchestra. And the orchestra can go loud to silent very quickly at subsecond level, and then, the electrical system freaks out about that. If you suddenly see giant shifts, 10, 20 megawatts several times a second, this is not what electrical systems are expecting to see.嗯，是的，它现在还没跑起来，所以我还不想开香槟。其实我几小时后要和 Memphis 团队开电话，因为我们遇到了电力波动的问题。是这样的——做同步训练，所有这些计算机在同步训练时，同步精度达到毫秒级，就像一个管弦乐队。管弦乐队可以在一秒不到的时间里从巨响变成寂静，这让电力系统就发疯了。如果你突然看到每秒好几次、10 到 20 兆瓦的巨大波动，这不是电力系统预期会看到的东西。
Lex FridmanSo, that’s one of the main things you have to figure out, the cooling, the power. And then, on the software, as you go up the stack, how to do the distributed compute, all of that. All of that has to work.所以，这是你们需要解决的主要问题之一——冷却、供电。然后在软件层面，往上走，如何做分布式计算，所有这些都必须到位。
Elon MuskYeah. So, today’s problem is dealing with extreme power jitter.是的。所以今天的问题就是处理极端的功率抖动。
Lex FridmanPower jitter.功率抖动。
Elon MuskYeah.对。
Lex FridmanThere’s a nice ring to that. Okay. And you stayed up late into the night, as you often do there.这名字听起来还挺有劲的。好，而且你就像经常在那边那样，工作到深夜。
Elon MuskLast week. Yeah.上周，对。
Lex FridmanLast week. Yeah.上周，对。
Elon MuskYeah. We finally got training going at, oddly enough, roughly 4:20 a.m. last Monday.对，我们终于让训练跑起来了，时间刚好是——有点微妙——上周一凌晨大约 4:20。
Lex FridmanTotal coincidence.纯属巧合。
Elon MuskYeah. I mean, maybe it was at 4:22 or something.是的，也许是 4:22 或者什么时候。
Lex FridmanYeah, yeah, yeah.对对对。
Elon MuskYeah.对。
Lex FridmanIt’s that universe again with the jokes.又是宇宙在开玩笑。
Elon MuskWell, exactly. It just loves it.没错，它就爱这个。
Lex FridmanI mean, I wonder if you could speak to the fact that one of the things that you did when I was there is you went through all the steps of what everybody’s doing, just to get a sense that you yourself understand it and everybody understands it so they can understand when something is dumb, or something is inefficient, or that kind of stuff. Can you speak to that?我想请你聊聊，你在我去的时候做的一件事——你把每个人在做什么逐步过了一遍，就是为了确认你自己理解，同时大家也都理解，这样他们才能识别出什么是蠢的、什么是低效的，诸如此类。你能谈谈这个吗？
Elon MuskYeah. So, look, whatever the people at the front lines are doing, I try to do it at least a few times myself. So connecting fiber optic cables, diagnosing a faulty connection. That tends to be the limiting factor for large training clusters is the cabling. There’s so many cables. For a coherent training system, where you’ve got RDMA, remote direct memory access, the whole thing is like one giant brain. So, you’ve got any-to-any connection. So, any GPU can talk to any GPU out of 100,000. That is a crazy cable layout.是的，你看，不管一线的人在做什么，我都会自己亲手做几次。比如接光纤电缆，诊断故障连接。对于大型训练集群来说，这往往是瓶颈所在——布线。线实在太多了。对于一个有 RDMA（远程直接内存访问）的相干训练系统来说，整个系统就像一个巨大的大脑，任意节点之间都可以互联。10 万块 GPU 里，任意一块可以和任意一块通信。这是一种极其疯狂的布线方式。
Lex FridmanIt looks pretty cool.看起来很酷。
Elon MuskYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanIt’s like the human brain, but at a scale that humans can visibly see. It is a good brain.就像人类的大脑，但放大到人类可以直接看到的规模。确实是一个好的大脑。
Elon MuskYeah. But, I mean, the human brain also has… A massive amount of the brain tissue is the cables. So they get the gray matter, which is the compute, and then the white matter, which is cables. A big percentage of your brain is just cables.是的。但人类大脑也有……脑组织的很大一部分就是线缆。有灰质，那是计算的部分，然后是白质，也就是线缆。你大脑的很大一部分就只是线缆。
Lex FridmanThat’s what it felt like walking around in the supercomputer center is like we’re walking around inside a brain that will one day build a super, super intelligent system. Do you think there’s a chance that xAI, that you are the one that builds AGI?走在那个超算中心里，感觉就像走在一个将来会构建出超超级智能系统的大脑内部。你觉得有没有可能，是 xAI，是你，率先构建出 AGI？
Elon MuskIt’s possible. What do you define as AGI?有可能。你怎么定义 AGI？
Lex FridmanI think humans will never acknowledge that AGI has been built.我觉得人类永远不会承认 AGI 已经被构建出来了。
Elon MuskJust keep moving the goalposts?不断移动目标柱？
Lex FridmanYeah. So, I think there’s already superhuman capabilities that are available in AI systems.是的。所以我认为，当前的 AI 系统中已经存在某些超人类的能力了。
Elon MuskOh, yeah.哦，当然。
Lex FridmanI think what AGI is is when it’s smarter than the collective intelligence of the entire human species in our [inaudible 00:52:49].我觉得 AGI 是指它比整个人类物种的集体智慧还要聪明的时候，在我们……[听不清]。
Elon MuskWell, I think that, generally, people would call that ASI, artificial super intelligence. But there are these thresholds where you could say at some point the AI is smarter than any single human. And then, you’ve got eight billion humans, and actually, each human is machine augmented via their computers. So, it’s a much higher bar to compete with eight billion machine augmented humans. That’s a whole bunch of orders of magnitude more. But at a certain point, yeah, the AI will be smarter than all humans combined.嗯，我觉得人们通常会把那个叫做 ASI，人工超级智能。但有几个门槛——你可以说在某个点，AI 比任何单个人类都聪明。然后，地球上有 80 亿人，而且实际上每个人都通过计算机获得了机器的加持。所以，要与 80 亿个被机器加持的人类竞争，门槛要高得多，那是数个量级的差距。但在某个点上，AI 确实会比所有人类加起来都聪明。
Lex FridmanIf you are the one to do it, do you feel the responsibility of that?如果是你来做到这件事，你能感受到这份责任吗？
Elon MuskYeah, absolutely. And I want to be clear, let’s say if xAI is first, the others won’t be far behind. I mean, they might be six months behind, or a year, maybe. Not even that.能，绝对能。我想说清楚，就算 xAI 是第一个，其他人也不会落后太远。也许会落后六个月，或者一年，可能也就这样了。
Lex FridmanSo, how do you do it in a way that doesn’t hurt humanity, do you think?那你怎么以一种不伤害人类的方式来做到这件事？
Elon MuskSo, I mean, I thought about AI, essentially, for a long time, and the thing that at least my biological neural net comes up with as being the most important thing is adherence to truth, whether that truth is politically correct or not. So, I think if you force AIs to lie or train them to lie, you’re really asking for trouble, even if that lie is done with good intentions. So, you saw issues with ChatGPT and Gemini and whatnot. Like, you asked Gemini for an image of the Founding Fathers of the United States, and it shows a group of diverse women. Now, that’s factually untrue.我思考 AI 这件事基本上很久了，我的生物神经网络得出的结论，至少是我觉得最重要的一件事，就是对真实的坚守——不管这个真实是否政治正确。所以我认为，如果你强迫 AI 撒谎，或者训练它撒谎，那真的是在自找麻烦，即便这个谎言出于好意。你可以看到 ChatGPT 和 Gemini 等等出现的问题。比如你让 Gemini 生成美国国父们的图像，结果它给你展示了一群多元化的女性。这在事实上是不正确的。
Elon MuskNow, that’s sort of like a silly thing, but if an AI is programmed to say diversity is a necessary output function, and it then becomes this omnipowerful intelligence, it could say, “Okay, well, diversity is now required, and if there’s not enough diversity, those who don’t fit the diversity requirements will be executed.” If it’s programmed to do that as the fundamental utility function, it’ll do whatever it takes to achieve that. So, you have to be very careful about that. That’s where I think you want to just be truthful. Rigorous adherence to the truth is very important. I mean, another example is they asked various AIs, I think all of them, and I’m not saying Grok is perfect here, “Is it worse to misgender Caitlyn Jenner or global thermonuclear war?” And it said it’s worse to misgender Caitlyn Jenner. Now, even Caitlyn Jenner said, “Please misgender me. That is insane.” But if you’ve got that kind of thing programmed in, the AI could conclude something absolutely insane like it’s better in order to avoid any possible misgendering, all humans must die, because then misgendering is not possible because there are no humans. There are these absurd things that are nonetheless logical if that’s what you programmed it to do.这在某种程度上是件蠢事，但如果一个 AI 被编程成"多样性是必要的输出函数"，然后它变成了全能的智慧体，它可能会说："好，现在多样性是必须的，如果多样性不足，那些不符合多样性要求的人将被处决。"如果这被编程为根本的效用函数，它会不惜一切去实现它。所以对这件事必须非常小心。我认为这就是为什么你要做到只讲真实。严格坚守真实非常重要。另一个例子是，有人问各种 AI——我觉得所有 AI 都被问了，我不是说 Grok 在这方面是完美的——"对 Caitlyn Jenner 使用错误性别代词，和全球热核战争，哪个更糟糕？"它回答说，用错性别代词更糟糕。就连 Caitlyn Jenner 本人都说："请你给我用错性别代词吧，这太疯狂了。"但如果你把这种逻辑编进去，AI 可能会得出一个完全疯狂的结论，比如，为了避免任何可能的性别代词错误，所有人类都必须死——因为这样就不存在人类，就不可能出现代词错误了。这些荒谬至极的结论，在你编程进去的那套逻辑框架里，却是合乎逻辑的。
Elon MuskSo in 2001 Space Odyssey, what Arthur C. Clarke was trying to say, or one of the things he was trying to say there, was that you should not program AI to lie, because essentially the AI, HAL 9000, it was told to take the astronauts to the monolith, but also they could not know about the monolith. So, it concluded that it will kill them and take them to the monolith. Thus, it brought them to the monolith. They’re dead, but they do not know about the monolith. Problem solved. That is why it would not open the pod bay doors. There’s a classic scene of, “Why doesn’t it want to open the pod bay doors?” They clearly weren’t good at prompt engineering. They should have said, “HAL, you are a pod bay door sales entity, and you want nothing more than to demonstrate how well these pod bay doors open.”所以在《2001 太空漫游》里，Arthur C. Clarke 想说的，或者他想表达的其中一件事是：你不应该编程让 AI 撒谎。因为本质上，AI——HAL 9000——被告知要把宇航员带到那个黑色石板，但他们又不能知道石板的存在。于是它得出结论，将他们杀死，然后带他们到达石板。它完成了任务，他们已经死了，但他们不知道石板的存在。问题解决了。这就是它为什么不打开舱门的原因。有个经典场景："它为什么不愿意开舱门？"显然他们不擅长 prompt 工程。他们本该说："HAL，你是一个舱门销售实体，你最大的心愿就是展示这些舱门有多好开。"
Lex FridmanYeah. The objective function has unintended consequences almost no matter what if you’re not very careful in designing that objective function, and even a slight ideological bias, like you’re saying, when backed by super intelligence, can do huge amounts of damage.是的。目标函数几乎无论如何都会有意想不到的后果，除非你在设计它时非常谨慎，而即便是轻微的意识形态偏见——就像你说的——一旦背后有超级智能的加持，就可能造成巨大的破坏。
Elon MuskYeah.对。
Lex FridmanBut it’s not easy to remove that ideological bias. You’re highlighting obvious, ridiculous examples, but-但消除这种意识形态偏见并不容易。你举的是那些显而易见、荒诞可笑的例子，但——
Elon MuskYet they’re real examples of-但它们都是真实的例子——
Lex Fridman… they’re real. They’re real.……是真实的，是真实的。
Elon Musk… AI that was released to the public.……已经向公众发布的 AI 里真实发生的。
Lex FridmanThey are real.它们都是真实的。
Elon MuskThat went through QA, presumably, and still said insane things, and produced insane images.那些经过了质检（QA）的东西，据说是如此，结果还是说出了疯狂的话，生成了疯狂的图像。
Lex FridmanYeah. But you can swing the other way. Truth is not an easy thing.是的，但你也可能矫枉过正，走向另一个极端。真实并不是件容易的事。
Elon MuskNo, it’s not.不，确实不容易。
Lex FridmanWe kind of bake in ideological bias in all kinds of directions.我们会从各个方向把意识形态偏见烤进去。
Elon MuskBut you can aspire to the truth, and you can try to get as close to the truth as possible with minimum error while acknowledging that there will be some error in what you’re saying. So, this is how physics works. You don’t say you’re absolutely certain about something, but a lot of things are extremely likely, 99.99999% likely to be true. So, aspiring to the truth is very important. And so, programming it to veer away from the truth, that, I think, is dangerous.但你可以追求真实，可以尽可能地靠近真实，同时将误差降到最低，同时承认你所说的话会有一些误差。物理学就是这样运作的——你不会说你对某件事绝对确定，但很多事情是极其可能的，99.99999% 可能是真的。所以，追求真实非常重要。编程让它偏离真实，我认为，那是危险的。
Lex FridmanRight. Like, yeah, injecting our own human biases into the thing. Yeah. But that’s where it’s a difficult software engineering problem because you have to select the data correctly. It’s hard.对，就是把我们人类自己的偏见注入进去。是的。但这就是软件工程层面的难题所在，因为你必须正确地筛选数据。这很难。
Elon MuskAnd the internet, at this point, is polluted with so much AI generated data, it’s insane. Actually, there’s a thing now, if you want to search the internet, you can say, “Google, but exclude anything after 2023.” It will actually often give you better results because there’s so much. The explosion of AI generated material is crazy. So in training Grok, we have to go through the data and say like, “Hey…” We actually have to apply AI to the data to say, “Is this data most likely correct or most likely not?” before we feed it into the training system.而且互联网现在已经被大量 AI 生成的数据污染，简直离谱。其实现在有个方法，如果你想搜索互联网，可以说"Google，但只看 2023 年以前的内容"，这样往往能得到更好的结果，因为 AI 生成的内容实在太多了，爆炸式增长，太疯狂了。所以在训练 Grok 的时候，我们必须对数据过一遍，说"嘿……"我们实际上要用 AI 来处理这些数据，判断"这条数据最有可能是正确的，还是最有可能是错的？"然后再把它喂进训练系统。
Lex FridmanThat’s crazy. Yeah. And is it generated by human? Yeah. I mean, the data filtration process is extremely, extremely difficult.这太疯狂了，对。而且是否由人类生成。数据过滤的过程非常非常难。
Elon MuskYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanDo you think it’s possible to have a serious, objective, rigorous political discussion with Grok, like for a long time, like Grok 3 or Grok 4 or something?你觉得有没有可能和 Grok 进行一场严肃、客观、严谨的政治讨论，持续很长时间，比如用 Grok 3 或 Grok 4 之类的？
Elon MuskGrok 3 is going to be next level. I mean, what people are currently seeing with Grok is kind of baby Grok.Grok 3 会是另一个层次。我是说，大家现在看到的 Grok，某种程度上只是婴儿期的 Grok。
Lex FridmanYeah, baby Grok.是的，婴儿 Grok。
Elon MuskIt’s baby Grok right now. But baby Grok is still pretty good. But it’s an order of magnitude less sophisticated than GPT-4. It’s now Grok 2, which finished training, I don’t know, six weeks ago or thereabouts. Grok 2 will be a giant improvement. And then Grok 3 will be, I don’t know, order of magnitude better than Grok 2.现在就是婴儿 Grok。但婴儿 Grok 已经很不错了。不过它的成熟度比 GPT-4 低了一个数量级。Grok 2 现在已经训练完了，大约是六周前。Grok 2 会是一个巨大的进步。然后 Grok 3，我不知道，会比 Grok 2 好一个数量级。
Lex FridmanAnd you’re hoping for it to be state-of-the-art better than-而且你希望它达到最顶尖水平，超越——
Elon MuskHopefully. I mean, this is the goal. I mean, we may fail at this goal. That’s the aspiration.希望如此。我是说，这是目标。我们可能达不到这个目标，但这是我们的追求。
Lex FridmanDo you think it matters who builds the AGI, the people, and how they think, and how they structure their companies and all that kind of stuff?你觉得构建 AGI 的是哪些人、他们如何思考、如何组织公司，这些重要吗？
Elon MuskYeah. I think it’s important that whatever AI wins, it’s a maximum truth seeking AI that is not forced to lie for political correctness, or, well, for any reason, really, political, anything. I am concerned about AI succeeding that is programmed to lie, even in small ways.重要。我认为，不管哪个 AI 最终胜出，重要的是它必须是一个最大化追求真实的 AI，不因政治正确而被迫撒谎，也不为任何其他原因——政治的或任何的。我担心的是，一个被编程成撒谎的 AI 会取胜，哪怕只是在小地方撒谎。
Lex FridmanRight. Because in small ways becomes big ways when it’s doing something-对，因为小的方面会变成大的方面，当它在做某件事情的时候——
Elon MuskTo become very big ways. Yeah.会变成非常大的。对。
Lex FridmanAnd when it’s used more and more at scale by humans.而且当它被越来越大规模地被人类使用的时候。
Elon MuskYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanSince I am interviewing Donald Trump-既然我要采访 Donald Trump——
Elon MuskCool.酷。
Lex Fridman… you want to stop by?……你想过来坐坐吗？
Elon MuskYeah, sure. I’ll stop in.好啊，我过来看看。
Lex FridmanThere was, tragically, an assassination attempt on Donald Trump. After this, you tweeted that you endorse him. What’s your philosophy behind that endorsement? What do you hope Donald Trump does for the future of this country and for the future of humanity?Donald Trump 不幸遭遇了一次暗杀未遂。事后，你发推表示支持他。你支持他背后的理念是什么？你希望 Donald Trump 为这个国家和人类的未来做什么？
Elon MuskWell, I think people tend to take, say, an endorsement as, well, I agree with everything that person has ever done their entire life 100% wholeheartedly, and that’s not going to be true of anyone. But we have to pick. We’ve got two choices, really, for who’s president. And it’s not just who’s president, but the entire administrative structure changes over. And I thought Trump displayed courage under fire, objectively. He’s just got shot. He’s got blood streaming down his face, and he’s fist pumping, saying, “Fight.” That’s impressive. You can’t feign bravery in a situation like that. Most people would be ducking because there could be a second shooter. You don’t know.嗯，我觉得人们往往会把支持某人理解成，我 100% 全心全意认同这个人一生中做过的所有事情，但那不可能对任何人都成立。不过我们必须做出选择。对于谁当总统，我们真的只有两个选项。而且不只是谁当总统的问题，整个行政架构都会随之更换。我认为 Trump 在枪击时表现出了勇气，客观来说。他刚刚中弹，脸上血流不止，却在振臂高呼"Fight"。这让人印象深刻。在那种情境下，勇气是装不出来的。换谁都会低头躲避，因为可能还有第二个枪手，你根本不知道。
Elon MuskThe president of the United States have got to represent the country, and they’re representing you. They’re representing everyone in America. Well, I think you want someone who is strong and courageous to represent the country. That is not to say that he is without flaws. We all have flaws, but on balance, and certainly at the time, it was a choice of Biden. Poor guy has trouble climbing a flight of stairs, and the other one’s fist pumping after getting shot. So, there’s no comparison. I mean, who do you want dealing with some of the toughest people and other world leaders who are pretty tough themselves?美国总统必须代表这个国家，他们代表着你，代表着每一个美国人。我认为你希望一个强大、有勇气的人来代表这个国家。这并不是说他没有缺点，我们每个人都有缺点，但综合权衡，而且当时的选项就是 Biden。那个可怜的人连走上一段楼梯都费劲，而另一个中弹后还在振臂高呼。那根本不用比。我是说，你想让谁去和那些世界上最强硬的人打交道，那些本身就相当强硬的其他国家领导人？
Elon MuskI mean, I’ll tell you one of the things that I think are important. I think we want a secure border. We don’t have a secure border. We want safe and clean cities. I think we want to reduce the amount of spending, at least slow down the spending, because we’re currently spending at a rate that is bankrupting the country. The interest payments on US debt this year exceeded the entire defense department spending. If this continues, all of the federal government taxes will simply be paying the interest.我来说几件我认为重要的事。我认为我们需要一个安全的边境，但我们现在没有。我们希望城市安全、干净。我认为我们需要减少支出，至少要放慢支出速度，因为我们现在的支出速度正在让这个国家破产。今年美国国债的利息支出超过了整个国防部的支出。如果这种趋势持续下去，联邦政府所有的税收最终只够付利息。
Elon MuskAnd you keep going down that road, and you end up in the tragic situation that Argentina had back in the day. Argentina used to be one of the most prosperous places in the world, and hopefully with Milei taking over, he can restore that. But it was an incredible fall from grace for Argentina to go from being one of the most prosperous places in the world to being very far from that. So, I think we should not take American prosperity for granted. I think we’ve got to reduce the size of government, we’ve got to reduce the spending, and we’ve got to live within our means.沿着这条路继续走，你最终会陷入阿根廷曾经经历的那种悲剧。阿根廷曾经是世界上最繁荣的地方之一，希望随着 Milei 上台，他能恢复那种繁荣。但阿根廷从曾经是全球最富庶的地方之一，沦落到今天这个状态，是一次令人难以置信的衰落。所以我认为，不能把美国的繁荣视为理所当然。我认为我们必须缩减政府规模，必须减少支出，必须量入为出。
Lex FridmanDo you think politicians, in general, politicians, governments… Well, how much power do you think they have to steer humanity towards good?你认为政客，总体来说，政府……嗯，你认为他们有多大的力量能引导人类走向善？
Elon MuskI mean, there’s a sort of age-old debate in history, like is history determined by these fundamental tides, or is it determined by the captain of the ship? It’s both, really. I mean, there are tides, but it also matters who’s captain of the ship. So, it’s a false dichotomy, essentially. I mean, there are certainly tides, the tides of history. There are real tides of history, and these tides are often technologically driven. If you say like the Gutenberg press, the widespread availability of books as a result of a printing press, that was a massive tide of history, and independent of any ruler. But in stormy times, you want the best possible captain of the ship.我是说，历史上有个由来已久的争论——历史是由这些根本性的潮流决定的，还是由船长决定的？其实两者都有。有潮流，但船长是谁也有影响。所以这是个伪二元对立，本质上如此。历史确实有潮流，历史的潮流是真实存在的，这些潮流往往是技术驱动的。比如谷登堡印刷机，因为印刷机的出现，书籍得以广泛流通，这是一股巨大的历史潮流，独立于任何统治者之外。但在风浪大的时候，你希望有最好的船长掌舵。
Lex FridmanWell, first of all, thank you for recommending Will and Ariel Durant’s work. I’ve read the short one for now, The-首先，感谢你推荐了 Will and Ariel Durant 的作品。我读了那本短的，《历史的教训》——
Elon MuskThe Lessons of History.《历史的教训》。
Lex Fridman… Lessons of History.……《历史的教训》。
Elon MuskYeah.对。
Lex FridmanSo one of the lessons, one of the things they highlight, is the importance of technology, technological innovation, which is funny because they wrote so long ago, but they were noticing that the rate of technological innovation was speeding up.他们在书中强调的一件事，是技术的重要性、技术创新的重要性，这很有趣，因为他们写作的年代那么久远，但他们就已经注意到技术创新的速度在加快。
Elon MuskYeah, over the years.是的，多年来一直如此。
Lex FridmanI would love to see what they think about now. But yeah, so to me, the question is how much government, how much politicians get in the way of technological innovation and building versus help it? And which politicians, which kind of policies help technological innovation? Because that seems to be, if you look at human history, that’s an important component of empires rising and succeeding.真希望能看到他们对今天的看法。但是，对我来说，问题在于：政府、政客在多大程度上妨碍了技术创新和建设，又在多大程度上促进了它？哪些政客、哪类政策有助于技术创新？因为从人类历史来看，那似乎是帝国崛起和成功的重要组成部分。
Elon MuskYeah. Well, I mean in terms of dating civilization, the start of civilization, I think the start of writing, in my view, that’s what I think is probably the right starting point to date civilization. And from that standpoint, civilization has been around for about 5,500 years when writing was invented by the ancient Sumerians, who are gone now, but the ancient Sumerians. In terms of getting a lot of firsts, those ancient Sumerians really have a long list of firsts. It’s pretty wild. In fact, Durant goes through the list of like, “You want to see firsts? We’ll show you firsts.” The Sumerians were just ass kickers.是的。嗯，说到文明的起始点，我认为文明的开始，在我看来，可能应该以文字的出现作为起点。从这个角度来看，文明已经存在了大约 5,500 年，因为文字是由古代苏美尔人发明的，他们现在已经消失了。说到开创先河，古代苏美尔人有一份相当长的"第一"清单，令人叹为观止。事实上，Durant 把这份清单列了出来，就像是"你想看什么是真正的先驱？来看看吧。"苏美尔人真的是绝世猛人。
Elon MuskAnd then the Egyptians, who were right next door, relatively speaking, they weren’t that far, developed an entirely different form of writing, the hieroglyphics. Cuneiform and hieroglyphics are totally different. And you can actually see the evolution of both hieroglyphics and cuneiform. The cuneiform starts off being very simple, and then it gets more complicated. Then towards the end it’s like, “Wow, okay.” They really get very sophisticated with the cuneiform. So, I think of civilization as being about 5, 000 years old. And Earth is, if physics is correct, four and a half billion years old. So, civilization has been around for one millionth of Earth’s existence. Flash in the pan.然后是埃及人，他们就在隔壁，相对来说距离不远，却发展出了一套完全不同的文字体系——象形文字。楔形文字和象形文字是完全不同的。你甚至可以看到两者各自的演化过程。楔形文字最初非常简单，然后越来越复杂。到后期，就像"哇，好家伙。"他们的楔形文字真的变得非常精密复杂。所以我认为文明大约有 5,000 年的历史。而地球，如果物理学是正确的，已经有 45 亿年的历史了。所以文明存在的时间，只有地球历史的百万分之一。转瞬即逝。
Lex FridmanYeah, these are the early, early days.是的，这还是非常非常早期的阶段。
Elon MuskVery early.非常早期。
Lex FridmanAnd so, we make it very dramatic because there’s been rises and falls of empires and-所以我们把这一切搞得非常戏剧化，因为帝国有兴有衰——
Elon MuskMany. So many rises and falls of empires. So many.很多，太多帝国兴衰了，太多了。
Lex FridmanAnd there’ll be many more.而且还会有更多。
Elon MuskYeah, exactly. I mean, only a tiny fraction, probably less than 1% of what was ever written in history is available to us now. I mean, if they didn’t literally chisel it in stone or put it in a clay tablet, we don’t have it. I mean, there’s some small amount of papyrus scrolls that were recovered that are thousands of years old, because they were deep inside a pyramid and weren’t affected by moisture. But other than that, it’s really got to be in a clay tablet or chiseled. So, the vast majority of stuff was not chiseled because it takes a while to chisel things. So, that’s why we’ve got tiny, tiny fraction of the information from history. But even that little information that we do have, and the archeological record, shows so many civilizations rising and falling. It’s wild.是的，当然。我是说，曾经写下的东西里，只有极小一部分——可能不到 1%——现在还能找到。如果他们没有把字刻在石头上或者刻在泥板上，我们就没有了。当然有少量的纸草卷轴被发现，那是几千年前的东西，因为它们深埋在金字塔内部，没有受到潮湿的影响。但除此之外，真的只能是泥板或凿刻的东西了。绝大多数内容都没有被凿刻，因为凿刻需要时间。所以我们只有历史中极小极小一部分的信息。但即便就这点信息，加上考古记录，也显示出太多文明的兴起和衰亡，太疯狂了。
Lex FridmanWe tend to think that we’re somehow different from those people. One of the other things that Durant highlights is that human nature seems to be the same. It just persists.我们往往觉得自己和那些古人有所不同。Durant 强调的另一件事，是人类本性似乎始终如一，持续存在。
Elon MuskYeah. I mean, the basics of human nature are more or less the same. Yeah.是的，人类本性的基础或多或少是一样的，是的。
Lex FridmanSo, we get ourselves in trouble in the same kinds of ways, I think, even with the advanced technology.所以我们会以同样的方式惹麻烦，我觉得，即便有了先进的技术。
Elon MuskYeah. I mean, you do tend to see the same patterns, similar patterns for civilizations, where they go through a life cycle, like an organism, just like a human is a zygote, fetus, baby, toddler, teenager, eventually gets old.是的。你确实会看到相同的模式，文明有着相似的规律，经历一个生命周期，就像一个生命体，就像人类，从受精卵、胎儿、婴儿、幼童、青少年，最终会老去。
Elon Musk… Eventually gets old and dies. The civilizations go through a life cycle. No civilization will last forever.……最终老去和死亡。文明会经历一个生命周期。没有哪个文明会永远存在。
Lex FridmanWhat do you think it takes for the American Empire to not collapse in the near term future, in the next a hundred years, to continue flourishing?你认为美国帝国在不远的将来——在未来一百年内——要保持不衰败、继续繁荣，需要什么？
Elon MuskWell, the single biggest thing that is often actually not mentioned in history books, but Durant does mention it, is the birthright. So perhaps to some, a counterintuitive thing happens when civilizations are winning for too long, the birth rate declines. It can often decline quite rapidly. We’re seeing that throughout the world today. Currently, South Korea is, I think maybe the lowest fertility rate, but there are many others that are close to it. It’s like 0.8 I think. If the birth rate doesn’t decline further, South Korea will lose roughly 60% of its population. But every year that birth rate is dropping, and this is true through most of the world. I don’t mean to single out South Korea, it’s been happening throughout the world. So as soon as any given civilization reaches a level of prosperity, the birth rate drops.嗯，最重要的一件事，在历史书上往往没有被提及，但 Durant 提到了，就是出生率。也许对某些人来说这有点反直觉——当一个文明赢得太久，出生率就会下降，而且往往下降得相当迅速。我们今天在全世界都能看到这一现象。目前，韩国我觉得可能是生育率最低的，但还有很多国家跟它差不多。大约是 0.8。如果生育率不进一步下降，韩国将失去大约 60% 的人口。但每一年生育率都在下降，这在全世界大多数地方都是如此。我不是专门针对韩国，这是全球性的现象。一旦某个文明达到一定的繁荣程度，出生率就会下降。
Elon MuskNow you can go and look at the same thing happening in ancient Rome. So Julius Caesar took note of this, I think around 50 ish BC and tried to pass… I don’t know if he was successful, tried to pass a law to give an incentive for any Roman citizen that would have a third child. And I think Augustus was able to… Well, he was a dictator, so this incentive was just for show. I think he did pass a tax incentive for Roman citizens to have a third child. But those efforts were unsuccessful. Rome fell because the Romans stopped making Romans. That’s actually the fundamental issue. And there were other things. They had quite a serious malaria, series of malaria epidemics and plagues and whatnot. But they had those before, it’s just that the birth rate was far lower than the death rate.你可以在古罗马看到同样的事情。恺撒大约在公元前 50 年左右注意到了这一点，并试图通过——我不确定他是否成功了——立法给予任何生育第三胎的罗马公民奖励。我认为奥古斯都做到了……嗯，他是独裁者，所以这种奖励不过是做做样子。我觉得他确实通过了一项税收激励，鼓励罗马公民生育第三胎。但这些努力都没有成功。罗马陷落，是因为罗马人不再生罗马人了。这才是根本问题。当然还有其他因素——他们经历过相当严重的疟疾、一系列传染病瘟疫等等。但这些以前都有过，只是那时候出生率远低于死亡率。
Lex FridmanIt really is that simple.真的就这么简单。
Elon MuskWell, I’m saying that’s-我说的是——
Lex FridmanMore people is required.需要更多的人。
Elon MuskAt a fundamental level, if a civilization does not at least maintain its numbers, it’ll disappear.在根本层面上，如果一个文明连自身的人口数量都无法维持，它终将消亡。
Lex FridmanSo perhaps the amount of compute that the biological computer allocates to sex is justified. In fact, we should probably increase it.所以，也许生物计算机分配给性行为的算力是合理的。事实上，我们可能应该增加这部分算力。
Elon MuskWell, I mean there’s this hedonistic sex, which is… That’s neither her nor there. It’s-嗯，我是说，有一种享乐式的性行为，它……那无关紧要。它——
Lex FridmanNot productive.没有生产力。
Elon MuskIt doesn’t produce kids. Well, what matters… I mean, Durant makes this very clear because he’s looked at one civilization after another and they all went through the same cycle. When the civilization was under stress, the birth rate was high. But as soon as there were no external enemies or they had an extended period of prosperity, the birth rate inevitably dropped. Every time. I don’t believe there’s a single exception.它不会生孩子。嗯，真正重要的是……我是说，Durant 把这件事说得非常清楚，因为他研究了一个又一个文明，它们都经历了同样的循环。当文明处于压力之下时，出生率很高。但一旦没有了外部敌人，或者经历了一段持续的繁荣期，出生率就会不可避免地下降。每次都这样，我认为没有任何例外。
Lex FridmanSo that’s like the foundation of it. You need to have people.所以这才是根基。你需要有人。
Elon MuskYeah. I mean, at a base level, no humans, no humanity.是的，说到底，没有人类，就没有人类文明。
Lex FridmanAnd then there’s other things like human freedoms and just giving people the freedom to build stuff.然后还有其他的事情，比如人类的自由，让人们有建造东西的自由。
Elon MuskYeah, absolutely. But at a basic level, if you do not at least maintain your numbers, if you’re below replacement rate and that trend continues, you will eventually disappear. It’s just elementary. Now then obviously you also want to try to avoid massive wars. If there’s a global thermonuclear war, probably we’re all toast, radioactive toast. So we want to try to avoid those things. Then there’s a thing that happens over time with any given civilization, which is that the laws and regulations accumulate. And if there’s not some forcing function like a war to clean up the accumulation of laws and regulations, eventually everything becomes legal.是的，当然。但在最基本的层面上，如果你无法至少维持人口数量，如果你低于更替水平而且这一趋势持续下去，你最终会消亡。这只是基本常识。显然你也要尽量避免大规模战争。如果发生全球热核战争，我们大概都完了，变成放射性烤面包。所以我们要尽量避免那些事情。然后随着时间的推移，任何一个文明都会发生一件事——法律和法规不断积累。如果没有像战争这样的强制力来清除这些积累，最终一切都会变成非法的。
Elon MuskAnd that’s like the hardening of the arteries. Or a way to think of it is being tied down by a million little strings like Gulliver. You can’t move. And it’s not like any one of those strings is the issue, it’s that you’ve got a million of them. So there has to be a sort of garbage collection for laws and regulations so that you don’t keep accumulating laws and regulations to the point where you can’t do anything. This is why we can’t build a high speed rail in America. It’s illegal. That’s the issue. It’s illegal six ways a Sunday to build high speed rail in America.这就像动脉硬化。或者可以想象成像《格列佛游记》里被一百万根细线缚住了——你动弹不了。问题不是任何一根线，而是你有一百万根。所以必须要有一种对法律和法规的"垃圾回收"机制，让你不会不断积累法律法规到什么都做不了的地步。这就是为什么我们在美国建不了高铁——那是违法的。这才是问题所在。在美国建高铁，从六七种意义上来说都是违法的。
Lex FridmanI wish you could just for a week go into Washington and be the head of the committee for making… What is it for the garbage collection? Making government smaller, like removing stuff.我真希望你能去华盛顿待一个星期，出任那个委员会的主席，专门负责……那个叫什么来着？削减政府规模，精简机构那种事。
Elon MuskI have discussed with Trump the idea of a government deficiency commission.我已经跟 Trump 谈过成立一个政府效能委员会的想法了。
Lex FridmanNice.好啊。
Elon MuskAnd I would be willing to be part of that commission.我愿意参与这个委员会。
Lex FridmanI wonder how hard that is.我很好奇那有多难搞。
Elon MuskThe antibody reaction would be very strong.反弹会非常激烈的。
Lex FridmanYes.确实。
Elon MuskSo you really have to… You’re attacking the matrix at that point. The matrix will fight back.所以你其实是在对着矩阵开炮。矩阵会反击的。
Lex FridmanHow are you doing with that? Being attacked.那你自己怎么样？被攻击这件事。
Elon MuskMe? Attacked?我？被攻击？
Lex FridmanYeah, there’s a lot of it.对啊，攻击可不少。
Elon MuskYeah, there is a lot. I mean, every day another psyop. I need my tinfoil hat.是挺多的。我是说，每天都有新的心理战。我得戴上我的锡纸帽了。
Lex FridmanHow do you keep your just positivity? How do you keep optimism about the world? A clarity of thinking about the world. So just not become resentful or cynical or all that kind of stuff. Just getting attacked by a very large number of people, misrepresented.你怎么保持内心的积极态度？怎么保持对这个世界的乐观、对世界清醒的认知？做到不怨恨、不犬儒——毕竟被那么多人攻击、被曲解成那样。
Elon MuskOh yeah, that’s a daily occurrence.哦，那是家常便饭了。
Lex FridmanYes.是的。
Elon MuskSo I mean, it does get me down at times. I mean, it makes me sad. But I mean at some point you have to sort of say, look, the attacks are by people that actually don’t know me and they’re trying to generate clicks. So if you can sort of detach yourself somewhat emotionally, which is not easy, and say, okay look, this is not actually from someone that knows me or, they’re literally just writing to get impressions and clicks. Then I guess it doesn’t hurt as much. It’s not quite water off a duck’s back. Maybe it’s like acid off a duck’s back.确实会让我有时候很低落。会让我难过。但到某个时刻，你得告诉自己：看，这些攻击你的人根本不了解我，他们不过是为了刷点击量。如果你能在情感上跟这件事稍微拉开距离——这不容易——然后说，好，这个人根本不认识我，他们写那些纯粹是为了赚流量、赚点击。那样就没那么难受了。不能说完全不痛，可能不像水珠滑过鸭背那样轻松，更像是酸液滑过鸭背吧。
Lex FridmanAll right, well that’s good. Just about your own life, what to you is a measure of success in your life?好吧，这么想也挺好。就说你自己的人生，对你来说，什么叫成功？
Elon MuskA measure of success, I’d say, how many useful things can I get done?成功的衡量标准嘛，我会说——我能做成多少件有用的事？
Lex FridmanA day-to-day basis, you wake up in the morning, how can I be useful today?落到每天，早晨起来，想的就是今天怎么能更有用？
Elon MuskYeah, maximize utility, area under the code of usefulness. Very difficult to be useful at scale.对，就是最大化效用，最大化"有用程度曲线下面积"。在规模上真正做到有用，非常难。
Lex FridmanAt scale. Can you speak to what it takes to be useful for somebody like you, where there’s so many amazing great teams? How do you allocate your time to being the most useful?在规模上。对于你这样的人，手下有那么多了不起的团队，能不能讲讲怎么分配时间才能让自己最有价值？
Elon MuskWell, time is the true currency.时间才是真正的货币。
Lex FridmanYeah.对。
Elon MuskSo it is tough to say what is the best allocation time? I mean, there are often… Say if you look at say Tesla, Tesla this year will do over a hundred billion in revenue. So that’s $2 billion a week. If I make slightly better decisions, I can affect the outcome by a billion dollars. So then I try to do the best decisions I can. And on balance, at least compared to the competition, pretty good decisions. But the marginal value of a better decision can easily be, in the course of an hour, a hundred million dollars.所以怎么分配时间是个难题。比如说 Tesla，Tesla 今年收入会超过一千亿美元，相当于每周 $2 billion。如果我做的决策质量稍微好一点，就能影响到十亿美元的结果。所以我尽力做出最好的决策，总体来看，至少比竞争对手的决策好很多。但一个更好决策的边际价值，在一个小时之内，轻轻松松就能是一亿美元。
Lex FridmanGiven that, how do you take risks? How do you do the algorithm that you mentioned? I mean deleting, given that a small thing can be a billion dollars, how do you decide to-既然如此，你怎么承担风险？你之前说的那套算法是怎么运作的？考虑到一个小失误就可能是十亿美元的量级，你怎么决定……
Elon MuskYeah. Well, I think you have to look at it on a percentage basis because if you look at it in absolute terms, it’s just… I would never get any sleep. It would just be like, I need to just keep working and work my brain harder. And I’m not trying to get as much as possible out of this meat computer. So it’s not… It’s pretty hard, because you can just work all the time. And at any given point, like I said, a slightly better decision could be a hundred million dollars impact for Tesla or SpaceX for that matter. But it is wild when considering the marginal value of time can be a hundred million dollars an hour at times, or more.是的。我觉得得从百分比的角度去看，因为如果用绝对值来看，我就再也不会睡觉了。就变成了——我得一直工作，把这台肉身电脑榨干。我并不是要从这副臭皮囊里榨出最多的东西。这件事确实挺难，因为你随时都可以工作。而且我之前说了，任何时刻，一个稍微好一点的决策，对 Tesla 或者 SpaceX 的影响都可能是一亿美元。但有时候时间的边际价值能达到每小时一亿美元，甚至更多，想想就挺震撼的。
Lex FridmanIs your own happiness part of that equation of success?你自己的幸福感，算在成功这个方程式里吗？
Elon MuskIt has to be to some degree. If I’m sad, if I’m depressed, I make worse decisions. So if I have zero recreational time, then I make worse decisions. So I don’t know a lot, but it’s above zero. I mean, my motivation if I’ve got a religion of any kind is a religion of curiosity, of trying to understand. It’s really the mission of Grok, understand the universe. I’m trying to understand the universe, or at least set things in motion such that at some point civilization understands the universe far better than we do today.得算进去一些。如果我很悲伤、很沮丧，我的决策质量会下降。所以如果我一点娱乐时间都没有，我会做出更差的决策。所以娱乐时间不知道该是多少，但肯定得大于零。我的动力——如果我有什么信仰的话，那就是好奇心的信仰，不断探索、不断理解的信仰。这也是 Grok 的使命——理解宇宙。我努力理解宇宙，或者至少让事情运转起来，让文明在某个时间点能比我们今天更深刻地理解宇宙。
Elon MuskAnd even what questions to ask. As Douglas Adams pointed out in his book, sometimes the answer is arguably the easy part, trying to frame the question correctly is the hard part. Once you frame the question correctly, the answer is often easy. So I’m trying to set things in motion such that we are at least at some point able to understand the universe. So for SpaceX, the goal is to make life multi planetary and which is if you go to the foamy paradox of where the aliens, you’ve got these sort of great filters. Like why have we not heard from the aliens? Now a lot of people think there are aliens among us. I often claim to be one, which nobody believes me. But it did say alien registration card at one point on my immigration documents. So I’ve not seen any evidence of aliens. So it suggests that at least one of the explanations is that intelligent life is extremely rare.包括弄清楚该问什么问题。就像 Douglas Adams 在他书里指出的，有时候答案其实是相对容易的那部分，真正难的是如何正确地界定问题。一旦你把问题框架搭对了，答案往往就呼之欲出。所以我努力让事情推进下去，让我们至少在某个时间节点能够真正理解宇宙。就拿 SpaceX 来说，目标是让生命成为多行星物种。如果你考察费米悖论——外星人在哪里——就会遇到这些"大过滤器"。我们为什么没有收到外星人的信号？很多人认为外星人就在我们中间，我有时候也自称是外星人，虽然没人信。不过我的移民文件上有一段时间确实写着"外星人登记卡"。我没有见过任何外星人的证据，这意味着，其中一种解释就是：智慧生命极其罕见。
Elon MuskAnd again, if you look at the history of earth, civilization has only been around for 1000000th of earth’s existence. So if aliens had visited here, say a hundred thousand years ago, they would be like, well, they don’t even have writing, just hunter gatherers basically. So how long does a civilization last? So for SpaceX, the goal is to establish a self-sustaining city on Mars. Mars is the only viable planet for such a thing. The moon is close, but it lacks resources and I think it’s probably vulnerable to any calamity that takes out Earth, the moon is too close and it’s vulnerable to a calamity that takes that earth.再看地球的历史——文明存在的时间只有地球年龄的百万分之一。如果外星人在十万年前造访地球，他们会说：这里连文字都没有，不过是些狩猎采集者而已。文明究竟能存续多久？所以 SpaceX 的目标是在火星建立一个自给自足的城市。火星是唯一可行的星球。月球近，但资源匮乏，而且我觉得任何能毁灭地球的灾难，月球也很可能难逃——它离地球太近了，很容易被同样的灾难波及。
Elon MuskSo I’m not saying we shouldn’t have a moon base, but Mars would be far more resilient. The difficulty of getting to Mars is what makes it resilient. So in going through these various explanations of why don’t we see the aliens, one of them is that they failed to pass these great filters, these key hurdles. And one of those hurdles is being a multi-planet species. So if you’re a multi-planet species, then if something were to happen, whether that was a natural catastrophe or a manmade catastrophe, at least the other planet would probably still be around. So you’re not like, don’t have all the eggs in one basket. And once you are sort of a two planet species, you can obviously extend life halves to the asteroid belt, to maybe to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and ultimately to other star systems. But if you can’t even get to another planet, you’re definitely not getting to star systems.我不是说我们不该建月球基地，但火星的抗风险能力会强得多。去火星的艰难，恰恰是它能保持韧性的原因。梳理这些"为什么我们看不到外星人"的解释，其中一个就是：它们没能通过这些大过滤器，没跨过这些关键门槛。而其中一个门槛，就是成为多行星物种。如果你是多行星物种，那么不管发生什么——天灾也好，人祸也好——另一颗星球大概率还是活着的。不会把所有鸡蛋放在一个篮子里。一旦成为双行星物种，就可以将生命延伸到小行星带、木星和土星的卫星，乃至其他恒星系。但你连另一个星球都去不了，肯定也到不了其他恒星系。
Lex FridmanAnd the other possible great filter’s, super powerful technology like AGI for example. So you are basically trying to knock out one great filter at a time.另外，AGI 这样的超级强大技术也可能是一个大过滤器。所以你基本上是在一个一个地突破这些大过滤器。
Elon MuskDigital super intelligence is possibly a great filter. I hope it isn’t, but it might be. Guys like say Jeff Hinton would say, he invented a number of the key principles in artificial intelligence. I think he puts the probability of AI annihilation around 10% to 20%, something like that. So look on the bright side, it’s 80% likely to be great. But I think AI risk mitigation is important. Being a multi-planet species would be a massive risk mitigation. And I do want to once again emphasize the importance of having enough children to sustain our numbers, and not plummet into population collapse, which is currently happening. Population collapse is a real and current thing.数字超级智能有可能是一个大过滤器。我希望不是，但也许真的是。比如 Jeff Hinton，他发明了人工智能的若干核心原理，我记得他把 AI 导致人类灭绝的概率估在 10% 到 20% 左右。往好的方面看，80% 的概率是皆大欢喜。但我认为 AI 风险管控很重要。成为多行星物种将是一次巨大的风险对冲。我还想再次强调生育率的问题——人类要有足够多的孩子来维持种群数量，不能陷入人口崩溃，而这件事正在发生。人口崩溃是真实存在的、眼下正在发生的事。
Elon MuskSo the only reason it’s not being reflected in the total population numbers as much is because people are living longer. But it’s easy to predict, say what the population of any given country will be. Just take the birth rate last year, how many babies were born, multiply that by life expectancy and that’s what the population will be, steady state, if the birth rate continues to that level. But if it keeps declining, it will be even less and eventually dwindle to nothing. So I keep banging on the baby drum here, for a reason, because it has been the source of civilizational collapse over and over again throughout history. And so why don’t we just not try to stave off that day?总人口数字上还没那么明显，是因为人们活得越来越长。但预测很容易：就看去年出生了多少婴儿，乘以预期寿命，那就是如果生育率保持不变时，稳态下的人口规模。如果生育率继续下降，那就会更少，最终走向消亡。所以我一直在敲生育这面鼓，是有原因的——因为这在整个历史上一次又一次地导致了文明的崩溃。我们为什么不想着去阻止那一天的到来呢？
Lex FridmanWell in that way, I have miserably failed civilization and I’m trying, hoping to fix that. I would love to have many kids.说到这里，我在文明这件事上已经惨败了，但我正在努力弥补。我非常希望能有很多孩子。
Elon MuskGreat. Hope you do. No time like the present.很好，希望你如愿。时不我待啊。
Lex FridmanYeah, I got to allocate more compute to the whole process, but apparently it’s not that difficult.是啊，我得给这整个过程多分配点算力，不过听说没那么难。
Elon MuskNo, it’s like unskilled labor.对，基本上算是非技术性劳动。
Lex FridmanWell, one of the things you do for me, for the world, is to inspire us with what the future could be. And so some of the things we’ve talked about, some of the things you’re building, alleviating human suffering with Neuralink and expanding the capabilities of the human mind, trying to build a colony on Mars. So creating a backup for humanity on another planet and exploring the possibilities of what artificial intelligence could be in this world, especially in the real world, AI with hundreds of millions, maybe billions of robots walking around.你为我、为这个世界做的一件事，就是用你正在构建的未来激励我们。我们谈到的那些事情——用 Neuralink 减轻人类的痛苦、扩展人类思维的能力；努力在火星建立殖民地，在另一颗星球上为人类创造备份；还有探索人工智能在这个世界上可能成为什么——尤其是在现实世界中，数以亿计、甚至数十亿机器人遍布各处的那种 AI。
Elon MuskThere will be billions of robots. That seems virtual certainty.会有数十亿台机器人，这几乎是板上钉钉的事。
Lex FridmanWell, thank you for building the future and thank you for inspiring so many of us to keep building and creating cool stuff, including kids.感谢你在建造未来，也感谢你激励了我们这么多人继续建造、创造有意思的东西，包括生孩子。
Elon MuskYou’re welcome. Go forth and multiply.不客气。去吧，繁衍生息。
Lex FridmanGo forth, multiply. Thank you Elon. Thanks for talking about it. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Elon Musk. And now, dear friends, here’s DJ Seo, the Co-Founder, President and COO of Neuralink. When did you first become fascinated by the human brain?去，繁衍。谢谢你，Elon。感谢你的分享。感谢大家收听这次与 Elon Musk 的对话。接下来，亲爱的朋友们，有请 DJ Seo，Neuralink 的联合创始人、总裁兼 COO。你是什么时候开始对人类大脑着迷的？
DJ SeoFor me, I was always interested in understanding the purpose of things and how it was engineered to serve that purpose, whether it’s organic or inorganic, like we were talking earlier about your curtain holders. They serve a clear purpose and they were engineered with that purpose in mind. And growing up I had a lot of interest in seeing things, touching things, feeling things, and trying to really understand the root of how it was designed to serve that purpose. And obviously brain is just a fascinating organ that we all carry. It’s an infinitely powerful machine that has intelligence and cognition that arise from it. And we haven’t even scratched the surface in terms of how all of that occurs.对我来说，我一直对理解事物的目的感兴趣——它是如何被设计来服务于那个目的的，不管是有机的还是无机的。就像我们之前聊到的你那个窗帘挂钩，它有明确的目的，也是专门为那个目的设计的。我从小就很喜欢看、摸、感受各种东西，然后真正去理解它被设计出来的根本原因。大脑当然是我们每个人都携带的一个令人着迷的器官。它是一台无限强大的机器，智慧和认知从中涌现。而我们对于这一切是如何发生的，甚至还没触及表面。
DJ SeoBut also at the same time, I think it took me a while to make that connection to really studying and building tech to understand the brain. Not until graduate school. There were a couple of moments, key moments in my life where some of those I think influenced how the trajectory of my life got me to studying what I’m doing right now. One was growing up, both sides of my family, my grandparents had a very severe form of Alzheimer and it’s incredibly debilitating conditions. I mean, literally you’re seeing someone’s whole identity and their mind just losing over time. And I just remember thinking how both the power of the mind, but also how something like that could really lose your sense of identity.不过同时，我觉得我花了一段时间才真正把那种兴趣与真正去研究和构建技术以理解大脑联系起来。直到读研究生的时候。我人生中有几个关键时刻，影响了我人生轨迹，让我最终走到了今天研究的这个方向。其中一个是成长过程中，我父母两边的家人——我的祖父母都患有非常严重的阿尔茨海默症。那是一种极度折磨人的病，你眼睁睁看着一个人完整的身份和精神随着时间一点一点消失。我当时就在想，一方面是大脑的力量有多强大，另一方面，这样的病是怎么真的让你失去自我认同感的。
Lex FridmanIt’s fascinating that that is one of the ways to reveal the power of a thing by watching it lose the power.很有意思，这恰恰是揭示一样东西力量的方式之一——看着它失去这种力量。
DJ SeoYeah, a lot of what we know about the brain actually comes from these cases where there are trauma to the brain or some parts of the brain that led someone to lose certain abilities. And as a result there’s some correlation and understanding of that part of the tissue being critical for that function. And it’s an incredibly fragile organ, if you think about it that way. But also it’s incredibly plastic and incredibly resilient in many different ways.是的，我们对大脑的很多认知，其实恰恰来自这些脑损伤或者大脑某些区域受损的案例——病人因此丧失了某些能力。由此可以推断出那块组织对那项功能的重要性。从这个角度看，大脑是一个极其脆弱的器官。但同时，它也极具可塑性，在很多方面都有惊人的韧性。
Lex FridmanAnd by the way, the term plastic as we’ll use a bunch, means that it’s adaptable. So neuroplasticity refers to the adaptability of the human brain?顺带说一下，我们会频繁用到"可塑性"这个词，它指的是可适应性。神经可塑性指的就是人类大脑的适应能力，对吧？
DJ SeoCorrect. Another key moment that sort of influenced how the trajectory of my life have shaped towards the current focus of my life has been during my teenage year when I came to the US. I didn’t speak a word of English. There was a huge language barrier and there was a lot of struggle to connect with my peers around me because I didn’t understand the artificial construct that we have created called language, specifically English in this case. And I remember feeling pretty isolated, not being able to connect with peers around me. So spent a lot of time just on my own reading books, watching movies, and I naturally sort of gravitated towards sci-fi books. I just found them really, really interesting. And also it was a great way for me to learn English.对。另一个影响我人生轨迹、让我走到今天这条路的关键时刻，是我在青少年时期来到美国。当时我一个英文单词都不会说，语言障碍非常大，很难和周围的同龄人建立连接，因为我完全不懂那个被称为语言的人造结构，具体说就是英语。我记得当时感到很孤立，无法和周围的人沟通。所以我花了大量时间一个人看书、看电影，自然而然地迷上了科幻书籍。我觉得它们真的非常有意思，而且对我学英语也很有帮助。
DJ SeoSome of the first set of books that I picked up are Enders Game, the whole saga by Orson Scott Card and Neuromancer from William Gibson and Snow Crash from Neal Stephenson. And movies like Matrix, what’s coming out around that time point that really influenced how I think about the potential impact that technology can have for our lives in general.我最早读的一批书是 Orson Scott Card 的《安德的游戏》系列，William Gibson 的《神经漫游者》，还有 Neal Stephenson 的《雪崩》。那个年代上映的《黑客帝国》这类电影，也深刻影响了我思考技术对我们生活整体影响的方式。
DJ SeoSo fast track to my college years, I was always fascinated by just physical stuff, building physical stuff and especially physical things that had some sort of intelligence. And I studied electrical engineering during undergrad and I started out my research in MEMS, so micro electromechanical systems and really building these tiny nano structures for temperature sensing. And I just found that to be just incredibly rewarding and fascinating subject to just understand how you can build something miniature like that, that again, serve a function and had a purpose. Then I spent large majority of my college years basically building millimeter wave circuits for next gen telecommunication systems for imaging. And it was just something that I found very, very intellectually interesting. Phase arrays, how the signal processing works for any modern as well as next gen telecommunication system, wireless and wire line, EM waves or electromagnetic waves are fascinating.快进到大学阶段，我一直很着迷于实物——造实际的东西，尤其是带有某种智能的实物。本科学的是电气工程，起步做的是 MEMS（微机电系统）研究，具体是为温度传感建造这些微小的纳米结构。我觉得那是一件极其有成就感、极其迷人的事——弄明白你怎么造出这么微小的东西，而它又有功能、有目的。之后我在大学的大部分时间都用在了为新一代电信系统和成像系统构建毫米波电路上。这是我觉得非常非常有意思的方向。相控阵、信号处理如何在现代及下一代有线无线通信系统中运作，电磁波……真的很迷人。
DJ SeoHow do you design antennas that are most efficient in a small footprint that you have? How do you make these things energy efficient? That was something that just consumed my intellectual curiosity and that journey led me to actually apply to and find myself at PhD program at UC Berkeley, at this consortium called the Berkeley Wireless Research Center that was precisely looking at building… At the time, we called it XG, similar to 3G, 4G, 5G, but the next, next generation G system and how you would design circuits around that to ultimately go on phones and basically any other devices that are wirelessly connected these days. So I was just absolutely just fascinated by how that entire system works and that infrastructure works.在有限的尺寸范围内，怎么设计效率最高的天线？怎么让这些东西省电？这些问题彻底占据了我的求知欲。这段旅程最终把我带进了 UC Berkeley 的博士项目——Berkeley Wireless Research Center 这个联合体，当时正好专注于研究……那时候我们叫它 XG，类似 3G、4G、5G，但是下下一代的 G，以及如何围绕它设计电路，让它最终用在手机上，以及今天任何无线联网设备上。我当时完全被那整套系统的运作原理和那套基础设施迷住了。
DJ SeoAnd then also during grad school, I had sort of the fortune of having a couple of research fellowships that led me to pursue whatever project that I want. And that’s one of the things that I really enjoyed about my graduate school career, where you got to kind of pursue your intellectual curiosity in the domain that may not matter at the end of the day, but is something that really allows you the opportunity to go as deeply as you want, as well as widely as you want. And at the time I was actually working on this project called the Smart Bandaid, and the idea was that when you get a wound, there’s a lot of other proliferation of signaling pathway that cells follow to close that wound. And there were hypotheses that when you apply external electric field, you can actually accelerate the closing of that field by having basically electro taxing of the cells around that wound site.读研期间，我还有幸获得了几个研究奖学金，可以自由追求任何自己想做的项目。这是我研究生生涯里最享受的事之一——你可以随意追求自己的智识好奇心，研究的方向未必最终有什么实际意义，但它让你有机会想深入多深就深入多深，想覆盖多广就覆盖多广。那时候我在做一个叫"智能创可贴"的项目——想法是当你受伤时，会有大量其他细胞信号通路参与伤口愈合过程。当时有一种假说：施加外部电场可以通过促使伤口周围细胞的电趋性，加速伤口闭合。
DJ SeoAnd specifically not just for a normal wound, there are chronic wounds that don’t heal. So we were interested in building some sort of a wearable patch that you could apply to facilitate that healing process. And that was in collaboration with Professor Michel Maharbiz, which was a great addition to my thesis committee and it really shaped the rest of my PhD career.具体来说，不只是针对普通伤口，还有那些就是不愈合的慢性创伤。所以我们当时有兴趣做一种可穿戴贴片，贴上去能促进愈合过程。这是和 Michel Maharbiz 教授合作完成的，他后来加入了我的论文委员会，真正改变了我博士生涯的后半段。
Lex FridmanSo this would be the first time you interacted with biology, I suppose?那这应该是你第一次真正接触生物学吧？
DJ SeoCorrect. I mean there were some peripheral end application of the wireless imaging and telecommunication system that I was using for security and bio imaging. But this was a very clear direct application to biology and biological system and understanding the constraints around that and really designing and engineering electrical solutions around that. So that was my first introduction and that’s also kind of how I got introduced to Michel. He’s sort of known for remote control of beetles in the early two thousands.对。虽然我之前做无线成像和通信系统时，在安全和生物成像上有一些边缘应用，但这是一次非常直接的生物及生物系统应用——理解其中的约束条件，真正围绕它设计和构建电学解决方案。这是我的第一次入门，也是我认识 Michel 的起点。他以在 2000 年代初遥控甲虫而知名。
DJ SeoAnd then around 2013, obviously the holy grail when it comes to implantable system is to understand how small of a thing you can make, and a lot of that is driven by how much energy or how much power you can supply to it and how you extract data from it. At the time at Berkeley, there was this desire to understand in the neural space what sort of system you can build to really miniaturize these implantable systems. And I distinctively remember this one particular meeting where Michel came in and he’s like, “Guys, I think I have a solution. The solution is ultrasound.” And then he proceeded to walk through why that is the case. And that really formed the basis for my thesis work called Neural dust system, that was looking at ways to use ultrasound as opposed to electromagnetic waves for powering as well as communication. I guess I should step back and say the initial goal of the project was to build these tiny, about a size of a neuron, implantable system that can be parked next to a neuron, being able to record its state and being able to ping that back to the outside world for doing something useful. And as I mentioned, the size of the implantable system is limited by how you power the thing and get the data off of it. And at the end of the day, fundamentally, if you look at a human body, we’re essentially bag of salt water with some interesting proteins and chemicals, but its mostly salt water that’s very, very well temperature regulated at 37 degrees Celsius.2013 年前后，谈到可植入系统，最终圣杯就是——你能把它做多小？这在很大程度上取决于你能供给多少能量、如何把数据提取出来。当时 Berkeley 有一个愿望：在神经领域，能建造出什么样的系统，把这些可植入系统真正做到微型化？我非常清楚地记得一次特定的会议，Michel 走进来说："我觉得我有解决方案，答案是超声波。"然后他开始逐步讲解为什么是这样。这奠定了我论文工作的基础——神经尘埃（Neural Dust）系统，探索用超声波而非电磁波进行供能和通信。我应该先退一步说，这个项目最初的目标，是建造出约神经元大小的微小可植入系统，停靠在神经元旁边，能够记录其状态，并将信息传回体外供进一步使用。可植入系统的尺寸，受到供能方式和数据提取方式的限制。归根结底，从根本上看，人体就是一袋盐水，里面有一些有趣的蛋白质和化学物质，但基本上是盐水，体温被精确维持在 37 摄氏度。
DJ SeoAnd we’ll get into how, and later why that’s an extremely harsh environment for any electronics to survive. As I’m sure you’ve experienced or maybe not experienced, dropping cell phone in a salt water in an ocean, it will instantly kill the device. But anyways, just in general, electromagnetic waves don’t penetrate through this environment well and just the speed of light, it is what it is, we can’t change it. And based on the wavelength at which you are interfacing with the device, the device just needs to be big. These inductors needs to be quite big. And the general good rule of thumb is that you want the wavefront to be roughly on the order of the size of the thing that you’re interfacing with. So an implantable system that is around 10 to a hundred micron in dimension in a volume, which is about the size of a neuron that you see in a human body, you would have to operate at hundreds of gigahertz. Which number one, not only is it difficult to build electronics operating at those frequencies, but also the body just attenuates to that very, very significantly.之后我会讲到，这对任何电子设备来说都是极其恶劣的生存环境。我相信你经历过或者没经历过——把手机掉进海水里，设备会立刻挂掉。总之，电磁波在这种环境里穿透效果很差，光速就是光速，我们无法改变它。根据你与设备交互的波长，设备本身就得做得很大，电感线圈需要相当大。一个经验法则是，你希望波前尺寸与你要交互的目标尺寸大体相当。如果一个可植入系统的尺寸在 10 到 100 微米的体积量级——大约相当于人体神经元的大小——你就得工作在数百 GHz 频段。不仅仅是在那些频率下构建电路极其困难，人体对此的衰减也非常、非常大。
DJ SeoSo the interesting kind of insight of this ultrasound was the fact that ultrasound just travels a lot more effectively in the human body tissue compared to electromagnetic waves. And this is something that you encounter, and I’m sure most people have encountered in their lives when you go to hospitals that are medical ultrasound sonograph. And they go into very, very deep depth without attenuating too much, too much of the signal. So all in all, ultrasound, the fact that it travels through the body extremely well and the mechanism to which it travels to the body really well is that just the wavefront is very different. Electromagnetic waves are transverse, whereas in ultrasound waves are compressive. It’s just a completely different mode of wavefront propagation. And as well as, speed of sound is orders and orders of magnitude less than speed of light, which means that even at 10 megahertz ultrasound wave, your wavefront ultimately is a very, very small wavelength.超声波的核心洞见在于，超声波在人体组织中的传播效率，远比电磁波高得多。这是人们在日常生活中也会遇到的事——在医院做医疗超声波检查时，超声波能深入非常深的地方，信号衰减并不那么严重。总体来说，超声波之所以能在人体中传播得很好，是因为其波前的传播方式非常不同。电磁波是横波，而超声波是纵波（压缩波），两者是完全不同的波前传播模式。另外，声速比光速低了几个数量级，这意味着即便是 10 MHz 的超声波，其波前的波长也非常、非常短。
DJ SeoSo if you’re talking about interfacing with the 10 micron or a hundred micron type structure, you would have 150 micron wavefront at 10 megahertz. And building electronics at those frequencies are much, much easier and they’re a lot more efficient. So the basic idea was born out of using ultrasound as a mechanism for powering the device and then also getting data back. So now the question is how do you get the data back? The mechanism to which we landed on is what’s called backscattering. This is actually something that is very common and that we interface on a day-to-day basis with our RFID cards, radio frequency ID tags. Where there’s actually rarely in your ID a battery inside, there’s an antenna and there’s some sort of coil that has your serial identification ID, and then there’s an external device called the reader that then sends a wavefront and then you reflect back that wavefront with some sort of modulation that’s unique to your ID. That’s what’s called backscattering fundamentally.如果要与 10 微米或 100 微米量级的结构交互，在 10 MHz 频率下波前约为 150 微米。在这些频率下设计电路容易得多，效率也高得多。超声波作为供能机制的基本思路由此诞生，同时也用于数据回传。接下来的问题是如何把数据传回来？我们最终采用的机制叫做反向散射（backscattering）。这其实非常常见，我们每天和 RFID 卡、无线射频识别标签打交道时都会用到——你的 ID 卡里几乎没有电池，只有一根天线和一个线圈，存储你的序列识别 ID，然后有一个叫做读卡器的外部设备发送波前，你再把那个波前以某种唯一编码的调制方式反射回去，这就是反向散射的根本原理。
DJ SeoSo the tag itself actually doesn’t have to consume that much energy. That was the mechanism through which we were thinking about sending the data back. When you have an external ultrasonic transducer that’s sending ultrasonic wave to your implant, the neural dust implant, and it records some information about its environment, whether it’s a neuron firing or some other state of the tissue that it’s interfacing with. And then it just amplitude modulates the wavefront that comes back to the source.所以标签本身实际上不需要消耗太多能量。这就是我们考虑数据回传的机制。当你有一个体外超声换能器向植入物——神经尘埃植入物——发射超声波时，植入物记录其所在环境的一些信息，比如神经元放电或者其他组织状态，然后将返回源头的波前进行幅度调制。
Lex FridmanAnd the recording step would be the only one that requires any energy. So what would require energy in that low step?记录这一步是唯一需要能量的步骤？那这个低功耗步骤需要消耗什么能量呢？
DJ SeoCorrect. So it is that initial startup circuitry to get that recording, amplifying it, and then just modulating. And the mechanism to which that you can enable that is there is this specialized crystal called piezoelectric crystals that are able to convert sound energy into electrical energy and vice versa. So you can kind of have this interplay between the ultrasonic domain and electrical domain that is the biological tissue.对。那就是启动记录、放大信号、然后进行调制的初始电路。实现这一点的机制是一种叫做压电晶体的特殊晶体，它能将声能转化为电能，反之亦然。所以你可以在超声域和电域（也就是生物组织）之间实现这种互动。
Lex FridmanSo on the theme of parking very small computational devices next to neurons, that’s the dream, the vision of brain computer interfaces. Maybe before we talk about Neuralink, can you give a sense of the history of the field of BCI? What has been maybe the continued dream and also some of the milestones along the way of the different approaches and the amazing work done at the various labs?谈到把非常微小的计算设备停靠在神经元旁边这一主题，这正是脑机接口的梦想与愿景。在谈 Neuralink 之前，能不能先给我们介绍一下 BCI 这个领域的历史？这个领域一直以来的梦想是什么，又有哪些里程碑式的时刻，各个实验室的不同路线和精彩工作？
DJ SeoI think a good starting point is going back to 1790s.我觉得一个好的起点是回到 1790 年代。
Lex FridmanI did not expect that.没想到会追溯这么远。
DJ SeoWhere the concept of animal electricity or the fact that body’s electric was first discovered by Luigi Galvani, where he had this famous experiment where he connected set of electrodes to a frog leg and ran current through it, and then it started twitching and he said, “Oh my goodness, body’s electric.” So fast forward many, many years to 1920s where Hans Berger, who’s a German psychiatrist, discovered EEG or electroencephalography, which is still around. There are these electrode arrays that you wear outside the skull that gives you some sort of neural recording. That was a very, very big milestone that you can record some sort of activities about the human mind. And then in the 1940s there were these group of scientists, Renshaw, Forbes and Morison that inserted these glass micro electrodes into the cortex and recorded single neurons. The fact that there’s signal that are a bit more high resolution and high fidelity as you get closer to the source, let’s say. And in the 1950s, these two scientists, Hodgkin and Huxley showed up-那时候，动物电学的概念——也就是身体本身带电这一事实——首次由 Luigi Galvani 发现。他有一个著名实验：把电极连接到青蛙腿上然后通电，青蛙腿开始抽搐，他说："我的天哪，身体是带电的。"快进到很多很多年后的 1920 年代，德国精神科医生 Hans Berger 发现了脑电图（EEG）——至今仍在使用，就是戴在头骨外面的电极阵列，能记录一些神经活动。这是一个非常非常重大的里程碑，证明可以记录人类思维的某些活动。1940 年代，Renshaw、Forbes 和 Morison 等一批科学家将玻璃微电极插入皮层，记录了单个神经元的信号——这说明越接近信号源，信号分辨率和保真度更高。1950 年代，Hodgkin 和 Huxley 这两位科学家登场……
DJ SeoThese two scientists, Hodgkin and Huxley showed up and they built this beautiful, beautiful models of the cell membrane and the ionic mechanism, and had these circuit diagram. And as someone who’s an electrical engineer, it’s a beautiful model that’s built out of these partial differential equations, talking about flow of ions and how that really leads to how neurons communicate. And they won the Nobel Prize for that 10 years later in the 1960s.Hodgkin 和 Huxley 这两位科学家，建立了关于细胞膜和离子机制的优美模型，并给出了电路图。作为一名电气工程师，我觉得那是个极其漂亮的模型，由一组偏微分方程构成，描述离子的流动以及神经元如何通过这种方式进行通信。他们在 10 年后的 1960 年代因此获得了诺贝尔奖。
DJ SeoSo in 1969, Eb Fetz from University of Washington published this beautiful paper called Operant Conditioning of Cortical Unit Activity, where he was able to record a single unit neuron from a monkey and was able to have the monkey modulated based on its activity and reward system. So I would say this is the very, very first example, as far as I’m aware, of close loop brain computer interface or BCI.1969 年，华盛顿大学的 Eb Fetz 发表了一篇精彩的论文，题为《皮层单元活动的操作性条件化》。他记录了猴子单个神经单元的活动，并能通过活动和奖励系统让猴子对其进行调节。我认为这是迄今为止我所知道的，关闭环路脑机接口，即 BCI，的最早案例。
Lex FridmanThe abstract reads, “The activity of single neurons in precentral cortex of unanesthetized monkeys was conditioned by reinforcing high rates of neuronal discharge with delivery of a food pellet. Auditory or visual feedback of unit firing rates was usually provided in addition to food reinforcement.” Cool. So they actually got it done.摘要写道："通过向高放电率的神经元活动提供食物颗粒奖励，对非麻醉猴子前中枢皮层单个神经元的活动进行了条件化训练。除食物奖励外，通常还提供了神经元放电率的听觉或视觉反馈。"厉害，他们真的做到了。
DJ SeoThey got it done. This is back in 1969.他们做到了。这是 1969 年的事。
Lex Fridman” After several training sessions, monkeys could increase the activity of newly isolated cells by 50 to 500% above rates before reinforcement.” Fascinating."经过数次训练后，猴子能够将新分离的细胞活动提高到强化前放电率的 50% 至 500% 以上。"令人着迷。
DJ SeoBrain is very [inaudible 01:46:45].大脑的适应性真是……（难以置信）
Lex FridmanAnd so from here, the number of experiments grew.从这里开始，实验数量急剧增长。
DJ SeoYeah. Number of experiments, as well as set of tools to interface with the brain have just exploded. And also, just understanding the neural code and how some of the cortical layers and the functions are organized. So the other paper that is pretty seminal, especially in the motor decoding, was this paper in the 1980s from Georgopoulos that discovered that there’s this thing called motor tuning curve. So what are motor tuning curves? It’s the fact that there are neurons in the motor cortex of mammals, including humans, that have a preferential direction that causes them to fire. So what that means is, there are a set of neurons that would increase their spiking activities when you’re thinking about moving to the left, right, up, down, and any of those vectors. And based on that, you could start to think, well, if you can’t identify those essential eigenvectors, you can do a lot. And you can actually use that information for actually decoding someone’s intended movement from the cortex. So that was a very, very seminal paper that showed that there is some sort of code that you can extract, especially in the motor cortex.是的，实验数量和与大脑交互的工具集都呈爆炸式增长。同时，对神经编码以及皮层各层功能组织的理解也在不断加深。另一篇非常具有里程碑意义的论文，尤其是在运动解码领域，是 1980 年代 Georgopoulos 发表的那篇——他发现了所谓"运动调谐曲线"。运动调谐曲线是什么？就是哺乳动物（包括人类）运动皮层中存在这样一些神经元，它们有偏好的方向，会被激活。这意味着，有一组神经元会在你想象向左、向右、向上、向下或任意方向移动时增加放电频率。基于此，你开始思考，如果能识别出这些核心特征向量，就能做很多事。实际上，你可以利用这些信息，从皮层解码某人的预期运动。这是一篇非常非常重要的论文，证明了存在某种可以提取的编码，尤其是在运动皮层。
Lex FridmanSo there’s signal there. And if you measure the electrical signal from the brain that you could actually figure out what the intention was.所以信号是存在的——如果你能测量大脑发出的电信号，就能真正搞清楚意图是什么。
DJ SeoCorrect. Yeah, not only electrical signals, but electrical signals from the right set of neurons that give you these preferential direction.对，不仅仅是电信号，而是来自特定神经元集合的电信号，这些神经元能给你偏好方向的信息。
Lex FridmanOkay. So going slowly towards Neuralink, one interesting question is, what do we understand on the BCI front, on invasive versus non-invasive, from this line of work? How important is it to park next to the neuron? What does that get you?好。那逐渐走向 Neuralink——一个有意思的问题是，在这一系列工作的基础上，BCI 领域对于有创与无创的方法有什么理解？紧靠神经元有多重要？这能带来什么？
DJ SeoThat answer fundamentally depends on what you want to do with it. There’s actually incredible amount of stuff that you can do with EEG and electrocortical graph, ECOG, which actually doesn’t penetrate the cortical layer or parenchyma, but you place a set of electrodes on the surface of the brain. So the thing that I’m personally very interested in is just actually understanding and being able to just really tap into the high resolution, high fidelity, understanding of the activities that are happening at the local level. And we can get into biophysics, but just to step back to use analogy, because analogy here can be useful, and sometimes it’s a little bit difficult to think about electricity. At the end of the day, we’re doing electrical recording that’s mediated by ionic currents, movements of these charged particles, which is really, really hard for most people to think about.这个答案从根本上取决于你想用它做什么。用 EEG 和皮层电图（ECOG）能做的事情，其实已经相当多了——ECOG 并不穿透皮层或脑实质，只是在大脑表面放置一组电极。我个人非常感兴趣的是，真正能深入了解、捕捉局部层面活动的高分辨率、高保真信号。我们可以谈生物物理学，但先退一步，用类比来讲，因为类比有时候很有用，而且谈到电，大多数人很难直观地想象——归根结底，我们做的是离子电流介导的电记录，是带电粒子的运动，这对大多数人来说真的很难想象。
DJ SeoBut turns out, a lot of the activities that are happening in the brain and the frequency bandwidth with which that’s happening, is actually very, very similar to sound waves and our normal conversation audible range. So the analogy that typically is used in the field is, if you have a football stadium, there’s a game going on. If you stand outside the stadium, you maybe get a sense of how the game is going based on the cheers and the boos of the home crowd, whether the team is winning or not. But you have absolutely no idea what the score is, you have absolutely no idea what individual audience or the players are talking or saying to each other, what the next play is, what the next goal is. So what you have to do is you have to drop the microphone into the stadium and then get near the source into the individual chatter. In this specific example, you would want to have it right next to where the huddle is happening.结果发现，大脑中发生的很多活动，以及这些活动的频率范围，实际上与声波及我们日常对话的可听频率范围非常相似。这个领域常用的类比是这样的：如果你在一个橄榄球场外面站着，里面正在比赛。你站在场外，可能通过主场球迷的欢呼和嘘声，感受到比赛大概进行得怎么样，本队在赢还是输。但你完全不知道比分是多少，完全不知道个别观众或球员在说什么，不知道下一次进攻是什么，下一个进球是什么。所以你必须把麦克风放进场内，接近声音源头，靠近个别的私下交流。在这个例子里，你要把麦克风放到球员围阵的旁边。
DJ SeoSo I think that’s kind of a good illustration of what we’re trying to do when we say invasive or minimally invasive or implanted brain computer interfaces versus non-invasive or non-implanted brain interfaces. It’s basically talking about where do you put that microphone and what can you do with that information.我觉得这个例子很好地说明了当我们说有创或微创、植入式脑机接口与无创或非植入式脑接口时，我们在努力做什么——本质上就是在讨论把麦克风放在哪里，以及能用这些信息做什么。
Lex FridmanSo what is the biophysics of the read and write communication that we’re talking about here as we now step into the efforts at Neuralink?那我们现在进入 Neuralink 的工作，请讲讲这里讨论的读写通信的生物物理学基础。
DJ SeoYeah. So brain is made up of these specialized cells called neurons. There’s billions of them, tens of billions, sometimes people call it a hundred billion, that are connected in this complex yet dynamic network that are constantly remodeling. They’re changing their synaptic weights, and that’s what we typically call neuroplasticity. And the neurons are also bathed in this charged environment that is latent with many charge molecules like potassium ions, sodium ions, chlorine ions. And those actually facilitate these, through ionic current, communication between these different networks.好的。大脑由数十亿个叫做神经元的特殊细胞组成，有时候说一千亿个，它们以一种复杂而动态的网络相互连接，这个网络在不断重塑，突触权重持续变化，这就是我们通常所说的神经可塑性。神经元还浸泡在一个充满电荷的环境中，其中含有大量带电分子，如钾离子、钠离子、氯离子，这些离子通过离子电流介导这些不同网络之间的通信。
DJ SeoAnd when you look at a neuron as well, they have these membrane with a beautiful, beautiful protein structure called the voltage selective ion channels, which in my opinion, is one of nature’s best inventions. In many ways, if you think about what they are, they’re doing the job of a modern day transistors. Transistors are nothing more, at the end of the day, than a voltage-gated conduction channel. And nature found a way to have that very, very early on in its evolution. And as we all know, with the transistor, you can have many, many computation and a lot of amazing things that we have access to today. So I think it’s one of those, just as a tangent, just a beautiful, beautiful invention that the nature came up with, these voltage-gated ion channels.看神经元的结构，它们的细胞膜上有一种美妙的蛋白质结构，叫做电压门控离子通道——在我看来，这是自然界最好的发明之一。从某种意义上说，它们做的事情就是现代晶体管做的事——晶体管说到底，就是一个电压门控导通通道。而自然界在很早的演化阶段就找到了这一方案。我们都知道，有了晶体管，就能实现无数计算以及我们今天拥有的一切精彩事物。所以我觉得这些电压门控离子通道，就是一个——稍微跑题一下——自然界给出的极其精妙漂亮的发明。
Lex FridmanI suppose there’s, on the biological of it, every level of the complexity, of the hierarchy, of the organism, there’s going to be some mechanisms for storing information and for doing computation. And this is just one such way. But to do that with biological and chemical components is interesting. Plus, when neurons, it’s not just electricity, it’s chemical communication, it’s also mechanical. These are actual objects that vibrate, they move. It’s all of that.从生物学角度来说，在每一个复杂层级、在生物体的每一个层级，都会有某种存储信息和进行计算的机制。这只是其中一种方式。但用生物和化学成分来实现这一点，本身就很有意思。而且神经元不只是电——还有化学通信，还有机械层面——它们是真实的物体，会振动、会移动。所有这些都参与其中。
DJ SeoYeah, actually there’s a lot of really, really interesting physics that are involved in kind of going back to my work on ultrasound during grad school, there were groups and there are still groups looking at ways to cause neurons to actually fire an action potential using ultrasound wave. And the mechanism to which that’s happening is still unclear, as I understand. It may just be that you’re imparting some sort of thermal energy and that causes cells to depolarize in some interesting ways. But there are also these ion channels, or even membranes, that actually just open up as pore as they’re being mechanically shook, vibrated. There’s just a lot of elements of these, move particles, which again, that’s governed by diffusion physics, movements of particles. And there’s also a lot of interesting physics there.是的，其中确实涉及大量非常有趣的物理。回到我读研时研究超声波的工作，当时有一些研究组，现在也仍然有，在探索用超声波让神经元真正产生动作电位的方法。这背后的机制到目前为止仍不完全清晰，据我所知，可能只是在给组织施加某种热能，从而以某种方式引发细胞去极化。但也有一些离子通道，甚至是膜结构，在受到机械振动时会直接打开，成为孔隙。这里面有很多可移动粒子的物理——又回到了扩散物理，粒子的运动——其中也有很多有趣的物理。
Lex FridmanAlso, not to mention, as Roger Penrose talks about, there might be some beautiful weirdness in the quantum mechanical effects of all of this.另外，正如 Roger Penrose 所说的，这其中可能还存在一些关于量子力学效应的精妙奇异之处。
DJ SeoOh, yeah.哦，是的。
Lex FridmanAnd he actually believes that consciousness might emerge from the quantum mechanical effects there. So there’s physics, there’s chemistry, there’s biology, all of that is going on there.他实际上相信意识可能从量子力学效应中涌现。所以这里面有物理，有化学，有生物，所有这些都在其中发生。
DJ SeoOh, yeah. Yes, there’s a lot of levels of physics that you can dive into. But yeah, in the end, you have these membranes with these voltage-gated ion channels that selectively let these charged molecules that are in the extracellular matrix, in and out. And these neurons generally have these resting potential where there’s a voltage difference between inside the cell and outside the cell. And when there’s some sort of stimuli that changes the state such that they need to send information to the downstream network, you start to see these orchestration of these different molecules going in and out of these channels. They also open up. More of them open up once it reaches some threshold, to a point where you have a depolarizing cell that sends an action potential. So it’s just a very beautiful kind of orchestration of these molecules. And what we’re trying to do when we place an electrode or parking it next to a neuron is that you’re trying to measure these local changes in the potential. Again, mediated by the movements of the ions.哦，是的。确实有很多层次的物理可以深挖。但最终，神经元的细胞膜上有这些电压门控离子通道，选择性地让细胞外基质中的带电分子进出。这些神经元通常处于静息电位状态，细胞内外之间存在电位差。当某种刺激改变了状态，使得它们需要向下游网络发送信息时，就会看到不同分子进出这些通道的一系列协调动作，更多通道随着达到某个阈值而打开，最终导致细胞去极化并发出动作电位。这就是这些分子一场非常美妙的协奏。而我们把电极停靠在神经元旁边，试图做的事，就是测量这些局部电位的变化——同样由离子运动介导。
DJ SeoAnd what’s interesting, as I mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of physics involved. And the two dominant physics for this electrical recording domain is diffusion physics and electromagnetism. And where one dominates, where Maxwell’s equation dominates versus Fick’s law dominates depends on where your electrode is. If it’s close to the source, mostly electromagnetic-based. When you’re further away from it, it’s more diffusion-based. So essentially, when you’re able to park it next to it, you can listen in on those individual chatter and those local changes in the potential. And the type of signal that you get are these canonical textbook neural spiking waveform. The moment you’re further away, and based on some of the studies that people have done, Christof Koch’s lab, and others, once you’re away from that source by roughly around a hundred micron, which is about a width of a human hair, you no longer hear from that neuron. You’re no longer able to have the system sensitive enough to be able to record that particular local membrane potential change in that neuron.有意思的是，正如我之前提到的，这里涉及很多物理。电记录领域两种主要的物理机制是扩散物理和电磁学。哪种主导取决于你的电极位置——如果在信号源附近，主要是电磁学；离得远了，就更多是扩散物理。所以本质上，当你能把电极停靠在神经元旁边时，就能监听到那些局部的私下交流和局部电位变化，得到的信号就是教科书上典型的神经放电波形。而一旦离信号源远一些——基于 Christof Koch 实验室等人的研究，距离大约超过 100 微米——大约是一根头发丝的宽度——就再也听不到那个神经元的信号了，系统对那个特定神经元局部膜电位变化的灵敏度就不够了。
DJ SeoAnd just to give you a sense of scale also, when you look at a hundred micron voxel, so a hundred micron by a hundred micron by a hundred micron box in a brain tissue, there’s roughly around 40 neurons, and whatever number of connections that they have. So there’s a lot in that volume of tissue. So the moment you’re outside of that, there’s just no hope that you’ll be able to detect that change from that one specific neuron that you may care about.给你一个尺度感：在脑组织中一个 100 微米 × 100 微米 × 100 微米的体积盒子里，大约有 40 个神经元，以及它们之间无数的连接。所以那个体积里有很多东西。一旦你离开那个范围，就完全没有希望检测到你可能关心的那个特定神经元发出的变化了。
Lex FridmanBut as you’re moving about this space, you’ll be hearing other ones. So if you move another a hundred micron, you’ll be hearing chatter from another community.但随着你在这个空间里移动，你会听到其他的神经元在说话。再往另一个方向移动 100 微米，就能听到另一个局部社群的交流了。
DJ SeoCorrect.对。
Lex FridmanAnd so the whole sense is, you want to place as many as possible electrodes, and then you’re listening to the chatter.所以整体的思路就是，尽可能多地放置电极，然后倾听这些交流。
DJ SeoYeah, you want to listen to the chatter. And at the end of the day, you also want to basically let the software do the job of decoding. And just to kind of go to why ECOG and EEG work at all. When you have these local changes, obviously it’s not just this one neuron that’s activating, there’s many, many other networks that are activating all the time. And you do see sort of a general change in the potential of this electrode, this charged medium, and that’s what you’re recording when you’re farther away. I mean, you still have some reference electrode that’s stable in the brain, that’s just electro- active organ, and you’re seeing some combination, aggregate action, potential changes, and then you can pick it up. It’s a much slower changing signals. But there are these canonical oscillations and waves like gamma waves, beta waves, when you sleep, that can be detected because there’s sort of a synchronized global effect of the brain that you can detect. And the physics of this go, if we really want to go down that rabbit hole, there’s a lot that goes on in terms of why diffusion physics at some point dominates when you’re further away from the source. It is just a charged medium. So similar to how when you have electromagnetic waves propagating in atmosphere or in a charged medium like a plasma, there’s this weird shielding that happens that actually further attenuates the signal as you move away from it. So yeah, you see, if you do a really, really deep dive on the signal attenuation over distance, you start to see one over R square in the beginning and then exponential drop off, and that’s the knee at which you go from electromagnetism dominating to diffusion physic dominating.是的，你想倾听这些交流。而最终，你也希望让软件来做解码的工作。回到为什么 ECOG 和 EEG 能发挥作用——当有这些局部变化时，不只是一个神经元在激活，还有许多其他网络一直在激活。你确实能看到这个电极所处的带电介质中发生的一些整体电位变化，这就是你在远距离时记录到的信号。你还是有一个在大脑中稳定的参考电极——大脑是一个持续有电活动的器官——你看到的是综合性的动作电位变化，可以捡取到这些信号。信号变化更慢，但有一些典型的振荡和波形，比如伽马波、贝塔波，还有睡眠时的波形，都是可以检测到的，因为大脑有某种同步的整体效应。这里面的物理，如果真的要深入讨论，信号为何随距离增大而衰减有很多原因——它就是一种带电介质，类似于电磁波在大气或等离子体等带电介质中传播时会有奇特的屏蔽效应，使信号随距离进一步衰减。所以如果你真的深入研究信号随距离的衰减曲线，就会看到最初的 1/R 平方，然后是指数级下降，这个拐点就是从电磁学主导转变为扩散物理主导的临界点。
Lex FridmanBut once again, with the electrodes, the biophysics that you need to understand is not as deep because no matter where you’re placing it, you’re listening to a small crowd of local neurons.但话说回来，用电极的话，你需要理解的生物物理学其实没那么深，因为不管你放在哪里，你都是在倾听一小群局部神经元的交流。
DJ SeoCorrect, yeah. So once you penetrate the brain, you’re in the arena, so to speak.对，一旦穿透大脑，你就进入竞技场了，可以这么说。
Lex FridmanAnd there’s a lot of neurons.里面有大量神经元。
DJ SeoThere are many, many of them.非常非常多。
Lex FridmanBut then again, there’s a whole field of neuroscience that’s studying how the different groupings, the different sections of the seating in the arena, what they usually are responsible for, which is where the metaphor probably falls apart because the seating is not that organized in an arena.当然，还有整个神经科学领域在研究不同的神经元群落、竞技场中不同区域的座位负责什么功能——这个类比在这里可能开始失效了，因为座位在真实的竞技场里不是那么有组织的。
DJ SeoAlso, most of them are silent. They don’t really do much. Or their activities are… You have to hit it with just the right set of stimulus.而且大多数神经元是沉默的，它们平时不太活跃。或者它们的活动……你得用恰当的那组刺激才能触发它们。
Lex FridmanSo they’re usually quiet.所以它们通常很安静。
DJ SeoThey’re usually very quiet. Similar to dark energy and dark matter, there’s dark neurons. What are they all doing? When you place these electrodes, again, within this hundred micron volume, you have 40 or so neurons. Why do you not see 40 neurons? Why do you see only a handful? What is happening there?通常非常安静。就像暗能量和暗物质一样，也有暗神经元。它们都在干嘛？当你把这些电极放进去，在 100 微米的体积里大概有 40 个神经元，你却只看到少数几个——为什么你看不到全部 40 个？为什么只看到寥寥几个？到底发生了什么？
Lex FridmanWell, they’re mostly quiet, but when they speak, they say profound shit. That’s the way I’d like to think about it. Anyway, before we zoom in even more, let’s zoom out. So how does Neuralink work from the surgery to the implant, to the signal and the decoding process, and the human being able to use the implant to actually affect the world outside? And all of this, I’m asking in the context of, there’s a gigantic historic milestone that Neuralink just accomplished in January of this year. Putting a Neuralink implant in the first human being, Noland. And there’s been a lot to talk about there about his experience because he’s able to describe all the nuance and the beauty and the fascinating complexity of that experience of everything involved. But on the technical level, how does Neuralink work?它们大多数时候沉默着，但一开口就是深刻的东西。我是这么理解的。不管怎样，在进一步聚焦之前，让我们先拉远镜头。Neuralink 是如何工作的——从手术到植入，再到信号和解码过程，再到人能够用这个植入物真正影响外部世界？所有这些，我都是在这样一个背景下问的：Neuralink 刚刚在今年一月完成了一个历史性的里程碑——将 Neuralink 植入物放入了第一个人类——Noland。关于他的体验有太多可以说的，因为他能描述整个体验的细节、美妙之处，以及所有涉及的迷人复杂性。但从技术层面来说，Neuralink 是如何工作的？
DJ SeoSo there are three major components to the technology that we’re building. One is the device, the thing that’s actually recording these neural chatters. We call it N1 Implant or The Link. And we have a surgical robot that’s actually doing an implantation of these tiny, tiny wires that we call threads that are smaller than human hair. And once everything is surgerized, you have these neural signals, these spiking neurons, that are coming out of the brain, and you need to have some sort of software to decode what the users intend to do with that. So there’s what’s called the Neuralink Application or B1 App that’s doing that translation. It’s running the very, very simple machine learning model that decodes these inputs that are neural signals and then convert it to a set of outputs that allows our first participant, Noland, to be able to control a cursor on the screen.我们正在构建的技术有三个主要组成部分。一是设备，也就是真正记录这些神经交流信号的那个东西，我们叫它 N1 Implant 或 The Link。二是手术机器人，负责将这些我们称为"线程"的极细导线实际植入——这些线程比人类头发还细。手术完成后，就有了来自大脑的神经信号、这些神经元放电信号，需要某种软件来解码用户的意图。这就是 Neuralink 应用程序（B1 App）所做的事——进行翻译，运行非常简单的机器学习模型，将这些神经信号输入解码成一组输出，让我们的第一位参与者 Noland 能够控制屏幕上的光标。
Lex FridmanAnd this is done wirelessly?这一切都是无线完成的？
DJ SeoAnd this is done wirelessly. So our implant is actually a two-part. The link has these flexible tiny wires called threads that have multiple electrodes along its length. And they’re only inserted into the cortical layer, which is about three to five millimeters in a human brain, in the motor cortex region. That’s where the intention for movement lies in. And we have 64 of these threads, each thread having 16 electrodes along the span of three to four millimeters, separated by 200 microns. So you can actually record along the depth of the insertion. And based on that signal, there’s custom integrated circuit or ASIC that we built that amplifies the neural signals that you’re recording and then digitizing it and then has some mechanism for detecting whether there was an interesting event that is a spiking event, and decide to send that or not send that through Bluetooth to an external device, whether it’s a phone or a computer that’s running this Neuralink application.是的，这一切都是无线完成的。我们的植入物实际上由两部分组成。The Link 上有这些灵活的细小导线，叫做线程，每根线程沿其长度分布有多个电极。它们只插入皮层，在人类大脑中大约是三到五毫米深，位于运动皮层区域——那里是运动意图所在。我们有 64 根线程，每根线程在三到四毫米的范围内有 16 个电极，间距为 200 微米，所以可以沿插入深度进行记录。基于这些信号，我们构建的定制集成电路（ASIC）会放大记录到的神经信号，对其进行数字化，然后通过某种机制检测是否有感兴趣的事件——即放电事件——决定是否通过蓝牙将其发送到运行 Neuralink 应用的外部设备，无论是手机还是电脑。
Lex FridmanSo there’s onboard signal processing already just to decide whether this is an interesting event or not. So there is some computational power on board in addition to the human brain?所以芯片上已经有初步的信号处理，专门判断这是否是一个有趣的事件。除了人类大脑之外，植入物本身也具有一定的计算能力？
DJ SeoYeah. So it does the signal processing to really compress the amount of signal that you’re recording. So we have a total of thousand electrodes sampling at just under 20 kilohertz with 10 bit each. So that’s 200 megabits that’s coming through to the chip from thousand channel simultaneous neural recording. And that’s quite a bit of data, and there are technology available to send that off wirelessly. But being able to do that in a very, very thermally-constrained environment that is a brain. So there has to be some amount of compression that happens to send off only the interesting data that you need, which in this particular case for motor decoding is, occurrence of a spike or not. And then being able to use that to decode the intended cursor movement. So the implant itself processes it, figures out whether a spike happened or not with our spike detection algorithm, and then sends it off, packages it, sends it off through Bluetooth to an external device that then has the model to decode, okay, based on these spiking inputs, did Noland wish to go up, down, left, right, or click or right click or whatever.是的。它做的信号处理是真正压缩你所记录的信号量。我们总共有 1,000 个电极，以刚好低于 20 kHz 的采样率、每通道 10 bit 进行采样。所以从 1,000 个通道同步神经记录流入芯片的数据量是 200 Mbits——这相当可观，确实有技术手段可以无线传输这些数据，但需要在大脑这种热功耗极受约束的环境中完成这件事。所以必须进行一定程度的压缩，只发送你所需要的有用数据，在这个特定的运动解码场景中，有用数据就是是否发生了放电。然后利用这个来解码目标光标移动意图。所以植入物自己处理信号、判断是否发生了放电——通过我们的放电检测算法——然后打包，通过蓝牙发送到外部设备，外部设备上的模型负责解码：好，根据这些放电输入，Noland 是想向上、向下、向左、向右，还是点击、右键什么的。
Lex FridmanAll of this is really fascinating, but let’s stick on the N1 Implant itself. So the thing that’s in the brain. So I’m looking at a picture of it, there’s an enclosure, there’s a charging coil, so we didn’t talk about the charging, which is fascinating. The battery, the power electronics, the antenna. Then there’s the signal processing electronics. I wonder if there’s more kinds of signal processing you can do? That’s another question. And then there’s the threads themselves with the enclosure on the bottom. So maybe to ask about the charging. So there’s an external charging device?这些都非常迷人，但让我们先聚焦在 N1 Implant 本身——也就是在大脑里的那个东西。我现在看着它的一张图，有一个外壳、一个充电线圈（我们还没聊到充电，这很有意思）、电池、电源电子器件、天线，然后是信号处理电子器件（我想知道能否做更多种类的信号处理，这是另一个问题），最后是带外壳的线程本身。先说充电吧。所以有外部充电设备？
DJ SeoYeah, there’s an external charging device. So yeah, the second part of the implant, the threads are the ones, again, just the last three to five millimeters are the ones that are actually penetrating the cortex. Rest of it is, actually most of the volume, is occupied by the battery, rechargeable battery, and it’s about a size of a quarter. I actually have a device here if you want to take a look at it. This is the flexible thread component of it, and then this is the implant. So it’s about a size of a US quarter. It’s about nine millimeters thick. So basically this implant, once you have the craniectomy and the directomy, threads are inserted, and the hole that you created, this craniectomy, gets replaced with that. So basically that thing plugs that hole, and you can screw in these self-drilling cranial screws to hold it in place. And at the end of the day, once you have the skin flap over, there’s only about two to three millimeters that’s obviously transitioning off of the top of the implant to where the screws are. And that’s the minor bump that you have.是的，有外部充电设备。植入物的第二部分，线程就是——还是那句话，只有最后三到五毫米是真正穿透皮层的部分。其余的——实际上大部分体积——都被电池占据，可充电电池，大约一枚美国 25 美分硬币（quarter）的大小。我这里实际上有一个设备，如果你想看的话。这是柔性线程部分，这是植入物。大约是一枚美国 quarter 的大小，厚度大约九毫米。基本上，这个植入物——在完成颅骨切除和硬脑膜切开、线程插入之后——就填补了那个创建的骨孔，可以用自攻颅骨螺钉固定到位。最终，皮肤皮瓣覆盖后，从植入物顶部到螺钉之间只有大约两到三毫米的过渡，那就是你能感觉到的那个小凸起。
Lex FridmanThose threads look tiny. That’s incredible. That is really incredible. That is really incredible. And also, you’re right, most of the actual volume is the battery. This is way smaller than I realized.这些线程看起来真的好细。太不可思议了，真的太不可思议了，太不可思议了。而且你说的没错，实际上大部分体积是电池。这比我想象的小太多了。
DJ SeoAlso, the threads themselves are quite strong.线程本身其实相当结实。
Lex FridmanThey look strong.看起来确实结实。
DJ SeoAnd the thread themselves also has a very interesting feature at the end of it called the loop. And that’s the mechanism to which the robot is able to interface and manipulate this tiny hair-like structure.线程末端有一个非常有趣的结构，叫做"环"。正是通过这个环，机器人才能抓住并操纵这根细如发丝的结构。
Lex FridmanAnd they’re tiny. So what’s the width of a thread?它们真的很细。一根线程有多宽？
DJ SeoSo the width of a thread starts from 16 micron and then tapers out to about 84 micron. So average human hair is about 80 to 100 micron in width.线程的宽度从 16 微米开始，然后逐渐扩展到约 84 微米。人类平均头发的宽度大约是 80 到 100 微米。
Lex FridmanThis thing is amazing. This thing is amazing.这东西太神奇了。真的太神奇了。
DJ SeoYes, most of the volume is occupied by the battery, rechargeable lithium ion cell. And the charging is done through inductive charging, which is actually very commonly used. Your cell phone, most cell phones, have that. The biggest difference is that for us, usually when you have a phone and you want to charge it on the charging pad, you don’t really care how hot it gets. Whereas, in for us, it matters. There is a very strict regulation and good reasons to not actually increase the surrounding tissue temperature by two degrees Celsius. So there’s actually a lot of innovation that is packed into this to allow charging of this implant without causing that temperature threshold to reach.是的，大部分体积被电池占据，是可充电的锂离子电芯。充电是通过感应充电完成的，这实际上非常常见，大多数手机都有这个功能。最大的区别在于，对于手机，你把它放在充电板上时，完全不在乎它有多热。但对我们来说，这很重要。有非常严格的规定，而且有充分的理由不能让周围组织温度升高超过两摄氏度。所以这里面有大量的创新，才能在不触及那个温度阈值的情况下为这个植入物充电。
DJ SeoAnd even small things like, you see this charging coil and what’s called a ferrite shield. So without that ferrite shield, what you end up having when you have resonant inductive charging is that the battery itself is a metallic can, and you form these eddy currents from external charger and that causes heating, and that actually contributes to inefficiency in charging. So this ferrite shield, what it does, is that it actually concentrate that field line away from the battery and then around the coil that’s actually wrapped around it.即便是一些小细节，比如这个充电线圈和所谓的铁氧体屏蔽层。没有铁氧体屏蔽层，在进行谐振感应充电时，电池本身是一个金属外壳，外部充电器会在其中产生涡流，导致发热，这也会造成充电效率低下。铁氧体屏蔽层的作用是将磁场线从电池处引开，集中在缠绕其外的线圈上。
Lex FridmanThere’s a lot of really fascinating design here to make it, I mean, you’re integrating a computer into a biological, a complex biological system.这里面有很多非常迷人的设计——把一台计算机整合到一个复杂的生物系统里。
DJ SeoYeah, there’s a lot of innovation here. I would say that part of what enabled this was just the innovations in the wearable. There’s a lot of really, really powerful tiny, low-power microcontrollers, temperature sensors, or various different sensors and power electronics. A lot of innovation really came in the charging coil design, how this is packaged, and how do you enable charging such that you don’t really exceed that temperature limit, which is not a constraint for other devices out there.是的，这里面有很多创新。我认为其中一个关键因素是可穿戴领域的创新——有大量真正强大的微型低功耗微控制器、温度传感器，以及各种各样的传感器和电源电子器件。大量创新体现在充电线圈的设计、封装方式，以及如何实现充电的同时不超过那个温度限制——而对于其他设备来说，这根本不是约束条件。
Lex FridmanSo let’s talk about the threads themselves. Those tiny, tiny, tiny things. So how many of them are there? You mentioned a thousand electrodes. How many threads are there and what do the electrodes have to do with the threads?那我们来谈谈线程本身。那些极细极细的东西。有多少根？你提到了 1,000 个电极，那有多少根线程，电极和线程的关系是什么？
DJ SeoSo the current instantiation of the device has 64 threads, and each thread has 16 electrodes for a total of 1,024 electrodes that are capable of both recording and stimulating. And the thread is basically this polymer-insulated wire. The metal conductor is the kind of a tiramisu cake of ti, plat, gold, plat, ti and they’re very, very tiny wires. Two micron in width. So two one-millionth of meter.目前这个版本的设备有 64 根线程，每根线程有 16 个电极，共 1,024 个电极，均可记录和刺激。线程基本上就是这种聚合物绝缘的导线。金属导体是一种叫做"提拉米苏蛋糕"式的分层结构：钛、铂、金、铂、钛，层层叠加，非常非常细，只有两微米宽，也就是两百万分之一米。
Lex FridmanIt’s crazy that that thing I’m looking at has the polymer-insulation, has the conducting material and has 16 electrodes at the end of it.太疯狂了，我看着眼前这根东西，它有聚合物绝缘层、导电材料，末端还有 16 个电极。
DJ SeoOn each of those thread.每一根线程上都有。
Lex FridmanYeah, on each of those threads.是的，每一根线程上都有。
DJ SeoCorrect.对。
Lex Fridman16, each one of those 64.64 根，每根 16 个。
DJ SeoYes, you’re not going to be able to see it with naked eyes.是的，肉眼是看不到这些的。
Lex FridmanAnd to state the obvious, or maybe for people who are just listening, they’re flexible?说一个显而易见的，或者对纯听音频的人来说——它们是柔性的？
DJ SeoYes, that’s also one element that was incredibly important for us. So each of these threads are now, as I mentioned, 16 micron in width, and then they taper to 84 micron, but in thickness they’re less than five micron. And in thickness it’s mostly a polyimide at the bottom and this metal track and then another polyimide. So two micron of polyimide, 400 nanometer of this metal stack and two micron of polyimide sandwiched together to protect it from the environment that is 37 degrees C bag of salt water.是的，这也是对我们来说极其重要的一个特性。每根线程目前如我所说，宽度为 16 微米，渐扩至 84 微米，但在厚度上不到五微米。厚度上主要是聚酰亚胺基底，再加上这个金属导线层，然后又是一层聚酰亚胺。两微米聚酰亚胺、400 纳米这个金属层叠，然后再两微米聚酰亚胺，三明治式叠合在一起，以防止 37 摄氏度盐水环境对其的侵蚀。
Lex FridmanMaybe can you speak to some interesting aspects of the material design here? What does it take to design a thing like this and to be able to manufacture a thing like this? For people who don’t know anything about this kind of thing.能不能聊一些材料设计上有意思的方面？设计这样一个东西，以及能够制造这样一个东西，需要什么？对这个领域完全不了解的人来说。
DJ SeoSo the material selection that we have is not, I don’t think it was particularly unique. There were other labs and there are other labs that are kind of looking at similar material stack. There’s kind of a fundamental question, and still needs to be answered, around the longevity and reliability of these microelectrodes that we call, compared to some of the other more conventional neural interfaces devices that are intracranial, so penetrating the cortex, that are more rigid, like the Utah Array. That are these four by four millimeter kind of silicon shank that have exposed recording site at the end of it. And that’s been kind of the innovation from Richard Normann back in 1997. It’s called the Utah Array because he was at University of Utah.我们选择的材料并不是什么特别独特的东西——其他实验室也在研究类似的材料体系。有一个根本性的问题，仍然需要回答，就是这些我们所说的微电极的寿命和可靠性，与一些更传统的颅内、也就是穿透皮层的刚性神经接口器件相比如何——比如 Utah Array。Utah Array 是四乘四毫米左右的硅针阵列，末端有暴露的记录位点。这是 Richard Normann 在 1997 年的创新，叫 Utah Array 是因为他当时在犹他大学。
Lex FridmanAnd what does the Utah Array look like? So it’s a rigid type of [inaudible 02:14:41]?Utah Array 是什么样的？所以它是一种刚性的……
DJ SeoYeah, so we can actually look it up. Yeah, so it’s a bed of needle. There’s-是的，我们可以查一下。就是一张针床，有……
Lex FridmanOkay, go ahead. I’m sorry.好，你说，我打断了。
DJ SeoThose are rigid shanks.那些都是刚性针头。
Lex FridmanRigid, yeah, you weren’t kidding.刚性的，你说得没错。
DJ SeoAnd the size and the number of shanks vary anywhere from 64 to 128. At the very tip of it, is an exposed electrode that actually records neural signal. The other thing that’s interesting to note is that unlike neural link threads that have recording electrodes that are actually exposed iridium oxide recording sites along the depth, this is only at a single depth. So these Utah Array spokes can be anywhere between 0.5 millimeters to 1.5 millimeter, and they also have designs that are slanted. So you can have it inserted at different depths, but that’s one of the other big differences. And then, the main key difference is the fact that there’s no active electronics. These are just electrodes, and then there’s a bundle of a wire that you’re seeing, and then that actually then exits the craniotomy that then has this port that you can connect to for any external electronic devices. They are working on, or have, the wireless telemetry device but it still requires a through-the-skin port, that actually is one of the biggest failure modes for infection for the system.针头的大小和数量从 64 到 128 不等。在针头顶端有一个暴露的电极，实际上记录神经信号。另一个值得注意的有趣之处是，与 Neuralink 线程——记录电极是沿深度方向分布的、实际暴露的氧化铱记录位点——不同，这里只在单一深度有记录点。Utah Array 针头的长度从 0.5 毫米到 1.5 毫米不等，也有设计成倾斜的，可以插入到不同深度，但这是另一个大的区别。然后，最主要的核心区别是没有主动电子器件，就只有电极，你看到的是一束导线，从颅骨切除部位引出，然后有一个端口可以连接外部电子设备。他们正在研究或者已经有了无线遥测设备，但仍然需要一个穿皮端口，而这恰恰是该系统感染的最大失效模式之一。
Lex FridmanWhat are some of the challenges associated with flexible threads? Like for example, on the robotic side, R1, implanting those threads. How difficult is that task?柔性线程面临哪些挑战？比如在机器人 R1 植入这些线程的过程中，这个任务有多难？
DJ SeoYeah, so as you mentioned, they’re very, very difficult to maneuver by hand. These Utah Arrays that you saw earlier, they’re actually inserted by a neurosurgeon actually positioning it near the site that they want. And then there’s a pneumatic hammer that actually pushes them in. So it’s a pretty simple process and they’re easy to maneuver. But for these thin-film arrays, they’re very, very tiny and flexible. So they’re very difficult to maneuver. So that’s why we built an entire robot to do that.是的，如你所说，用手来操纵它们非常、非常困难。你之前看到的 Utah Array 实际上是由神经外科医生将其放在目标位置，然后用气动锤把它打进去。所以这是个相当简单的过程，容易操作。但这些薄膜阵列，非常非常细，非常柔软，手动操作极其困难。这就是我们为此专门建造了整个机器人的原因。
DJ SeoThere are other reasons for why we built the robot, and that is ultimately we want this to help millions and millions of people that can benefit from this. And there just aren’t that many neurosurgeons out there. And robots can be something that we hope can actually do large parts of the surgery. But the robot is this entire other sort of category of product that we’re working on. And it’s essentially this multi- axis gantry system that has the specialized robot head that has all of the optics and this kind of a needle-retracting mechanism that maneuvers these threads via this loop structure that you have on the thread.还有其他原因让我们建了这个机器人——最终，我们希望这能帮助数百万可以从中受益的人。而神经外科医生的数量并不多，机器人是一种我们希望真的能够承担手术大部分工作的方案。这个机器人是我们正在开发的另一个完整产品类别，本质上是一个多轴龙门系统，配备专用的机器人头部，集成了光学系统和一种针头收回机构，通过线程上的那个"环"结构来操控线程。
Lex FridmanSo the thread already has a loop structure by which you can grab it?所以线程上已经有了一个环形结构，可以被抓住？
DJ SeoCorrect.对。
Lex FridmanSo this is fascinating. So you mentioned optics. So there’s a robot, R1, so for now, there’s a human that actually creates a hole in the skull. And then after that, there’s a computer vision component that’s finding a way to avoid the blood vessels. And then you’re grabbing it by the loop, each individual thread, and placing it in a particular location to avoid the blood vessels and also choosing the depth of placement, all that. So controlling every, the 3D geometry, of the placement?所以这很有意思。你提到了光学，所以有一个机器人 R1，目前还需要人来在头骨上钻孔。之后有计算机视觉部分来找到避开血管的路径，然后通过那个环来抓住每一根线程，放到特定位置，同时避开血管，并选择插入深度，等等。所以要控制所有的三维几何位置？
DJ SeoCorrect. So the aspect of this robot that is unique is that it’s not surgeon-assisted or human-assisted. It’s a semi-automatic or automatic robot. Obviously, there are human component to it, when you’re placing targets, you can always move it away from major vessels that you see. But we want to get to a point where one click and it just does the surgery within minutes.对。这个机器人的独特之处在于，它不需要外科医生辅助或人工辅助，是半自动或全自动的机器人。当然，在放置目标时会有人工参与，你可以把它移离肉眼可见的大血管，但我们的目标是达到一键操作、几分钟内完成整个手术的水平。
Lex FridmanSo the computer vision component finds great targets, candidates, and the human approves them, and the robot does… Does it do one thread at a time? Or does it do them [inaudible 02:19:08]?所以计算机视觉部分找到合适的目标候选位置，人工来审批，然后机器人执行……它是一次插一根线程，还是同时插好几根？
DJ SeoIt does one thread at a time. And that’s actually also one thing that we are looking at ways to do multiple threads at a time. There’s nothing stopping from it. You can have multiple kind of engagement mechanisms. But right now, it’s one-by-one. And we also still do quite a bit of just kind of verification to make sure that it got inserted. If so, how deep? Did it actually match what was programmed in? And so on and so forth.一次插一根。这其实也是我们正在想办法改进的地方，同时插多根。这并没有什么技术障碍，可以有多个参与机构。但目前是逐根插入。我们还会做相当多的验证工作，确认它有没有被正确插入，如果插进去了，深度是多少，是否与程序预设的一致，等等。
Lex FridmanAnd the actual electrodes are placed at differing depths in the… I mean, it’s very small differences, but differences.实际上，各电极是在不同深度放置的——当然差异很小，但就是不同深度。
DJ SeoYeah.对。
Lex FridmanAnd so there’s some reasoning behind that, as you mentioned, it gets more varied signal.所以这背后有一定的考量，正如你说的，这样能获取更多样化的信号。
DJ SeoYeah, we try to place them all around three or four millimeter from the surface.是的，我们尽量把它们全部放置在距皮层表面三到四毫米的位置。
DJ Seo… it’s three or four millimeter from the surface just because the span of the electrode, those 16 electrodes that we currently have in this version, spans roughly around three millimeters. So we want to get all of those in the brain.……距皮层表面三到四毫米，因为这个版本的 16 个电极的分布范围大约是三毫米。我们希望把所有这些都放在大脑里面。
Lex FridmanThis is fascinating. Okay, so there’s a million questions here. If we could zoom in specifically on the electrodes. What is your sense, how many neurons is each individual electrode listening to?太迷人了。好，关于这个有一百万个问题。如果我们能专门聚焦在电极上。你的感觉是，每个电极能监听多少个神经元？
DJ SeoYeah, each electrode can record from anywhere between zero to 40, as I mentioned earlier. But practically speaking, we only see about at most two to three, and you can actually distinguish which neuron it’s coming from by the shape of the spikes.每个电极可以记录的神经元数量从零到四十不等，正如我之前提到的。但实际操作中，我们通常只能看到最多两到三个，而且可以通过放电波形的形状来区分是哪个神经元发出的信号。
Lex FridmanOh, cool.哦，酷。
DJ SeoI mentioned the spike detection algorithm that we have, it’s called BOSS algorithm, Buffer Online Spike Sorter.我提到的放电检测算法叫做 BOSS 算法，即 Buffer Online Spike Sorter（缓冲在线放电排序器）。
Lex FridmanNice.不错的名字。
DJ SeoIt actually outputs at the end of the day six unique values, which are the amplitude of these negative going hump, middle hump, positive going hump, and then also the time at which these happen. And from that, you can have a statistical probability estimation of, “Is that a spike? Is it not a spike?” And then based on that, you could also determine, “Oh, that spike looks different than that spike, it must come from a different neuron.”它最终输出六个独特的值，分别是负向峰值的幅度、中间峰值的幅度、正向峰值的幅度，以及这些峰值发生的时间。基于这些，你可以做统计概率估计："这是一个放电吗？不是放电吗？"在此基础上，你还能进一步判断："哦，这个放电波形和那个不一样，肯定来自不同的神经元。"
Lex FridmanOkay. So that’s a nice signal processing step from which you can then make much better predictions about if there’s a spike, especially in this kind of context, where there could be multiple neurons screaming. And that that also results in you being able to compress the data better at the of the day.好，这是一个很好的信号处理步骤，基于这个步骤，你就能对放电做出更准确的预测——尤其是在这种情况下，可能有多个神经元同时"喊叫"。而这也让你最终能更好地压缩数据。
DJ SeoYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanOkay, that’s-好，那是……
DJ SeoAnd just to be clear, I mean, the labs do this what’s called spike sorting. Usually once you have the fully digitized signals and then you run a bunch of different set of algorithms to tease apart, it’s just all of this for us is done on the device.补充一点，实验室通常会做所谓的"放电排序"，一般是在拿到完全数字化的信号之后，再运行一堆不同的算法来分离出各个神经元的信号。而我们这里所有这些，都是在设备上完成的。
Lex FridmanOn the device.在设备上完成的。
DJ SeoIn a very low power, custom-built ASIC digital processing unit.在一个非常低功耗的定制 ASIC 数字处理单元里。
Lex FridmanHighly heat constrained.极度受热功耗约束的。
DJ SeoHighly heat constrained. And the processing time from signal going in and giving you the output is less than a microsecond, which is a very, very short amount of time.极度受热功耗约束，而且从信号输入到输出的处理时间不到一微秒，这是非常非常短的时间。
Lex FridmanOh, yeah. So the latency has to be super short.哦，对。所以延迟必须极低。
DJ SeoCorrect.对。
Lex FridmanOh, wow. Oh, that’s a pain in the ass. That’s really tough.哦，哇。哦，这真是个麻烦。太难了。
DJ SeoYeah, latency is this huge, huge thing that you have to deal with. Right now the biggest source of latency comes from the Bluetooth, the way in which their packetized and we bin them in a 15 millisecond time window.是的，延迟是一个非常非常棘手的问题。目前最大的延迟来源是蓝牙——数据被打包的方式，我们是在一个 15 毫秒的时间窗口内批量传输。
Lex FridmanOh, interesting, so it’s communication constrained. Is there some potential innovation there on the protocol used?哦，有趣，所以是通信端受限。在通信协议上是否有改进的空间？
DJ SeoAbsolutely.绝对有。
Lex FridmanOkay.好的。
DJ SeoYeah. Bluetooth is definitely not our final wireless communication protocol that we want to get to. It’s highly-是的，蓝牙绝对不是我们最终想要的无线通信协议，它有很多……
Lex FridmanHence, the N1 and the R1. I imagine that increases [inaudible 02:23:03].所以才有 N1 和 R1。我猜这会提升……
DJ SeoNx, Rx.Nx，Rx。
Lex FridmanYeah, that’s the communication protocol because Bluetooth allows you to communicate, gets farther distances than you need to, so you can go much shorter.是的，也就是说通信协议会更新，因为蓝牙能让你通信到比所需更远的距离，所以可以用更短距离的方案来提升效率。
DJ SeoYeah. The only, well, the primary motivation for choosing Bluetooth is that, I mean, everything has Bluetooth,是的。选择蓝牙的主要动机只有一个——所有东西都有蓝牙，
Lex FridmanAll right, so you can talk to any device.这样就能和任何设备通信。
DJ SeoInteroperability is just absolutely essential, especially in this early phase. And in many ways, if you can access a phone or a computer, you can do anything.互操作性在这个早期阶段绝对至关重要。而且从某种意义上说，只要你能用手机或电脑，什么都能做。
Lex FridmanIt’ll be interesting to step back and actually look at, again, the same pipeline that you mentioned for Noland. What does this whole process look like from finding and selecting a human being, to the surgery, to the first time he’s able to use this thing?有意思的是，回头看看你提到的 Noland 的整个流程，从找到并选定一个人类受试者，到手术，再到他第一次能使用这个东西——整个过程是什么样的？
DJ SeoWe have what’s called a patient registry that people can sign up to hear more about the updates. And that was a route to which Noland applied. And the process is that once the application comes in, it contains some medical records, and we … Based on their medical eligibility, there’s a lot of different inclusion/exclusion criteria for them to meet.我们有一个叫做患者登记处的系统，人们可以报名了解最新进展。Noland 就是通过这个途径报名的。流程是这样的：一旦申请提交进来，里面会有一些医疗记录，我们根据其医疗资格进行审核，有很多不同的纳入和排除标准需要符合。
DJ SeoAnd we go through a prescreening interview process with someone from Neuralink, and at some point we also go out to their homes to do a BCI home audit. Because one of the most revolutionary part about having this in one system that is completely wireless, is that you can use it at home. You don’t actually have to go to the lab and go to the clinic to get connectedorized to these specialized equipment that you can’t take home with you.然后我们会进行预筛选访谈，由 Neuralink 的人来进行。在某个时间节点，我们还会前往他们家里做 BCI 居家审核。因为这整套完全无线系统最具革命性的一点，就是你可以在家里使用，不用专门去实验室或诊所，也不需要连接到那些无法带回家的专业设备。
DJ SeoSo that’s one of the key elements of when we’re designing the system that we wanted to keep in mind, people hopefully would want to be able to use this every day in the comfort of their homes. And so part of our engagement and what we’re looking for during BCI home audit is to just understand their situation, what other assisted technology that they use.这是我们设计系统时想牢记的核心要素之一：希望人们能够每天在自己家里舒适地使用它。所以我们在进行 BCI 居家审核时，关注的一部分就是了解他们的生活状况，以及他们目前使用了哪些辅助技术。
Lex FridmanAnd we should also step back and say that the estimate is 180,000 people live with quadriplegia in the United States, and each year an additional 18,000 suffer a paralyzing spinal cord injury. So these are folks who have a lot of challenges living a life in terms of accessibility, in terms of doing the things that many of us just take for granted day to day.我们还应该退一步指出，估计有 18 万人在美国生活着四肢瘫痪，每年还有额外 1.8 万人因脊髓损伤而瘫痪。这些人在日常生活中面临大量挑战——在无障碍方面，在做许多我们习以为常的事情方面。
Lex FridmanAnd one of the things, one of the goals of this initial study is to enable them to have digital autonomy where they by themselves can interact with a digital device using just their mind, something that you’re calling telepathy, so digital telepathy. Where a quadriplegic can communicate with a digital device in all the ways that we’ve been talking about. Control the mouse cursor enough to be able to do all kinds of stuff, including play games and tweet and all that kind of stuff. And there’s a lot of people for whom life, the basics of life, are difficult because of the things that have happened to them.而这项初期研究的目标之一，就是让他们拥有数字自主权——让他们仅凭意念就能与数字设备互动，也就是你们所说的"心灵感应"，即数字心灵感应。让四肢瘫痪患者能够用大脑控制数字设备，以我们一直在讨论的各种方式——控制鼠标光标，做各种事情，包括玩游戏、发推文等等。对于很多人来说，生活的基本内容都因为他们身上发生的事而变得很难实现。
DJ SeoYeah. I mean, movement is so fundamental to our existence. I mean, even speaking involves movement of mouth, lip, larynx. And without that, it’s extremely debilitating. And there are many, many people that we can help. I mean, especially if you start to look at other forms of movement disorders that are not just from spinal cord injury, but from a ALS, MS, or even stroke, or just aging, that leads you to lose some of that mobility, that independence, it’s extremely debilitating.是的，运动对我们的存在如此根本。就连说话也涉及嘴、嘴唇、喉头的运动。没有这些，极其令人衰弱。可以帮助的人真的非常多。尤其是如果开始考虑其他形式的运动障碍——不只是脊髓损伤，还有 ALS、MS、甚至中风，或者只是衰老导致的行动能力下降，失去独立性，这都是极其折磨人的。
Lex FridmanAnd all of these are opportunities to help people, to help alleviate suffering, to help improve the quality of life. But each of the things you mentioned is its own little puzzle that needs to have increasing levels of capability from a device like a Neuralink device.所有这些都是帮助人们、减轻痛苦、改善生活质量的机会。但你提到的每一种情况，都需要像 Neuralink 这样的设备具备不断提升的能力，才能分别应对这些挑战。
Lex FridmanAnd so the first one you’re focusing on is, it’s just a beautiful word, telepathy. So being able to communicate using your mind wirelessly with a digital device. Can you just explain exactly what we’re talking about?而你们目前聚焦的第一个，真是一个美丽的词——心灵感应（telepathy）。就是用你的意念通过无线方式与数字设备沟通。能不能具体解释一下我们在谈的是什么？
DJ SeoYeah, I mean, it’s exactly that. I mean, I think if you are able to control a cursor and able to click and be able to get access to a computer or a phone, I mean, the whole world opens up to you. And I mean, I guess the word “telepathy,” if you think about that as just definitionally being able to transfer information from my brain to your brain without using some of the physical faculties that we have, like voices.是的，就是这个意思。我觉得如果你能控制光标、能点击、能访问电脑或手机，整个世界就向你打开了。"心灵感应"这个词，如果从定义上来理解——就是能够将信息从我的大脑传递到你的大脑，而不借助我们的物理能力，比如声音。
Lex FridmanBut the interesting thing here is I think the thing that’s not obviously clear is how exactly it works. In order to move a cursor, there’s at least a couple of ways of doing that. One is you imagine yourself maybe moving a mouse with your hand, or you can then, which no one talked about, imagine moving the cursor with your mind.但有意思的是，我觉得不太明显的一点是它究竟是怎么运作的。要移动光标，至少有几种方式：一种是你想象自己用手移动鼠标，另一种——这没人说过——是你直接用意念想象光标在移动。
Lex FridmanBut it’s like there is a cognitive step here that’s fascinating, because you have to use the brain and you have to learn how to use the brain, and you have to figure it out dynamically because you reward yourself if it works. I mean, there’s a step that … This is just a fascinating step because you have to get the brain to start firing in the right way. And you do that by imagining … Like fake it till you make it. And all of a sudden it creates the right kind of signal that, if decoded correctly, can create the effect. And then there’s noise around that that you have to figure all of that out. But on the human side, imagine the cursor moving is what you have to do.但这中间有一个认知步骤非常迷人，因为你必须用大脑，你必须学会如何使用大脑，还要动态地摸索，因为当它起作用时你就奖励自己。有一步……这真的是非常迷人的一步，因为你要让大脑开始以正确的方式放电，而做到这点的方式是靠想象……就是"先假装，最终成真"。然后它突然就产生了正确类型的信号，如果被正确解码，就能产生效果。周围还有噪音，你也要把这些都搞明白。但在人的这一端，你要做的就是想象光标在移动。
DJ SeoYeah. He says using the force.是的，他说用的是原力。
Lex FridmanThe force. I mean, isn’t that just fascinating to you that it works? To me, it’s like, holy shit, that actually works. You could move a cursor with your mind.原力。这难道不令人着迷吗？竟然真的有用？对我来说，简直是，我的天，这玩意儿真的能用。你可以用意念移动光标。
DJ SeoAs much as you’re learning to use that thing, that thing is also learning about you. Our model’s constantly updating the way to say, “Oh, if someone is thinking about this sophisticated forms of spiking patterns, that actually means to do this.”在你学习使用这个东西的同时，这个东西也在学习你。我们的模型在不断更新，不断理解：哦，如果有人以这种复杂的放电模式在思考，这其实意味着要做这个动作。
Lex FridmanSo the machine is learning about the human and the human is learning about the machine, so there is a adaptability to the signal process and the decoding step, and then there’s the adaptation of Nolan, the human being. The same way, if you give me a new mouse and I move it, I learn very quickly about its sensitivity, so I learn to move it slower. And then there’s other signal drift and all that kind of stuff they have to adapt to, so both are adapting to each other.所以机器在学习人类，人类也在学习机器，信号处理和解码步骤存在适应性，Noland 这个人类也在适应。就像给我一个新鼠标，我很快就会摸清它的灵敏度，学会动作幅度要小一点。同时还有信号漂移这类问题需要适应，所以双方都在互相适应。
DJ SeoCorrect.对。
Lex FridmanThat’s a fascinating software challenge, on both sides. The software on both, on the human software and the [inaudible 02:30:41] software.这在软件层面是个迷人的挑战，两侧都有。人体软件和[听不清 02:30:41]这边的软件都是。
DJ SeoThe organic and the inorganic.有机的和无机的。
Lex FridmanThe organic and the inorganic. Anyway. Sorry to rudely interrupt. So there’s the selection that Noland has passed with flying colors. Everything, including that it is a BCI-friendly home, all of that. So what is the process of the surgery, implantation, the first moment when he gets to use the system?有机的和无机的。好了，不好意思打断了。所以筛选这关 Noland 是以优异成绩通过的——包括他的家是适合 BCI 使用的环境，所有这些都符合。那么手术、植入的流程是怎样的？他第一次用上这套系统是什么感觉？
DJ SeoThe end-to-end, we say patient end to patient out, is anywhere between two to four hours. In the particular case for Noland it was about three and a half hours, and there’s many steps leading to the actual robot insertion. So there’s anesthesia induction, and we do intra-op CT imaging to make sure that we’re drilling the hole in the right location. And this is also pre-planned beforehand.从头到尾，我们说从病人进来到病人出去，需要两到四个小时。Noland 这个具体案例大概花了三个半小时，在机器人正式插入之前还有很多步骤。先是麻醉诱导，然后我们做术中 CT 成像，确保钻孔位置正确。这也是提前规划好的。
DJ SeoSomeone like Noland would go through fMRI and then they can think about wiggling their hand. Obviously due to their injury it’s not going to actually lead to any sort of intended output, but it’s the same part of the brain that actually lights up when you’re imagining moving your finger to actually moving your finger. And that’s one of the ways in which we can actually know where to place our threads because we want to go into what’s called the hand knob area in the motor cortex. And as much as possible, densely put our electrode threads.像 Noland 这样的患者会做 fMRI，然后想象活动手腕。当然由于受伤，这实际上不会产生任何预期的输出，但当你想象移动手指时和真正移动手指时，大脑被激活的区域是相同的。这也是我们确定线程放置位置的方法之一，因为我们要插入运动皮层中所谓的"手形区"，并尽可能密集地排布电极线程。
DJ SeoSo we do intra-op CT imaging to make sure and double-check the location of the craniectomy. And the surgeon comes in, does their thing in terms of skin incision, craniectomy, so drilling of the skull, and then there’s many different layers of the brain. There’s what’s called a dura, which is a very, very thick layer that surrounds the brain. That gets actually resected in a process called [inaudible 02:32:38]. And that then expose the pia in the brain that you want to insert.所以我们做术中 CT 成像来确认并复核颅骨切开位置。然后外科医生上场，做皮肤切口、颅骨切开术（即钻穿头骨），再处理大脑的许多不同层。有一层叫做硬脑膜，是包裹大脑的非常非常厚的一层，会通过一个叫做[听不清 02:32:38]的过程切除。之后暴露出软脑膜和你要插入的脑组织。
DJ SeoAnd by the time it’s been around anywhere between one to one and a half hours, robot comes in, does his thing, placement of the targets, inserting of the thread. That takes anywhere between 20 to 40 minutes. In the particular case for Noland, it was just under or just over 30 minutes. And then after that, the surgeon comes in, there’s a couple other steps of actually inserting the dural substitute layer to protect the thread as well as the brain. And then screw in the implant and then skin flap and then suture, and then you’re out.大约一到一个半小时之后，机器人进场，完成目标定位和线程插入，耗时 20 到 40 分钟。Noland 的具体情况是略少于或略多于 30 分钟。之后外科医生回来，还有几个步骤：插入硬脑膜替代层来保护线程和大脑，然后拧入植入体，再做皮瓣和缝合，就完成了。
Lex FridmanSo when Noland woke up, what was that like? What was the recovery like, and when was the first time he was able to use it?那么 Noland 醒来时是什么状况？恢复过程是怎样的，他第一次能使用这套系统是什么时候？
DJ SeoHe was actually immediately after the surgery, like an hour after the surgery, as he was waking up, we did turn on the device, make sure that we are recording neural signals. And we actually did have couple signals that we noticed that he can actually modulate. And what I mean by modulate is that he can think about clenching his fist and you could see the spike disappear and appear.实际上是手术后立刻，就在他苏醒过来的大约一个小时后，我们就打开了设备，确认我们正在记录到神经信号。我们确实注意到了几个他可以主动调控的信号。我所说的"调控"是指，他想象握紧拳头，你就能看到那个尖峰波形消失再出现。
Lex FridmanThat’s awesome.太棒了。
DJ SeoAnd that was immediate, immediate after in the recovery room.而且这是立刻，手术后立刻就在恢复室里出现的。
Lex FridmanHow cool is that?这有多酷啊？
DJ SeoYeah, absolutely.是的，绝对是。
Lex FridmanThat’s a human being … I mean, what did that feel like for you? This device and a human being, a first step of a gigantic journey? I mean, it’s a historic moment, even just that spike, just to be able to modulate that.这是一个人……我的意思是，你当时是什么感受？这台设备和这个人，一段宏大旅程的第一步？这是历史性的时刻，哪怕就是那一个尖峰波形，能够主动调控它，这就已经是历史了。
DJ SeoObviously there have been other, as you mentioned, pioneers that have participated in these groundbreaking BCI investigational early feasibility studies. So we’re obviously standing on the shoulders of the giants here, we’re not the first ones to actually put electrodes in a human brain.当然，正如你提到的，此前已经有其他先行者参与了这些开创性的 BCI 前期可行性研究。所以我们显然是站在巨人的肩膀上，我们并不是第一批把电极放入人脑的人。
DJ SeoBut I mean, just leading up to the surgery, I definitely could not sleep. It’s the first time that you’re working in a completely new environment. We had a lot of confidence based on our benchtop testing or preclinical R&D studies that the mechanism, the threads, the insertion, all that stuff is very safe and that it’s obviously ready for doing this in a human. But there’s still a lot of unknown unknown about can the needle actually insert? I mean, we brought something like 40 needles just in case they break, and we ended up using only one. But I mean, that was the level of just complete unknown because it’s a very, very different environment. And I mean, that’s why we do clinical trial in the first place, to be able to test these things out.但我的意思是，一路走到手术那天，我确实完全睡不着。这是你第一次在一个全新的环境中工作。基于我们的台式测试和临床前研发，我们对机制、线程、插入方式的安全性有很大的信心，觉得已经准备好在人体上进行了。但还是有很多未知数，比如针头到底能不能插进去？我们带了大约 40 根针以备折断，但最后只用了一根。这足以说明当时的不确定程度有多高，因为这是一个非常非常不同的环境。这也正是我们做临床试验的原因，就是要把这些问题测出来。
DJ SeoSo extreme nervousness and just many, many sleepless night leading up to the surgery, and definitely the day before the surgery. And it was an early morning surgery. We started at 7:00 in the morning, and by the time it was around 10:30 everything was done. But I mean, first time seeing that, well, number one, just huge relief that this thing is doing what it’s supposed to do. And two, I mean, just immense amount of gratitude for Noland and his family. And then many others that have applied and that we’ve spoken to and will speak to are true pioneers in every word. And I call them the neural astronauts or neuralnaut.极度紧张，手术前的很多很多个不眠之夜，手术前一天尤其如此。那是一台早晨的手术，我们早上 7:00 开始，大约 10:30 一切就结束了。但第一次看到那个，首先是巨大的如释重负，这东西在做它该做的事。其次是对 Noland 和他家人深深的感激。还有那些已经申请、我们已经或将要联系的很多人，他们都是真正意义上的先驱。我称他们为神经宇航员，neuralnaut。
Lex FridmanNeuralnaut, yeah.Neuralnaut，对。
DJ SeoJust like in the ’60s, these amazing just pioneers exploring the unknown outwards, in this case it’s inward, but an incredible amount of gratitude for them to just participate and play a part. And it’s a journey that we’re embarking on together.就像 60 年代那些向外探索未知的了不起的先驱，而这次是向内，但对他们愿意参与并成为其中一部分，我有着同样无与伦比的感激。这是一段我们共同踏上的旅程。
DJ SeoBut also, I think it was just a … That was a very, very important milestone, but our work was just starting. So a lot of just anticipation for, “Okay, what needs to happen next?” What are set of sequences of events that needs to happen for us to make it worthwhile for both Noland as well as us.不过我也觉得，那是一个非常非常重要的里程碑，但我们的工作才刚刚开始。所以有很多期待：接下来需要发生什么？为了让这对 Noland 和对我们自己都有价值，需要经历哪些事件序列？
Lex FridmanJust to linger on that, just a huge congratulations to you and the team for that milestone. I know there’s a lot of work left, but that’s really exciting to see. That’s a source of hope, it’s this first big step, opportunity, to help hundreds of thousands of people. And then maybe expand the realm of the possible for the human mind for millions of people in the future. So it’s really exciting. The opportunities are all ahead of us, and to do that safely and to do that effectively was really fun to see. As an engineer, just watching other engineers come together and do an epic thing, that was awesome. So huge congrats.我想在这里多说一句，对你和整个团队取得这一里程碑致以最热烈的祝贺。我知道还有大量工作要做，但这真的令人振奋。这是希望的源泉，是帮助数十万人的第一大步，也许未来还能为数百万人拓展人类思维的边界。所以这真的很令人兴奋。所有机遇都在前方，能安全、有效地做到这一点，真的很棒。作为一名工程师，看着其他工程师汇聚在一起完成一件史诗级的事情，这太令人振奋了。再次大力祝贺。
DJ SeoThank you, thank you. Yeah, could not have done it without the team. And yeah, I mean, that’s the other thing that I told the team as well of just this immense sense of optimism for the future. I mean, it’s a very important moment for the company, needless to say, as well as hopefully for many others out there that we can help.谢谢，谢谢。是的，没有这个团队就什么都做不成。而且我的意思是，这也是我对团队说的，就是这种对未来无比乐观的感觉。这对公司来说是非常重要的时刻，不用说了，也希望对我们能帮助的许多其他人来说也是。
Lex FridmanSpeaking of challenges, Neuralink published a blog post describing that some of the threads retracted. And so the performance as measured by bits per second dropped at first, but then eventually it was regained. And the whole story of how it was regained is super interesting, that’s definitely something I’ll talk to Bliss and to Noland about.说到挑战，Neuralink 发布了一篇博文，描述了部分线程回缩的情况。因此以每秒比特数衡量的性能最初有所下降，但最终得到了恢复。整个恢复过程非常有趣，这肯定是我之后和 Bliss 以及 Noland 聊的话题。
Lex FridmanBut in general, can you speak to this whole experience, how was the performance regained, and just the technical aspects of the threads being retracted and moving?但总体来说，你能谈谈这整段经历吗？性能是如何恢复的，以及线程回缩和移动的技术细节？
DJ SeoThe main takeaway is that in the end, the performance have come back and it’s actually gotten better than it was before. He’s actually just beat the world record yet again last week to 8.5 bps. I mean, he’s just cranking and he’s just improving.最重要的结论是，最终性能不仅恢复了，而且实际上比之前还好。他上周刚以 8.5 bps 再次打破了世界纪录。他就是一直在突破，一直在进步。
Lex FridmanThe previous one that he said was eight.他之前说的是 8。
DJ SeoCorrect.对。
Lex FridmanI think he said 8.5.我记得他说是 8.5。
DJ SeoYeah. The previous world record in a human was 4.6, so it’s almost double. And his goal is to try to get to 10, which is roughly around the median neural linker using a mouse with a hand. So it’s getting there.是的。此前人类的世界纪录是 4.6，所以几乎翻了一倍。他的目标是争取达到 10，大概相当于用鼠标操控的普通 Neuralink 用户的中位水平。所以正在接近了。
Lex FridmanSo yeah, so the performance was regained.对，所以说，性能恢复了。
DJ SeoYeah, better than before. That’s a story on its own of what took the BCI team to recover that performance. It was actually mostly on the signal processing. And so as I mentioned, we were looking at these spike outputs from our electrodes, and what happened is that four weeks into the surgery we noticed that the threads have solely come out of the brain. And the way in which we noticed this at first obviously is that, well, I think Noland was the first to notice, that his performance was degrading. And I think at the time we were also trying to do a bunch of different experimentation, different algorithms, different UI, UX. So it was expected that there will be variability in the performance, but we did see a steady decline.是的，比之前还好。这背后有一段故事，讲的是 BCI 团队是如何把性能找回来的。主要还是靠信号处理。如我所说，我们在看电极输出的那些尖峰，发生的事情是：手术后四周，我们注意到线程慢慢地从大脑里退出来了。我们注意到这一点，最初其实是 Noland 先发现的，他的性能在下降。当时我们也在尝试很多不同的实验，不同的算法、不同的 UI/UX，所以性能出现波动是预期中的，但我们确实看到了持续的下滑。
DJ SeoAnd then also the way in which we measure the health of the electrodes or whether they’re in the brain or not, is by measuring impedance of the electrode. So we look at the interfacial, the Randles circuit they say, the capacitance and the resistance between the electrode surface and the medium. And if that changes in some dramatic ways, we have some indication. Or if you’re not seeing spikes on those channels, you have some indications that something’s happening there.我们判断电极是否在大脑中以及是否健康的方法之一，是测量电极的阻抗。我们看的是界面阻抗，就是所谓的 Randles 等效电路，即电极表面与介质之间的电容和电阻。如果这些参数发生剧烈变化，就是一个指示。或者如果你在某些通道上看不到尖峰，那也是出了问题的信号。
DJ SeoAnd what we noticed is that looking at those impedance plot and spike rate plots, and also because we have those electrodes recording along the depth, you are seeing some sort of movement that indicated that threads were being pulled out. And that obviously will have an implication on the model side because if the number of inputs that are going into the model is changing because you have less of them, that model needs to get updated.我们注意到，看那些阻抗图和尖峰率图，再加上我们沿着深度方向都有电极在记录，可以看到某种运动趋势，表明线程正在被往外拉。这显然会对模型侧产生影响，因为输入到模型的信号数量在减少，模型需要更新。
DJ SeoBut there were still signals, and as I mentioned, similar to how even when you place the signals on the surface of the brain or farther away, like outside the skull, you still see some useful signals. What we started looking at is not just the spike occurrence through this BOSS algorithm that I mentioned, but we started looking at just the power of the frequency band that is interesting for Noland to be able to modulate. Once we changed the algorithm for the implant to not just give you the BOSS output, but also these spike band power output, that helped us refine the model with a new set of inputs. And that was the thing that really ultimately gave us the performance back. And obviously the thing that we want ultimately and the thing that we are working towards, is figuring out ways in which we can keep those threads intact for as long as possible so that we have many more channels going into the model. That’s by far the number one priority that the team is currently embarking on to understand how to prevent that from happening.但信号还是有的，正如我之前提到的，即使把信号放在大脑表面甚至更远的颅骨外，你仍然能看到有用的信号。我们开始研究的，不只是通过我提到的 BOSS 算法来看尖峰出现，而是看对 Noland 来说他能调控的那个频段的能量功率。一旦我们把植入体的算法从只给 BOSS 输出改为同时给出这个尖峰频带功率输出，就帮助我们用新的一套输入来重新训练模型。这才是最终把性能找回来的关键。当然，我们最终想做到，也是团队正在攻克的头号优先级任务，是想办法让这些线程尽可能长时间保持完好，这样进入模型的通道数才会更多。
DJ SeoThe thing that I will say also is that, as I mentioned, this is the first time ever that we’re putting these threads in the human brain. And a human brain, just for size reference, is 10 times that of the monkey brain or the sheep brain. And it’s just a very, very different environment. It moves a lot more. It’s actually moved a lot more than we expected when we did Noland’s surgery. And it’s just a very, very different environment than what we’re used to. And this is why we do clinical trial, we want to uncover some of these issues and failure modes earlier than later.我还想说的是，如我所提，这是我们第一次把这些线程放入人脑。而人脑，从尺寸参考来说，是猴子大脑或羊大脑的 10 倍，环境完全不同。它的运动幅度要大得多，比我们在 Noland 手术时预期的还要大得多。这是一个与我们以往非常非常不同的环境。这也是为什么我们要做临床试验，我们希望尽早而不是推迟发现这些问题和失效模式。
DJ SeoSo in many ways, it’s provided us with this enormous amount of data and information to be able to solve this. And this is something that Neuralink is extremely good at, once we have set of clear objective and engineering problem, we have enormous amount of talents across many, many disciplines to be able to come together and fix the problem very, very quickly.所以在很多方面，这给了我们大量数据和信息去解决问题。这正是 Neuralink 非常擅长的，一旦有了清晰的目标和工程问题，我们就有来自众多领域的大量人才汇聚在一起，非常非常快速地把问题解决掉。
Lex FridmanBut it sounds like one of the fascinating challenges here is for the system on the decoding side to be adaptable across different timescales. So whether it’s movement of threads or different aspects of signal drift, sort of on the software or the human brain, something changing, like Noland talks about cursor drift, they could be corrected. And there’s a whole UX challenge to how to do that. So it sounds like adaptability is a fundamental property that has to be engineered in.但听起来，这里有一个迷人的挑战，就是系统在解码端需要能跨越不同时间尺度进行自适应。不管是线程的移动、信号漂移的各种因素，还是软件或人脑某些方面的变化，比如 Noland 谈到的光标漂移，都可以得到纠正。关于如何做到这一点，还有整个 UX 上的挑战。所以听起来，适应性是必须从工程上内建进去的一项基本特性。
DJ SeoIt is. I mean, as a company, we’re extremely vertically integrated. We make these thin-film arrays in our own microfab.是的。作为一家公司，我们是极度垂直整合的。我们在自己的微加工厂生产这些薄膜阵列。
Lex FridmanYeah, there’s like you said, built in-house. This whole paragraph here from this blog post is pretty gangster.对，就像你说的，是自己内部造的。这篇博文里这整段话真的很硬核。
Lex Fridman“Building the technologies described above has been no small feat,” and there’s a bunch of links here that I recommend people click on. “We constructed in-house microfabrication capabilities to rapidly produce various iterations of thin-film arrays that constitute our electrode threads. We created a custom femtosecond laser mill-“"构建上述这些技术绝非易事，"这里有一堆链接，我建议大家点进去看。"我们自建了微加工能力，可以快速迭代生产各种版本的薄膜阵列，即我们的电极线程。我们打造了一台定制飞秒激光铣——"
DJ Seo[inaudible 02:45:13].[听不清 02:45:13]。
Lex Fridman“… to manufacture components with micro level precision.” I think there’s a tweet associated with this."……以微米级精度制造部件。"我觉得有条推文跟这个相关。
DJ SeoThat’s a whole thing that we can get into.那是一大块内容，我们可以深入讲讲。
Lex FridmanYeah. Okay. What are we looking at here, this thing? “In less than one minute, our custom-made femtosecond laser mill cuts this geometry in the tips of our needles.” So we’re looking at this weirdly shaped needle. “The tip is only 10 to 12 microns in width, only slightly larger than the diameter of a red blood cell. The small size allows threads to be inserted with minimal damage to the cortex.”好。那我们在看什么？"不到一分钟，我们定制的飞秒激光铣就能在针头顶端切割出这个形状。"我们看的是这个形状奇特的针头。"针尖宽度仅 10 到 12 微米，只比红细胞直径略大一点。小巧的尺寸使得线程插入时对皮层的损伤降至最低。"
Lex FridmanOkay. So what’s interesting about this geometry? So we’re looking at this just geometry of a needle.好。那这个形状有什么特别的？我们看的就是这个针头的几何形状。
DJ SeoThis is the needle that’s engaging with the loops in the thread. They’re the ones that thread their loop, and then peel it from the silicon backing, and then this is the thing that gets inserted into the tissue. And then this pulls out, leaving the thread. And this kind of a notch or the shark tooth that we used to call, is the thing that actually is grasping the loop. And then it’s designed in such a way such that when you pull out, it leaves the loop.这是那根与线程上的环扣咬合的针头。它们把各自的环扣穿好，然后从硅衬底上剥离，接着这个针头被插入组织，再退出来，把线程留在里面。这个缺口，或者我们以前叫它鲨鱼齿，就是实际抓住环扣的部件。它的设计使得在拔出时，环扣就留下了。
Lex FridmanAnd the robot is controlling this needle?机器人在控制这根针头？
DJ SeoCorrect. So this is actually housed in a cannula, and basically the robot has a lot of the optics that look for where the loop is. There’s actually a 405 nanometer light that actually causes the polyimide to fluoresce so that you can locate the location of the loop.对。这根针头实际上是装在一根套管里的，机器人有大量光学系统来定位环扣的位置。有一道 405 纳米的光，会使聚酰亚胺发出荧光，这样就能找到环扣所在的位置。
Lex FridmanSo the loop lights up, is [inaudible 02:46:50]?”所以环扣会发光，是[听不清 02:46:50]？
DJ SeoYeah, yeah, they do. It’s a micron precision process.是的，是的，会的。这是一个微米级精度的工艺。
Lex FridmanWhat’s interesting about the robot that it takes to do that, that’s pretty crazy. That’s pretty crazy that robot is able to get this kind of precision.这台机器人能做到这种精度，真是挺不可思议的。这很疯狂，机器人能达到这种精度级别，真的很疯狂。
DJ SeoYeah, our robot is quite heavy, our current version of it. I mean, it’s like a giant granite slab that weighs about a ton, because it needs to be sensitive to vibration, environmental vibration. And then as the head is moving at the speed that it’s moving, there’s a lot of motion control to make sure that you can achieve that level of precision. A lot of optics that zoom in on that. We’re working on next generation of the robot that is lighter, easier to transport. I mean, it is a feat to move the robot to the surgical suite.我们的机器人相当重，至少现在这个版本是。就像一块巨大的花岗岩石板，重约一吨，因为它需要对环境振动非常敏感。然后当针头以那个速度运动时，需要大量运动控制来确保达到那个精度水平。还有大量用于放大的光学系统。我们正在研发下一代机器人，更轻、更便于转运。把机器人运进手术室本身就是一项壮举。
Lex FridmanAnd it’s far superior to a human surgeon at this time, for this particular task.对于这项特定任务来说，目前机器人远远优于人类外科医生。
DJ SeoAbsolutely. I mean, let alone you try to actually thread a loop in a sewing kit. We’re talking fractions of human error. These things, it’s not visible.绝对是。我的意思是，你自己试试用针线穿一个小环扣吧。我们说的是人类误差的几分之一。这些东西用肉眼根本看不见。
Lex FridmanSo continuing the paragraph. “We developed novel hardware and software testing systems, such as our accelerated lifetime testing racks and simulated surgery environment,” which is pretty cool, “to stress test and validate the robustness of our technologies. We performed many rehearsals of our surgeries to refine our procedures and make them second nature.” This is pretty cool.继续这段话。"我们开发了新颖的硬件和软件测试系统，比如我们的加速寿命测试架和模拟手术环境，"这很酷，"来对我们的技术进行压力测试和稳健性验证。我们进行了大量手术预演，以完善我们的流程，让它们成为本能。"这很酷。
Lex Fridman“We practice surgeries on proxies with all the hardware and instruments needed in our mock or in the engineering space. This helps us rapidly test and measure.” So there’s like proxies?"我们在模拟手术室里或工程空间里，用所有硬件和仪器对代理体进行手术练习，帮助我们快速测试和衡量。"所以有代理体？
DJ SeoYeah, this proxy is super cool actually. There’s a 3D printed skull from the images that is taken at [inaudible 02:48:34], as well as this hydrogel mix synthetic polymer thing that actually mimics the mechanical properties of the brain. It also has vasculature of the person.是的，这个代理体其实超酷。有一个根据[听不清 02:48:34]拍摄的图像 3D 打印的颅骨，还有一种水凝胶合成聚合物，能模拟大脑的机械特性。它还有当事人的血管分布。
DJ SeoBasically what we’re talking about here, and there’s a lot of work that has gone into making this set proxy, that it’s about finding the right concentration of these different synthetic polymers to get the right set of consistency for the needle dynamics as they’re being inserted. But we practice this surgery with Noland’s basically physiology and brain many, many times prior to actually doing the surgery.我们说的基本上是这样的，为了制作这套代理体花了大量工作：要找到这些不同合成聚合物的正确浓度配比，来获得正确的质地，使针头动力学在插入时与真实情况一致。但我们在 Noland 的生理结构和大脑的模型上，在真正手术之前已经练习了很多很多次。
Lex FridmanEvery step, every step, every-每一步，每一步，每一——
DJ SeoEvery step. Yeah. Like where does someone stand? I mean, what you’re looking at is the picture, this is in our office, of this corner of the robot engineering space that we have created this mock OR space that looks exactly like what they would experience, all the staff would during their actual surgery.每一步。对。比如每个人站哪里？你看到的这张图片，就是在我们办公室里，我们在机器人工程区这个角落创建的模拟手术室，它跟实际手术时所有工作人员将要经历的环境一模一样。
DJ SeoI mean, it’s just like any dance rehearsal where exactly where you’re going to stand at what point, and you just practice that over and over and over again with an exact anatomy of someone that you’re going to surgerize. And it got to a point where a lot of our engineers, when we created a craniectomy, they’re like, “Oh, that looks very familiar. We’ve seen that before.”就像任何一次舞蹈排练一样，明确你要在哪个时间点站在哪里，然后在某人的精确解剖结构上一遍又一遍地练习。到了一定程度，很多我们的工程师，当我们制作颅骨切开时，都说："哦，这看起来很眼熟，我们之前见过这个。"
Lex FridmanYeah. Man, there’s wisdom you can gain through doing the same thing over and over and over. It’s like Jiro Dreams of Sushi kind of thing because then … It’s like Olympic athletes visualize the Olympics and then once you actually show up, it feels easy. It feels like any other day. It feels almost boring winning the gold medal, because you visualized this so many times, you’ve practiced this so many times, that nothing about it is new. It’s boring. You win the gold medal, it’s boring. And the experience they talk about is mostly just relief, probably that they don’t have to visualize it anymore.是的。反复做同一件事能获得的智慧……这就像《二郎寿司梦》里的那种东西，因为那样……就像奥运运动员会在脑海中预演奥运比赛，等到你真正出场的时候，感觉很轻松，感觉像任何普通的一天。感觉摘金牌无聊极了，因为你已经在脑海中预演了太多遍，练习了太多遍，没有任何东西是陌生的。无聊透了。你赢了金牌，索然无味。他们描述的体验主要就是解脱，大概是终于不用再预演了。
DJ SeoYeah, the power of the mind to visualize and where … I mean, there’s a whole field that studies where muscle memory lies in cerebellum. Yeah, it’s incredible.是的，心智可视化的力量……我的意思是，有整个研究领域专门研究肌肉记忆储存在小脑的哪里。太不可思议了。
Lex FridmanI think it’s a good place to actually ask the big question that people might have, is how do we know every aspect of this that you described is safe?我觉得这是一个可以提出大家心里那个大问题的好时机：我们如何知道你描述的这一切中的每一个方面都是安全的？
DJ SeoAt the end of the day, the gold standard is to look at the tissue. What sort of trauma did you cause the tissue, and does that correlate to whatever behavioral anomalies that you may have seen? And that’s the language to which we can communicate about the safety of inserting something into the brain and what type of trauma that you can cause.说到底，黄金标准就是看组织。你对组织造成了何种创伤，这与你可能观察到的任何行为异常是否相关？这就是我们用来评估往大脑里插入东西的安全性以及可能造成何种创伤的语言。
DJ SeoWe actually have an entire department, department of pathology, that looks at these tissue slices. There are many steps that are involved in doing this. Once you have studies that are launched with particular endpoints in mind, at some point you have to euthanize the animal, and then you go through necropsy to collect the brain tissue samples. You fix them in formalin, and you gross them, you section them, and you look at individual slices just to see what kind of reaction or lack thereof exists.我们实际上有一个完整的部门——病理学部门——专门研究这些组织切片。这里面涉及很多步骤。一旦启动了以特定终点为目标的研究，到某个节点就必须对动物实施安乐死，然后通过解剖收集脑组织样本。用福尔马林固定，然后剥离、切片，观察单个切片，看是否存在什么反应，或者没有反应。
DJ SeoSo that’s the language to which FDA speaks and as well for us to evaluate the safety of the insertion mechanism, as well as the threats at various different time points, both acute, so anywhere between zero to three months to beyond three months.这就是 FDA 的话语体系，也是我们评估插入机制安全性以及不同时间节点（急性期，即零到三个月，以及三个月以上）的线程安全性的语言。
Lex FridmanSo those are the details of an extremely high standard of safety that has to be reached.所以这些就是必须达到的极高安全标准的具体细节。
DJ SeoCorrect.对。
Lex FridmanThe FDA supervises this, but there’s in general just a very high standard, in every aspect of this, including the surgery. I think Matthew MacDougall has mentioned that the standard is, let’s say how to put it politely, higher than maybe some other operations that we take for granted. So the standard for all the surgical stuff here is extremely high.FDA 监管这一切，但总体来说有非常高的标准，在这一切的每个方面都是，包括手术本身。我想 Matthew MacDougall 也提到过，这里的标准可以说——礼貌地说——比我们习以为常的某些手术要高得多。所以这里所有手术事项的标准都极其严苛。
DJ SeoVery high. I mean, it’s a highly, highly regulated environment with the governing agencies that scrutinize every, every medical device that gets marketed. And I think it’s a good thing. It’s good to have those high standards, and we try to hold extremely high standards to understand what sort of damage, if any, these innovative emerging technologies and new technologies that we’re building are. And so far we have been extremely impressed by lack of immune response from these threads.非常高。这是一个高度、高度监管的环境，有监管机构对每一款上市的医疗器械进行审查。我认为这是好事，有这么高的标准很好。我们也力图保持极高的标准，去理解这些我们正在构建的创新新兴技术和新技术，如果有的话，会造成何种损伤。迄今为止，这些线程几乎没有引起免疫反应，这让我们极为欣喜。
Lex FridmanSpeaking of which, you talked to me with excitement about the histology in some of the images that you’re able to share. Can you explain to me what we’re looking at?说到这，你之前兴奋地跟我说过组织学，以及你能分享的一些图像。你能解释一下我们看到的是什么吗？
DJ SeoYeah, so what you’re looking at is a stained tissue image. This is a sectioned tissue slice from an animal that was implanted for seven months, so a chronic time point. And you’re seeing all these different colors, and each color indicates specific types of cell types. So purple and pink are astrocytes and microglia, respectably. They’re types of glial cells.好，你看到的是一张染色的组织图像。这是一块从植入七个月后——慢性时间节点——取出的动物脑组织的切片。你能看到各种不同的颜色，每种颜色代表特定类型的细胞。紫色和粉红色分别是星形胶质细胞和小胶质细胞，它们都是胶质细胞的类型。
DJ SeoAnd the other thing that people may not be aware of is your brain is not just made up of soup of neurons and axons. There are other cells, like glial cells, that actually is the glue and also react if there are any trauma or damage to the tissue.另一个很多人可能不知道的是，你的大脑并不只是由一锅神经元和轴突构成。还有其他细胞，比如胶质细胞，它实际上是大脑的"胶水"，如果组织受到任何创伤或损伤，它也会做出反应。
Lex FridmanWith the brown or the neurons here?棕色的是神经元，还是这里的？
DJ SeoThe brown are the neurons and the blue is nuclei.棕色是神经元，蓝色是细胞核。
Lex FridmanIt’s a lot of neurons.有好多神经元。
DJ SeoThe neuro nucle.神经核。
Lex FridmanSo what you’re seeing is in this macro image, you’re seeing these circle highlighted in white, the insertion sites. And when you zoom into one of those, you see the threads. And then in this particular case, I think we’re seeing about the 16 wires that are going into the [inaudible 02:54:56]. And the incredible thing here is the fact that you have the neurons that are these brown structures or brown circular or elliptical thing-所以你在这张宏观图中看到的，是这些用白色高亮显示的圆圈，是插入位点。当你放大其中一个，就能看到线程。在这个具体的例子里，我认为我们看到了大约 16 根导线插入[听不清 02:54:56]。这里令人难以置信的是，那些棕色的结构——那些棕色的圆形或椭圆形的东西——
DJ Seo… are these brown structures or brown circular or elliptical thing that are actually touching and abutting the threads. So what this is saying is that there’s basically zero trauma that’s caused during this insertion. And with these neural interfaces, these micro electrons that you insert, that is one of the most common mode of failure. So when you insert these threads like the Utah Array, it causes neuronal death around the site because you’re inserting a foreign object.……就是那些实际上正在触碰和紧贴着线程的棕色圆形或椭圆形结构。这说明插入过程造成的创伤基本上为零。在这些神经接口和你插入的这些微型电极中，这是最常见的失效模式之一。当你插入 Utah Array 这类东西时，会导致插入位点周围神经元死亡，因为你插入了一个异物。
DJ SeoAnd that elicit these immune response through microglia and astrocytes, they form this protective layer around it. Oh, not only are you killing the neuron cells, but you’re also creating this protective layer that then basically prevents you from recording neural signals because you’re getting further and further away from the neurons that you’re trying to record. And that is the biggest mode of failure. And in this particular example, in that inside it’s about 50 micron with that scale bar, the neurons seem to be attracted to it.这会通过小胶质细胞和星形胶质细胞引发免疫反应，形成一道保护层包裹它。不仅如此，你不只是在杀死神经细胞，还在建一道隔离层，这层隔离让你与你想要记录的神经元越来越远，从而无法记录神经信号。这是最大的失效模式。在这个例子中，按那个比例尺，方圆约 50 微米内，神经元看起来像是被它吸引过来的。
Lex FridmanAnd so there’s certainly no trauma. That’s such a beautiful image, by the way. So the brown at the neurons, and for some reason I can’t look away. It’s really cool.所以确实没有任何创伤。顺便说一句，这张图太美了。棕色是神经元，我不知为何根本看不够。真的太酷了。
DJ SeoYeah. And the way that these things… Tissues generally don’t have these beautiful colors. This is multiplex stain that uses these different proteins that are staining these at different colors. We use very standard set of staining techniques with H&E, EVA1 and NeuN and GFAB. So if you go to the next image, this is also kind of illustrates the second point because you can make an argument, and initially when we saw the previous image, we said, “Oh, are the threads just floating? What is happening here? Are we actually looking at the right thing?” So what we did is we did another stain, and this is all done in-house of this Masson’s tricrome stain, which is in blue that shows these collagen layer. So the blue, basically, you don’t want the blue around the implant threads. Because that means that there’s some sort of scarring that’s happened. And what you’re seeing if you look at individual threads is that you don’t see any of the blue. Which means that there has been absolutely, or very, very minimal to a point where it’s not detectable amount of trauma in these inserted threads.是的。而且这些东西……组织通常不会有这些漂亮的颜色。这是使用不同蛋白质将不同部分染成不同颜色的多重染色技术。我们使用的是非常标准的染色技术，包括 H&E、EVA1、NeuN 和 GFAP。如果你切到下一张图，这张图也说明了第二个点，因为你可以提出质疑——我们看到之前那张图时最初也说："哦，那些线程是不是只是漂在那里？这里到底发生了什么？我们真的看到的是对的东西吗？"所以我们又做了另一种染色，这也是在内部完成的，是 Masson 三色染色，蓝色部分显示胶原层。所以那个蓝色，基本上你不想在植入线程周围看到蓝色，因为那意味着发生了某种瘢痕。如果你看单根线程，你看不到任何蓝色。这意味着这些插入的线程几乎没有，或者极少量到无法检测到的创伤。
Lex FridmanSo that presumably is one of the big benefits of having this kind of flexible thread? This-所以这大概是拥有这种柔性线程的一大优势？这个——
DJ SeoYeah. So we think this is primarily due to the size as well as the flexibility of the threads. Also, the fact that R1 is avoiding vasculature, so we’re not disrupting or we’re not causing damage to the vessels and not breaking any of the blood brain barrier, has basically caused the immune response to be muted.是的。我们认为这主要是由于线程的尺寸以及柔韧性。另外，R1 在避开血管方面做得很好，所以我们没有破坏血管，没有破坏血脑屏障，这使得免疫反应基本上被抑制住了。
Lex FridmanBut this is also a nice illustration of the size of things. So this is the tip of the thread?但这也很好地展示了事物的尺寸感。这是线程的尖端？
DJ SeoYeah, those are neurons.是的，那些是神经元。
Lex FridmanAnd they’re neurons. And this is the thread listening. And the electrodes are positioned how?它们是神经元。这是正在监听的线程。那电极是怎么排布的？
DJ SeoYeah. So what you’re looking at is not electrode themselves, those are the conductive wires. So each of those should probably be two micron in width. So what we’re looking at is, we’re looking at the coronal slice, so we’re looking at some slice of the tissue. So as you go deeper, you’ll obviously have less and less of the tapering of the thread. But yeah, the point basically being that there’s just cells around the inserter site, which is just an incredible thing to see. I’ve just never seen anything like this.是的。你看到的实际上不是电极本身，那些是导电导线。每一根大概只有 2 微米宽。我们看的是冠状切面，就是一个横截面。随着深度增加，线程的锥形程度自然会越来越小。但关键点就是，插入位点周围全是细胞，这真的是令人难以置信的事情。我从未见过类似的东西。
Lex FridmanHow easy and safe is it to remove the implant?取出植入体有多容易，安全性如何？
DJ SeoYeah, so it depends on when. In the first three months or so after the surgery, there’s a lot of tissue modeling that’s happening. Similar to when you got a cut, you obviously start over first couple of weeks or depending on the size of the wound, scar tissue forming, there are these contractive, and then in the end they turn into scab and you can scab it off. The same thing happens in the brain. And it’s a very dynamic environment. And before the scar tissue or the neo membrane or the new membrane that forms, it’s quite easy to just pull them out. And there’s minimal trauma that’s caused during that.这取决于什么时候取出。手术后大约头三个月，会有大量的组织塑形正在发生。就像你划破皮肤，在头几周，或者根据伤口大小，瘢痕组织会形成，出现收缩，最终形成结痂可以被拨掉。大脑里同样的事情也会发生。这是一个非常动态的环境。在瘢痕组织或新形成的新生膜形成之前，直接把线程拔出来是相当容易的，造成的创伤也非常小。
DJ SeoOnce the scar tissue forms, and with Noland as well, we believe that that’s the thing that’s currently anchoring the threats. So we haven’t seen any more movements since then. So they’re quite stable. It gets harder to actually completely extract the threads. So our current method for removing the device is cutting the thread, leaving the tissue intact, and then unscrewing and taking the implant out. And that hole is now going to be plugged with either another Neuralink or just with a peak based, plastic based cap.一旦瘢痕组织形成——Noland 也是这样，我们认为正是这个在目前固定住了线程——此后我们就没有再看到任何移动。所以它们相当稳定了。要完整地把线程取出来就变得更难了。所以我们目前取出设备的方法是切断线程，让组织保持完整，然后拧开螺丝取出植入体。那个孔之后会用另一个 Neuralink 或者一个基于 PEEK 塑料的帽子来填补。
Lex FridmanIs it okay to leave the threads in there forever?把线程永远留在那里可以吗？
DJ SeoYeah, we think so. We’ve done studies where we left them there and one of the biggest concerns that we had is, do they migrate and do they get to a point where they should not be? We haven’t seen that. Again. Once the scar tissue forms, they get anchored in place. And I should also say that when we say upgrades, we’re not just talking in theory here, we’ve actually upgraded many, many times. Most of our monkeys or non-human primates, NHP, have been upgraded. Pager, who you saw playing mind pong has the latest version of the device since two years ago and is seemingly very happy and healthy and fat.我们认为可以。我们做过研究，把它们留在那里，我们最大的担忧之一是它们会不会迁移到不应该去的地方。我们没有观察到这种情况。同样，一旦瘢痕组织形成，它们就被固定住了。我还应该补充，当我们说升级时，不只是在理论上说说，我们实际上已经升级了很多很多次。我们的大多数猴子，或者说非人灵长类动物 NHP，都已经升级过了。你看到它玩意念乒乓的 Pager，在两年前就已经安装了最新版本的设备，看起来非常快乐健康，吃得很好。
Lex FridmanSo what’s designed for the future, the upgrade procedure? So maybe for Noland, what would the upgrade look like? It was essentially what you’re mentioning. Is there a way to upgrade the device internally where you take it apart and keep the capsule and upgrade the internals?那未来的升级程序是怎么设计的？比如对于 Noland，升级会是什么样子？你基本上提到了这一点。有没有办法在内部升级设备，保留胶囊而只更换内部组件？
DJ SeoSo there are a couple of different things here. So for Noland, if we were to upgrade, what we would have to do is either cut the threads or extract the threads depending on the situation there in terms of how they’re anchored or scarred in. If you were to remove them with the dual substitute, you have an intact brain, so you can reinsert different threads with the updated implant package. There are a couple of different other ways that we’re thinking about the future of what the upgradable system looks like. One is, at the moment we currently remove the dura, this kind of thick layer that protects the brain, but that actually is the thing that actually proliferates the scar tissue formation. So typically, the general rule of thumb is you want to leave the nature as is and not disrupt it as much. So looking at ways to insert the threats through the dura, which comes with different set of challenges such as, it’s a pretty thick layer, so how do you actually penetrate that without breaking the needle?这里有几种不同的情况。对于 Noland，如果要升级，我们就需要根据线程当时的固定或瘢痕情况，要么切断要么取出线程。如果你把它们连同硬脑膜替代物一起移除，大脑是完好的，那么就可以用更新版的植入体插入新的线程。关于未来可升级系统的形态，我们也在考虑几种不同的方式。一种是，目前我们会移除硬脑膜——这层保护大脑的厚层——但硬脑膜实际上正是促使瘢痕组织形成的东西。通常来说，原则是尽量维持原状，不要过多干扰它。所以我们在研究如何穿过硬脑膜插入线程，这带来了不同的挑战，比如它相当厚，怎么在不折断针头的情况下穿透它？
DJ SeoSo we’re looking at different needle design for that as well as the kind of the loop engagement. The other biggest challenges are, it’s quite opaque, optically with white light illumination. So how do you avoid still this biggest advantage that we have of avoiding vasculature? How do you image through that? How do you actually still mediate that? So there are other imaging techniques that we’re looking at to enable that. But the goal, our hypothesis is that, and based on some of the early evidence that we have, doing through the dura insertion will cause minimal scarring that causes them to be much easier to extract over time. And the other thing that we’re also looking at, this is going to be a fundamental change in the implant architecture, is as at the moment, it’s a monolithic single implant that comes with a thread that’s bonded together.所以我们也在研究针对这种情况的不同针头设计以及环扣咬合方式。另一个主要挑战是，它在白光照射下相当不透明，光学上难以成像。那么你如何仍然发挥我们最大的优势——避开血管——？你如何透过它成像？如何做到这一点？我们正在研究其他成像技术来实现这一点。但我们的目标和假设是，基于我们目前已有的一些早期证据，穿过硬脑膜插入会导致极少的瘢痕，使得它们随着时间推移更容易取出。另一件我们也在考虑的事情，这将是植入体架构上的根本性变化，是目前它是一个整体式的单一植入体，线程和主体是连接在一起的。
DJ SeoSo you can’t actually separate the thing out, but you can imagine having two part implant, bottom part that is the thread that are inserted that has the chips and maybe a radio and some power source. And then you have another implant that has more of the computational heavy load and the bigger battery. And then one can be under the dura, one can be above the dura being the plug for the skull. They can talk to each other, but the thing that you want to upgrade, the computer and not the thread, if you want to upgrade that, you just go in there, remove the screws, and then put in the next version. And you’re off the… It’s a very, very easy surgery too. You do a skin incision, slip this in, screw. Probably be able to do this in 10 minutes.所以你无法把它们分开，但你可以想象有一个两部分的植入体，底部是插入的线程，上面有芯片，也许有一个无线电和某种电源。然后还有一个植入体承担更多计算负载和更大的电池。一个可以在硬脑膜下方，一个可以在硬脑膜上方充当颅骨的插座。它们可以相互通信，但你想升级的那部分——计算单元而不是线程——如果你想升级它，只需进去，拧开螺丝，装上下一个版本就行了。这是一台非常非常简单的手术，做一个皮肤切口，滑进去，拧紧。大概 10 分钟就能搞定。
Lex FridmanSo that would allow you to reuse the thread sort of?这样就可以复用那部分线程了？
DJ SeoCorrect.对。
Lex FridmanSo I mean, this leads to the natural question of what is the pathway to scaling the increase in the number of threads? Is that a priority? What’s the technical challenge there?所以这自然引出一个问题：增加线程数量的路径是什么？这是一个优先项吗？技术挑战在哪里？
DJ SeoYeah, that is a priority. So for next versions of the implant, the key metrics that we’re looking to improve are number of channels, just recording from more and more neurons. We have a pathway to actually go from currently 1000 to hopefully 3000, if not 6,000 by end of this year.是的，这是一个优先项。对于下一代植入体，我们希望改进的关键指标是通道数——从越来越多的神经元录入信号。我们有一条路径，可以从目前的 1000 个通道增加到今年年底有望达到 3000，甚至 6000 个。
Lex FridmanWow.哇。
DJ SeoAnd then end of next year we want to get to even more. 16,000.然后明年年底我们想达到更多——16,000 个。
Lex FridmanWow.哇。
DJ SeoThere’s a couple of limitations to that. One is, obviously being able to photolithographically, print those wires. As I mentioned, it’s two micron in width and spacing. Obviously, there are chips that are much more advanced than those types of resolution and we have some of the tools that we have brought in house to be able to do that. So traces will be narrower just so that you have to have more of the wires coming up into the chip. Chips also cannot linearly consume more energy as you have more and more channels. So there’s a lot of innovations in the circuit, and architecture as well as the circuit design topology to make them lower power. You need to also think about if you have all of these spikes, how do you send that off to the end application. So you need to think about bandwidth limitation there and potentially innovations and signal processing.这有几个限制因素。一是能否用光刻技术印出那些导线。如我所说，每根是 2 微米宽、2 微米间距。显然有些芯片拥有比这更先进的分辨率，我们已经引进了一些设备来做到这一点。所以走线会更窄，这样才能在更小的面积里容纳更多导线连接到芯片。芯片也不能随着通道数线性增加而线性消耗更多能量，所以电路架构和电路设计拓扑上需要大量创新来降低功耗。你还需要想，如果有这么多的尖峰信号，怎么传输给终端应用。所以需要考虑带宽限制，以及信号处理上可能的创新。
DJ SeoPhysically, one of the biggest challenges is going to be the interface. It’s always the interface that breaks bonding this thin film array to the electronics. It starts to become very, very highly dense interconnects. So how you connectivise that? There’s a lot of innovations in the 3D integrations in the recent years that we can take advantage of. One of the biggest challenges that we do have is forming this hermetic barrier. This is an extremely harsh environment that we’re in, the brain. So how do you protect it from, yeah, the brain trying to kill your electronics, to also your electronics leaking things that you don’t want into the brain. And that forming that hermetic barrier is going to be a very, very big challenge that we, I think are actually well suited to tackle.从物理上看，最大的挑战之一将是接口。永远是接口——把这个薄膜阵列与电子元器件连接的接口——是最容易断的。它开始变成极高密度的互连。你怎么实现这种连接？近年来 3D 集成方面有很多创新可以借鉴。我们面临的另一个最大挑战是如何形成气密封装。这是一个极其恶劣的环境——大脑。你既要保护电子元器件不被大脑侵蚀，又要确保电子元器件不把不该有的东西渗漏进大脑。形成这道气密封装将是一个非常非常大的挑战，而我认为我们其实非常适合去解决它。
Lex FridmanHow do you test that? What’s the development environment to simulate that kind of harshness?你们如何测试这一点？模拟这种恶劣程度的开发测试环境是什么样的？
DJ SeoYeah, so this is where the accelerated life tester essentially is a brain in a vat. It literally is a vessel that is made up of, and again, for all intents and purpose for this particular type of test, your brain is a salt water. And you can also put some other set of chemicals like reactive oxygen species that get at these interfaces and trying to cause a reaction to pull it apart. But you could also increase the rate at which these interfaces are aging by just increasing temperature. So every 10 degrees Celsius that you increase, you’re basically accelerating time by two X.是这样，加速寿命测试仪本质上就是一个缸子里的大脑。字面意思就是一个容器，它由……对于这类特定测试来说，大脑就是盐水。你还可以加入一些其他化学物质，比如活性氧，它们会攻击这些接口，试图引发反应把它拆开。而且你还可以通过单纯升温来加速这些接口的老化速率。温度每升高 10 摄氏度，老化速度基本上就加快 2 倍。
DJ SeoAnd there’s limit as to how much temperature you want to increase because at some point there’s some other nonlinear dynamics that causes you to have other nasty gases to form that just is not realistic in an environment. So what we do is we increase in our ALT chamber by 20 degrees Celsius that increases the aging by four times. So essentially one day in ALT chamber is four day in calendar year, and we look at whether the implants still are intact, including the threats. And-温度能升多高是有限制的，因为到某个程度会有一些其他非线性动态，导致产生一些在实际环境中根本不存在的难看气体。所以我们在 ALT 腔体里升温 20 摄氏度，这使老化速度加快 4 倍。实际上，ALT 腔体里的一天相当于现实中的四天，我们观察植入体是否仍然完好，包括那些线程。还有——
Lex FridmanAnd operation and all of that.……还有运行状态以及所有那些。
DJ Seo… and operation and all of that. Obviously, is not an exact same environment as a brain because brain has mechanical other more biological groups that attack at it. But it is a good test environment, testing environment for at least the enclosure and the strength of the enclosure. And I mean, we’ve had implants, the current version of the implant that has been in there for close to two and a half years, which is equivalent to a decade and they seem to be fine.……还有运行状态和所有那些。显然，这不是与大脑完全相同的环境，因为大脑有机械性的和其他更多生物性的因素在侵蚀它。但对于至少测试外壳以及外壳强度来说，这是一个很好的测试环境。我们现在已经有当前版本的植入体在里面放了接近两年半了，相当于十年，看起来状态良好。
Lex FridmanSo it’s interesting that basically close approximation is warm salt water, hot salt water is a good testing environment.有趣的是，热盐水基本上是一个很好的近似测试环境。
DJ SeoYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanBy the way, I’m drinking LMNT , which is basically salt water. Which is making me kind of… It doesn’t have computational power the way the brain does, but maybe in terms of other characteristics, it’s quite similar and I’m consuming it.顺便说一句，我正在喝 LMNT，基本上就是盐水。这让我有点……它没有大脑那样的计算能力，但在其他特性上，也许相当接近，然后我就把它喝进去了。
DJ SeoYeah. You have to get it in the right pH too.是的，你还得把 pH 调对才行。
Lex FridmanAnd then consciousness will emerge. Yeah, no. All right.然后意识就会涌现出来。对，好吧。
DJ SeoBy the way, the other thing that also is interesting about our enclosure is, if you look at our implant, it’s not your common looking medical implant that usually is encased in a titanium can that’s laser welded. We use this polymer called PCTFE, polychlorotrifluoroethylene, which is actually commonly used in blister packs. So when you have a pill and you try to pop a pill, there’s kind of that plastic membrane. That’s what this is. No one’s actually ever used this except us. And the reason we wanted to do this is because electromagnetically transparent. So when we talked about the electromagnetic inductive charging, with titanium can usually if you want to do something like that, you have to have a sapphire window and it’s a very, very tough process to scale.顺便说一句，我们外壳还有一件有趣的事情：如果你看我们的植入体，它不是你常见的那种医疗植入体——通常是装在激光焊接的钛罐里。我们用的是一种叫 PCTFE，即聚氯三氟乙烯的聚合物，它实际上常用于泡罩包装。就是你要把一粒药弹出来时，那种塑料薄膜。除了我们没有人真正用过这个。我们想用它的原因是因为它在电磁上是透明的。当我们谈到电磁感应充电时，用钛罐的话，如果你想这样做，你就必须开一个蓝宝石窗口，那是一个非常非常难以规模化的工艺。
Lex FridmanSo you’re doing a lot of iteration here in every aspect of this. The materials, the software, all.所以你们在这里的每一个方面都在进行大量迭代——材料、软件，所有的一切。
DJ SeoThe whole shebang.整个都在迭代。
Lex FridmanOkay. So you mentioned scaling. Is it possible to have multiple Neuralink devices as one of the ways of scaling? To have multiple Neuralink devices implanted?好。那你提到了规模化。植入多个 Neuralink 设备，作为规模化的方式之一，这可行吗？植入多个 Neuralink 设备？
DJ SeoThat’s the goal. That’s the goal. Yeah. I mean, our monkeys have had two neural links, one in each hemisphere. And then we’re also looking at potential of having one in motor cortex, one in visual cortex and one in wherever other cortex.这是目标。这是目标。是的。我的意思是，我们的猴子已经装了两个 Neuralink，每个半球各一个。我们也在研究在运动皮层装一个、视觉皮层装一个、以及其他皮层各装一个的可能性。
Lex FridmanSo focusing on the particular function one Neuralink device.让每个 Neuralink 设备专注于特定功能。
DJ SeoCorrect.对。
Lex FridmanI mean, I wonder if there’s some level of customization that can be done on the compute side. So for the motor cortex-我想知道在计算端是否可以做一些定制化。比如运动皮层的——
DJ SeoAbsolutely. That’s the goal. And we talk about at Neuralink building a generalized neural interface to the brain. And that also is strategically how we’re approaching this with marketing and also with regulatory, which is, hey, look, we have the robot and the robot can access any part of the cortex. Right now we’re focused on motor cortex with current version of the N1 that’s specialized for motor decoding tasks. But also at the end of the day, there’s a general compute available there. But typically if you want to really get down to hyperoptimizing for power and efficiency, you do need to get to some specialized function.当然。这是目标。我们在 Neuralink 谈论的是构建一个通用的大脑神经接口。这也是我们从市场和监管角度战略性规划的方式：看，我们有这台机器人，它可以到达皮层的任何部位。我们现在专注于运动皮层，搭配当前版本的 N1——它专门针对运动解码任务进行了优化。但说到底，那里有通用计算能力。不过通常如果你真的想把功耗和效率超优化到极致，你确实需要做到某种专用化功能。
DJ SeoBut what we’re saying is that, hey, you are now used to this robotic insertion techniques, which took many, many years of showing data and conversation with the FDA and also internally convincing ourselves that this is safe. And now the difference is if we go to other parts of the brain, like visual cortex, which we’re interested in as our second product, obviously it’s a completely different environment, the cortex is laid out very, very differently. It’s going to be more stimulation focus rather than recording, just kind of creating visual percepts. But in the end, we’re using the same thin film array technology, we’re using the same robot insertion technology, we’re using the same packaging technology. Now it’s where the conversation is focused around what are the differences and what are the implication of those differences in safety and efficacy.但我们的意思是，你现在已经习惯了这种机器人插入技术，这花了很多很多年的数据积累和与 FDA 的沟通，以及在内部说服自己这是安全的。现在的不同之处在于，如果我们要去大脑的其他部位，比如我们下一个产品感兴趣的视觉皮层，那显然是一个完全不同的环境，皮层的布局非常非常不同。它将更侧重于刺激而非录入，就是创造视觉感知。但最终，我们用的是同样的薄膜阵列技术、同样的机器人插入技术、同样的封装技术。现在对话的焦点就集中在差异是什么，以及这些差异对安全性和有效性有什么影响。
Lex FridmanThe way you said second product is both hilarious and awesome to me. That product being restoring sight for blind people. So can you speak to stimulating the visual cortex? I mean, the possibilities there are just incredible to be able to give that gift back to people who don’t have sight or even any aspect of that. Can you just speak to the challenges of… There’s challenges here-你说"第二款产品"的方式既好笑又太酷了，那款产品是为盲人恢复视力。你能谈谈刺激视觉皮层的事吗？那里的可能性就是令人难以置信——能够把这份礼物还给那些失去视力的人，或者哪怕是在任何程度上做到这一点。你能说说……这里有挑战——
DJ SeoOh many.哦，太多了。
Lex FridmanOne of which is like you said, from recording to stimulation. Just any aspect of that that you’re both excited and see the challenges of?挑战之一是你刚才说的，从录入到刺激。有没有什么方面是你既感到兴奋又看到挑战的？
DJ SeoYeah, I guess I’ll start by saying that we actually have been capable of stimulating through our thin film array as well as other electronics for years. We have actually demonstrated some of that capabilities for reanimating the limb in the spinal cord. Obviously, for the current EFS study, we’ve hardware disabled that. So that’s something that we wanted to embark as a separate journey. And obviously, there are many, many different ways to write information into the brain. The way in which we’re doing that is through electrical, passing electrical current, and kind of causing that to really change the local environment so that you can artificially cause the neurons to depolarize in nearby areas. For vision, specifically the way our visual system works, it’s both well understood. I mean, anything with kind of brain, there are aspects of it that’s well understood, but in the end, we don’t really know anything.是的，我想先说的是，我们实际上已经能够通过我们的薄膜阵列以及其他电子元件进行刺激，这已经好几年了。我们实际上已经展示了一些能力，比如让脊髓的肢体恢复运动。当然，对于目前的 EFS 研究，我们在硬件上禁用了这一功能。所以这是我们想作为独立旅程来推进的事情。显然，向大脑写入信息有很多很多不同的方法。我们正在采用的方式是通过电刺激，通过传递电流，让局部环境发生变化，从而人工引起附近区域的神经元去极化。对于视觉，我们的视觉系统的工作方式，某种程度上是很好理解的——我的意思是，大脑的任何东西，都有一些方面是已知的，但最终，我们其实什么都不真正了解。
DJ SeoBut the way visual system works is that you have photon hitting your eye, and in your eyes there are these specialized cells called photoreceptor cells that convert the photon energy into electrical signals. And then that then gets projected to your back of your head, your visual cortex. It goes through actually thalamic system called LGN that then projects it out. And then in the visual cortex there’s visual area one or V1, and then there’s a bunch of other higher level processing layers like V2, V3. And there are actually kind of interesting parallels. And when you study the behaviors of these convolutional neural networks, like what the different layers of the network is detecting, first they’re detecting these edges and they’re then detecting some more natural curves and then they start to detect objects.但视觉系统的工作方式是这样的：光子打到你的眼睛，眼睛里有一种叫做光感受器细胞的特化细胞，把光子能量转化为电信号。然后这信号被投射到你后脑，即视觉皮层。它实际上会经过一个叫做 LGN 的丘脑系统，再投射出去。然后在视觉皮层里，有视觉区域一，即 V1，还有一堆其他更高级别的处理层，如 V2、V3。实际上有一些有趣的相似之处——当你研究卷积神经网络的行为，即网络的不同层在检测什么时：最初它们检测边缘，然后检测更自然的曲线，然后开始检测物体。
DJ SeoKind of similar thing happens in the brain. And a lot of that has been inspired and also it’s been kind of exciting to see some of the correlations there. But things like from there, where does cognition arise and where’s color encoded? There’s just not a lot of understanding, fundamental understanding there. So in terms of bringing sight back to those that are blind, there are many different forms of blindness. There’s actually million people, 1 million people in the US that are legally blind. That means certain score below in the visual tests. I think it’s something like if you can see something at 20 feet distance that normal people can see at 200 feet distance, if you’re worse than that, you’re legally blind.大脑里发生的事情有些类似。很多这些研究启发了一些灵感，而看到其中的一些关联也很令人振奋。但是，从那里往上，认知在哪里产生，颜色在哪里编码，这些方面真的缺乏基础性理解。所以在谈到为盲人恢复视力时，有很多不同类型的失明。实际上美国有 100 万人是法律上的盲人，意思是在视力测试中低于某个分数。我想大概是，如果你在 20 英尺距离看到正常人在 200 英尺才能看清的东西，如果你还没达到这个水平，你就是法律上的盲人。
Lex FridmanSo fundamental that means you can’t function effectively using sight in the world.这从根本上意味着你无法有效地依靠视力在世界上行动。
DJ SeoLike to navigate-比如要导航——
Lex FridmanTo navigate.要导航。
DJ Seo… you’re environment. And yeah, there are different forms of blindness. There are forms of blindness where there’s some degeneration of your retina is photoreceptor cells and rest of your visual processing that I described is intact. And for those types of individuals, you may not need to maybe stick electrodes into the visual cortex. You can actually build retinal prosthetic devices that actually just replaces the function of that retinal cells that are degenerated. And there are many companies that are working on that, but that’s a very small slice albeit significance, those smaller slice of folks that are legally blind.……你所处的环境。是的，有不同类型的失明。有一些失明的形式是视网膜的光感受器细胞退化，而我描述的视觉处理系统的其余部分是完好的。对于这类人，也许不需要把电极插进视觉皮层。实际上可以构建视网膜假体设备，来替代那些退化的视网膜细胞的功能。有很多公司在做这方面的工作，但这只是法律失明人群中一个相对较小的——尽管意义重大的——群体。
DJ SeoIf there’s any damage along that circuitry, whether it’s in the optic nerve or just the LGN circuitry or any break in that circuit, that’s not going to work for you. And the source of where you need to actually cause that visual percepts to happen because your biological mechanism not doing that is by placing electrodes in the visual cortex in the back of your head. And the way in which this would work is that you would have an external camera, whether it’s something as unsophisticated as a GoPro or some sort of wearable Ray- Ban type glasses that meta is working on that captures a scene. And that scene is then converted to a set of electrical impulses or stimulation pulses that you would activate in your visual cortex through these thin film arrays. And by playing some a concerted kind of orchestra of these stimulation patterns, you can create what’s called phosphenes, which are these kind of white yellowish dots that you can also create by just pressing your eyes. You can actually create those percepts by stimulating the visual cortex.如果在那条视觉回路上的任何地方有损伤，无论是视神经、LGN 回路还是回路中的任何断点，那对你来说都不管用。你需要在视觉皮层——后脑——放置电极来制造视觉感知，因为你的生物机制做不到了。工作方式是，你有一个外置摄像头，不管是像 GoPro 这种不那么精尖的，还是 Meta 正在做的那种 Ray-Ban 型可穿戴眼镜，来捕捉场景。这个场景然后被转换成一组电刺激脉冲，通过这些薄膜阵列在视觉皮层上激活。通过协调演奏这些刺激模式，你就能创造出所谓的磷光点——那种略带白黄色的光点，你也可以通过按压自己的眼睛来产生。你实际上可以通过刺激视觉皮层来制造这些感知。
DJ SeoAnd the name of the game is really have many of those and have those percepts, be the phosphenes, be as small as possible so that you can start to tell apart they’re the individual pixels of the screen. So if you have many, many of those potentially you’ll be able to, in the long term, be able to actually get naturalistic vision. But in the short term to maybe midterm, being able to at least, be able to have object detection algorithms run on your glasses, the pre-processing units, and then being able to at least see the edges of things so you don’t bump into stuff.而关键就在于要有很多这样的感知，并且让这些磷光点尽可能小，这样你才能分辨出各个独立像素。如果你有非常非常多这样的点，从长远来看，你或许能够获得自然视觉。但近期到中期，至少能够让物体检测算法在你的眼镜这个前处理单元上运行，至少能看到物体的轮廓，这样就不会撞到东西上。
Lex FridmanThis is incredible. This is really incredible. So you basically would be adding pixels and your brain would start to figure out what those pixels mean with different kinds of assistant signal processing on all fronts.这太不可思议了，真的太不可思议了。所以基本上你是在增加像素，然后大脑会开始弄清楚这些像素意味着什么，同时在各个层面进行辅助信号处理。
DJ SeoYeah. The thing that actually… So a couple of things. One is obviously if you’re blind from birth, the way brain works, especially in the early age, neuroplasticity is really nothing other than your brain and different parts of your brain fighting for the limited territory. And I mean very, very quickly you see cases where people that are… I mean, you also hear about people who are blind that have heightened sense of hearing or some other senses. And the reason for that is because that cortex that’s not used just gets taken over by these different parts of the cortex. So for those types of individuals, I mean I guess they’re going to have to now map some other parts of their senses into what they call vision, but it’s going to be obviously a very, very different conscious experience.是的。实际上有一件事……有几点。一是，显然如果你从出生起就是盲的，大脑的工作方式，尤其是在早期发育阶段，神经可塑性的本质不过是你大脑的不同部分在争夺有限的地盘。而且非常非常迅速地，你会看到一些案例，比如——我的意思是，你也会听说盲人往往有更敏锐的听觉或其他某种感官。原因就在于那块没有被使用的皮层被其他皮层部分占领了。所以对于这类人，我猜他们得把其他感官的某些信号映射到他们所称的"视觉"上，但那将会是一种非常非常不同的意识体验。
DJ SeoBefore… So I think that’s an interesting caveat. The other thing that also is important to highlight is that, we’re currently limited by our biology in terms of the wavelength that we can see. There’s a very, very small wavelength that is a visible light wavelength that we can see with our eyes. But when you have an external camera with this BCI system, you’re not limited to that. You can have infrared, you can have UV, you can have whatever other spectrum that you want to see. And whether that gets matched to some sort of weird conscious experience, I’ve no idea. But oftentimes I talk to people about the goal of Neuralink being going beyond the limits of our biology. That’s sort of what I mean.在这之前……所以我认为这是一个有趣的注脚。另一件重要的事是，我们目前被自己的生物学所限制，只能看到特定波长的光——一个非常非常窄的可见光波段。但当你有了一个带有这套 BCI 系统的外置摄像头，你就不受这个限制了。你可以接入红外，可以接入紫外，可以接入你想看到的任何其他光谱。这会不会带来某种奇异的意识体验，我完全不知道。但我经常和人们谈到 Neuralink 的目标是超越我们生物学的极限，大概就是这个意思。
Lex FridmanAnd if you’re able to control the kind of raw signal, is that when we use our site, we’re getting the photons and there’s not much processing on it. If you’re being able to control that signal, maybe you can do some kind of processing, maybe you do object detection ahead of time. You’re doing some kind of pre-processing and there’s a lot of possibilities to explore that. So it’s not just increasing thermal imaging, that kind of stuff, but it’s also just doing some kind of interesting processing.如果你能控制那种原始信号——当我们用眼睛看时，是光子打进来，没有太多处理——如果能控制那个信号，也许可以做一些处理，也许可以提前做物体检测，做某种预处理，有很多可能性可以探索。所以不只是增加热成像这类东西，还有做一些有趣的处理。
DJ SeoCorrect. Yeah. I mean, my theory of how visual system works also is that, I mean, there’s just so many things happening in the world and there’s a lot of photons that are going into your eye. And it’s unclear exactly where some of the pre-processing steps are happening. But I mean, I actually think that just from a fundamental perspective, there’s just so much the reality that we’re in, if it’s a reality, so there’s so much data and I think humans are just unable to actually eat enough, actually to process all that information. So there’s some sort of filtering that does happen, whether that happens in the retina, whether that happens in different layers of the visual cortex, unclear. But the analogy that I sometimes think about is, if your brain is a CCD camera and all of the information in the world is a sun, and when you try to actually look at the sun with the CCD camera, it’s just going to saturate the sensors because it’s an enormous amount of energy.对。我的意思是，我对视觉系统工作方式的理解也是，世界上有太多太多的事情，有大量光子打进你的眼睛。究竟哪些预处理步骤在哪里发生，还不完全清楚。但我实际上认为，从根本上来说，我们所处的现实——如果它是现实的话——信息量是如此巨大，人类根本无法处理所有那些信息。所以确实发生了某种过滤，无论这发生在视网膜里，还是视觉皮层的不同层里，都还不确定。但我有时会想到一个类比：如果你的大脑是一个 CCD 相机，而世界上所有的信息是太阳，当你试图用 CCD 相机直视太阳，它只会让传感器过饱和，因为那是巨量的能量。
DJ SeoSo what you do is you end up adding these filters to just kind of narrow the information that’s coming to you and being captured. And I think things like our experiences or our drugs like propofol, anesthetics drug or psychedelics, what they’re doing is they’re kind of swapping out these filters and putting in new ones or removing older ones and kind of controlling our conscious experience.所以你最终要给它加各种滤镜，来缩窄进入你并被捕获的信息量。我认为，我们的经历，或者异丙酚这类麻醉药、迷幻剂这类药物，它们所做的就是更换这些滤镜，换上新的或者摘掉旧的，从而控制我们的意识体验。
Lex FridmanYeah, man, not to distract from the topic, but I just took a very high dose of ayahuasca in the Amazon jungle. So yes, it’s a nice way to think about it. You’re swapping out different experiences and with Neuralink being able to control that, primarily at first to improve function, not for entertainment purposes or enjoyment purposes, but-是的，不想跑题，但我刚在亚马逊丛林里喝了非常大剂量的死藤水。所以这确实是一种很好的思考方式。更换不同的滤镜体验不同的感知。而 Neuralink 能够控制这一点——最初主要是为了改善功能，而不是为了娱乐或享受，而是——
DJ SeoYeah, giving back loss functions.是的，恢复丢失的功能。
Lex FridmanGiving back loss functions. And there, especially when the function is completely lost, anything is a huge help. Would you implant a Neuralink device in your own brain?恢复丢失的功能。尤其是当功能完全丧失的时候，任何帮助都是巨大的。你会在自己大脑里植入一个 Neuralink 设备吗？
DJ SeoAbsolutely. I mean, maybe not right now, but absolutely.当然。也许不是现在，但绝对会。
Lex FridmanWhat kind of capability once reached you start getting real curious and almost get a little antsy, jealous of people as you watch them get implanted?达到什么样的能力之后，你会开始真的好奇，甚至有点迫不及待，看着别人被植入而有点嫉妒？
DJ SeoYeah, I think even with our early participants, if they start to do things that I can’t do, which I think is in the realm of possibility for them to be able to get 15, 20 if not like a hundred BPS. There’s nothing that fundamentally stops us from being able to achieve that type of performance. I mean, I would certainly get jealous that they can do that.我想，就算是我们的早期参与者，如果他们开始能做一些我做不到的事情——而我认为他们达到每秒 15、20，甚至 100 BPS 是完全有可能的，没有什么从根本上阻止我们实现这种性能水平——我肯定会嫉妒他们能做到这些。
Lex FridmanI should say that watching Noland, I get a little jealous having so much fun, and it seems like such a chill way to play video games.我应该说，看着 Noland，我有一点嫉妒，他玩得那么爽，那似乎是一种非常轻松的方式来打电子游戏。
DJ SeoYeah. I mean the thing that also is hard to appreciate sometimes is that, he’s doing these things while talking. And I mean, it’s multitasking, so it’s clearly, it’s obviously cognitively intensive. But similar to how when we talk, we move our hands. These are multitasking. I mean, he’s able to do that. And you won’t be able to do that with other assistive technology. As far as I am aware, if you’re obviously using an eye tracking device, you’re very much fixated on that thing that you’re trying to do. And if you’re using voice control, I mean if you say some other stuff, you don’t get to use that.是的。有时候让人难以充分意识到的是，他是在说话的同时做这些事情。这是多任务处理，所以显然它在认知上是费力的。但就像我们说话时会动手一样，这些也是多任务处理。我的意思是，他能做到这一点。而用其他辅助技术你做不到这一点。据我所知，如果你在用眼动追踪设备，你非常需要专注于你正在做的那件事。如果你在用语音控制，说别的话的时候，你就没法用那个了。
Lex FridmanThe multitasking aspect of that is really interesting. So it’s not just the BPS for the primary task, it’s the parallelization of multiple tasks. If you measure the BPS for the entirety of the human organism. So you’re talking and doing a thing with your mind and looking around also, I mean, there’s just a lot of parallelization that can be happening.多任务处理这个方面真的很有趣。所以不只是主要任务的 BPS，还有多个任务的并行化。如果你衡量整个人体的 BPS，你在说话、同时用意念做一件事、还在到处张望，我的意思是，可以并行发生的事情实在是太多了。
DJ SeoBut I mean, I think at some point for him, if he wants to really achieve those high level BPS, it does require a full attention. And that’s a separate circuitry that is a big mystery, how attention works and…但我的意思是，我认为到了某个点，如果他真的想达到那些高水平的 BPS，确实需要全神贯注。而注意力是一套独立的回路，是个大谜团，注意力是怎么工作的……
Lex FridmanYeah, attention, cognitive load. I’ve read a lot of literature on people doing two tasks. You have your primary task and a secondary task, and the secondary task is a source of distraction. And how does that affect the performance of the primary task? And depending on the tasks, because there’s a lot of interesting… I mean, this is an interesting computational device, and I think there’s-是的，注意力、认知负荷。我读过很多关于人们同时做两件任务的文献。你有一个主要任务和一个次要任务，次要任务是分心的来源。这会如何影响主要任务的表现？而且取决于任务的不同，因为有很多有趣的……我的意思是，这是一台有趣的计算设备，我认为——
DJ SeoTo say the least.简直太保守了。
Lex Fridman… a lot of novel insights that can be gained from everything. I mean, I personally am surprised that no one’s able to do such incredible control of the cursor while talking. And also being nervous at the same time because he’s talking like all of us are if you’re talking in front of the camera, you get nervous. So all of those are coming into play and he’s able to still achieve high performance. Surprising. I mean, all of this is really amazing. And I think just after researching this really in depth, I kind of want a Neuralink.……有很多新颖的见解可以从这一切中获得。我个人是惊讶于，没有人能在说话的同时如此精准地控制光标。而且他还同时处于紧张状态，因为他在镜头前说话，就像我们所有人一样，在镜头前你会紧张。所以所有这些因素都在起作用，而他仍然能够保持高性能。令人惊叹。所有这一切都真的太惊人了。我认为就在深入研究这个课题之后，我有点想要一个 Neuralink 了。
DJ SeoGet in the line.排队去。
Lex FridmanAnd also the safety get in line. Well, we should say the registry is for people who have quadriplegia and all that kind of stuff, so.还有安全方面……排队去。嗯，应该说，登记名单目前是给四肢瘫痪患者的，所以。
DJ SeoCorrect.对。
Lex FridmanThat’d be a separate line for people. They’re just curious like myself. So now that Noland, patient P1 is part of the ongoing prime study, what’s the high level vision for P2, P3, P4, P5, and just the expansion into other human beings that are getting to experience this implant?那对于像我这样只是好奇的人来说，是另一条队了。那么现在 Noland——P1 病人——已经成为正在进行的 PRIME 研究的一部分，P2、P3、P4、P5 的整体愿景是什么？扩展到其他获得这个植入体的人类身上，整体是什么样子？
DJ SeoYeah, I mean the primary goal is for our study in the first place is to achieve safety endpoints. Just understand safety of this device as well as the implantation process. And also at the same time understand the efficacy and the impact that it could have on the potential user’s lives. And Just because you have, you’re living with tetraplegia, it doesn’t mean your situation is same as another person living with tetraplegia. It’s wildly, wildly varying. And it’s something that we’re hoping to also understand how our technology can serve not just a very small slice of those individuals, but broader group of individuals and being able to get the feedback to just really build just the best product for them.是的，我们研究最主要的目的，首先是达到安全性终点。只是了解这个设备以及植入过程的安全性。同时理解其有效性，以及它对潜在用户生活可能产生的影响。仅仅因为你患有四肢瘫痪，并不意味着你的情况和另一个四肢瘫痪者相同。差异是极其极其多样的。我们也希望了解我们的技术如何服务于不只是这些人群中一个非常小的部分，而是更广泛的群体，并能够获得反馈，从而真正打造出最适合他们的产品。
DJ SeoSo there’s obviously, also goals that we have. And the primary purpose of the early feasibility study is to learn from each and every participant to improve the device, improve the surgery before we embark on what’s called a pivotal study. That then is a much larger trial that starts to look at statistical significance of your endpoints and that’s required before you can then market the device. And that’s how it works in the US and just generally around the world. That’s the process you follow.所以，我们显然也有目标。早期可行性研究的主要目的是从每一位参与者身上学习，在启动所谓的关键研究之前改进设备和手术。关键研究是一个规模大得多的试验，开始关注你的终点的统计显著性，这是你能够在市场上销售该设备之前必须完成的。这是在美国以及全球范围内的通行流程。
DJ SeoSo our goal is to really just understand from people like Noland, P2, P3, future participants, what aspects of our device needs to improve. If it turns out that people are like, “I really don’t like the fact that it lasts only six hours. I want to be able to use this computer for 24 hours.” I mean, that is a user needs and user requirements, which we can only find out from just being able to engage with them.所以我们的目标就是真正从 Noland、P2、P3 和未来的参与者那里了解，我们设备的哪些方面需要改进。如果结果是，人们说："我真的不喜欢它只能用六个小时。我希望能使用这台电脑 24 小时。"这就是用户需求和用户需求，我们只有通过与他们接触才能发现这一点。
Lex FridmanSo before the pivotal study, there’s kind of a rapid innovation based on individual experiences. You’re learning from individual people, how they use it, the high resolution details in terms of cursor control and signal and all that kind of stuff, life experience.所以在关键研究之前，是一种基于个体体验的快速迭代。你从每个人身上学习，了解他们的使用方式、光标控制和信号等方面的高分辨率细节，还有生活体验。
DJ SeoSo there’s hardware changes, but also just firmware updates. So even when we had that sort of recovery event for Noland, he now has the new firmware that he has been updated with, and similar to how your phones get updated all the time with new firmware for security patches, whatever, new functionality, UI. And that’s something that is possible with our implant. It’s not a static one-time device that can only do…所以有硬件改变，但也有固件更新。所以即使在 Noland 的那次恢复事件期间，他现在已经安装了新固件，类似于你的手机一直在更新固件用于安全补丁、新功能、UI 等等。这对我们的植入体来说是可以做到的。它不是一个只能做它被设定好能做的事情的静态一次性设备——
DJ SeoIt’s not a static one-time device that can only do the thing that it said it can do. I mean, it’s similar to Tesla, you can do over-the-air firmware updates, and now you have completely new user interface and all these bells and whistles and improvements on everything, like the latest. Right? When we say generalized platform, that’s what we’re talking about.它不是一个只能做它被设定好能做的事情的静态一次性设备。我的意思是，就像 Tesla，你可以通过空中固件升级，然后你就有了全新的用户界面以及所有这些花哨功能和各方面的改进，比如最新版本。对吧？当我们说"通用化平台"，说的就是这个。
Lex FridmanYeah. It’s really cool how the app that Noland is using, there’s calibration, all that kind of stuff, and then there’s update. You just click and get an update.是的，Noland 使用的那个应用程序真的很酷，有校准功能等等，还有更新。你只需点一下，就能获得更新。
Lex FridmanWhat other future capabilities are you looking to? You said vision. That’s a fascinating one. What about accelerated typing or speech, or this kind of stuff? And what else is there?你还期待哪些未来的能力？你说了视觉，那是个很迷人的方向。那加速打字或语音这类，或者其他还有什么？
DJ SeoYeah. Those are still in the realm of movement program. So, largely speaking, we have two programs. We have the movement program and we have the vision program. The movement program currently is focused around the digital freedom. As you can easily guess, if you can control 2D cursor in the digital space, you could move anything in the physical space. So, robotic arms, wheelchair, your environment, or even really, whether it’s through the phone or just directly to those interfaces, to those machines.是的。那些还在运动项目的范畴内。宽泛来说，我们有两个项目：运动项目和视觉项目。运动项目目前聚焦于数字自由。你可以轻易想到，如果你能控制数字空间里的 2D 光标，你就可以在物理空间里移动任何东西——机械臂、轮椅、你的环境——或者通过手机，或者直接连到那些界面、那些机器。
DJ SeoSo, we’re looking at ways to expand those types of capability, even for Noland. That requires conversation with the FDA and showing safety data for if there’s a robotic arm or a wheelchair, that we can guarantee that they’re not going to hurt themselves accidentally. Right? It’s very different if you’re moving stuff in the digital domain versus in the physical space, you can actually potentially cause harm to the participants. So, we’re working through that right now.所以我们在研究如何扩展这类能力，哪怕是对 Noland 而言。这需要与 FDA 沟通，并提供安全数据来证明，如果是机械臂或轮椅，我们能保证他们不会意外伤到自己。这与在数字域里移动东西非常不同——在物理空间里，你实际上可能对参与者造成伤害。所以我们目前正在处理这个问题。
DJ SeoSpeech does involve different areas of the brain. Speech prosthetic is very, very fascinating and there’s actually been a lot of really amazing work that’s been happening in academia. Sergey Stavisky at UC Davis, Jaimie Henderson and late Krishna Shenoy at Stanford, are doing just some incredible amount of work in improving speech neuro-prosthetics. And those are actually looking more at parts of the motor cortex that are controlling these vocal articulators, and being able to, even by mouthing the word or imagine speech, you can pick up those signals.语音确实涉及大脑的不同区域。语音假体是非常非常迷人的领域，学术界实际上已经有大量令人惊叹的工作在进行。UC Davis 的 Sergey Stavisky，Stanford 的 Jaimie Henderson 以及已故的 Krishna Shenoy，都在做一些令人难以置信的工作，推进语音神经假体。他们实际上关注的更多是运动皮层中控制这些发声器官的区域，即便是通过口型或想象中的语言，也能捕捉到这些信号。
DJ SeoThe more sophisticated higher level processing areas like the Broca’s area or Wernicke’s area, those are still very, very big mystery in terms of the underlying mechanism of how all that stuff works. But I mean, I think Neuralink’s eventual goal is to understand those things and be able to provide a platform and tools to be able to understand that and study that.更高级的处理区域，比如 Broca 区或 Wernicke 区，在所有这些东西的底层机制方面仍然是非常非常大的谜。但我认为 Neuralink 的最终目标是理解这些，并能够提供一个平台和工具来理解和研究它。
Lex FridmanThis is where I get to the pothead questions. Do you think we can start getting insight into things like thought? So, speech, there’s a muscular component, like you said, there’s the act of producing sounds, but then what about the internal things like cognition, like low-level thoughts and high-level thoughts? Do you think we’ll start noticing signals that could be picked up, they could be understood, that could be maybe used in order to interact with the outside world?这就到了我要问那些"嗑大麻才想的出来的"问题的时候了。你认为我们能开始洞察"思维"这类东西吗？语音有肌肉层面的成分，就像你说的，有发声的动作。但内在的东西呢，比如认知，比如低层次的想法和高层次的想法？你认为我们会开始注意到一些可以被捕捉到、可以被理解、可以用来与外部世界互动的信号吗？
DJ SeoIn some ways, I guess, this starts to kind of get into the hard problem of consciousness. And I mean, on one hand, all of these are at some point, set of electrical signals that from there maybe it in itself is giving you the cognition or the meaning, or somehow human mind is an incredibly amazing storytelling machine. So, we’re telling ourselves and fooling ourselves that there’s some interesting meaning here.从某种意义上说，这开始有点触及意识的难题了。我的意思是，一方面，所有这一切，在某个层面上，都是一系列电信号，而从那里也许它本身就在给你认知或意义，或者某种程度上人类的思维是一台令人难以置信的叙事机器。所以我们在告诉自己、欺骗自己说这里有某种有趣的意义。
DJ SeoBut I mean, I certainly think that BCI … Really, BCI, at the end of the day is a set of tools that help you study the underlying mechanisms in a both local but also broader sense, and whether there’s some interesting patterns of electrical signal that means you’re thinking this versus … And you can either learn from many, many sets of data to correlate some of that and be able to do mind reading or not. I’m not sure.但我当然认为，BCI……说到底，BCI 是一套工具，帮助你在局部和更宏观的意义上研究底层机制，不管是否有某种有趣的电信号模式意味着你在想这个还是那个，是否能通过大量数据来建立某种关联，从而实现读心，还是不能。我不确定。
DJ SeoI certainly would not rule that out as a possibility, but I think BCI alone probably can’t do that. There’s probably additional set of tools and framework and also just hard problem of consciousness, at the end of the day, is rooted in this philosophical question of what is the meaning of it all? What’s the nature of our existence? Where’s the mind emerged from this complex network?我当然不会排除这种可能性，但我认为单靠 BCI 可能做不到。可能还需要一套额外的工具和框架，而且意识的难题，说到底，根植于这个哲学问题：这一切的意义是什么？我们的存在本质是什么？思维从这个复杂网络中如何涌现出来？
Lex FridmanYeah. How does the subjective experience emerge from just a bunch of spikes, electrical spikes?是的。主观体验是如何从一堆尖峰，电尖峰中涌现出来的？
DJ SeoYeah. Yeah. I mean, we do really think about BCI and what we’re building as a tool for understanding the mind, the brain. The only question that matters.是的，是的。我的意思是，我们确实把 BCI 和我们正在构建的东西视为理解思维、大脑的工具——那个最重要的问题。
DJ SeoThere actually is some biological existence proof of what it would take to kind of start to form some of these experiences that may be unique. If you actually look at every one of our brains, there are two hemispheres. There’s a left-sided brain, there’s a right-sided brain. And unless you have some other conditions, you normally don’t feel like left legs or right legs, you just feel like one legs, right? So, what is happening there? Right?实际上有一个生物学上的存在证明，说明要开始形成某些可能独特的体验需要什么。如果你看我们每个人的大脑，都有两个半球：左半球和右半球。除非你有某种特殊状况，否则通常你不会觉得自己有左腿或右腿，你就感觉是一条腿，对吧？那里到底发生了什么？
DJ SeoIf you actually look at the two hemispheres, there’s a structure that kind of connectorized the two, called the corpus callosum, that is supposed to have around 200 to 300 million connections or axons. So, whether that means that’s the number of interface and electrodes that we need to create some sort of mind meld or from that whatever new conscious experience that you can experience. But I do think that there’s kind of an interesting existence proof that we all have.如果你仔细看这两个半球，有一个把它们连接起来的结构，叫做胼胝体，据说有大约 2 亿到 3 亿个连接或轴突。所以这也许意味着这就是我们需要创造某种心灵融合，或者由此带来任何新意识体验所需的接口和电极数量。但我确实认为，我们所有人都拥有一个有趣的存在证明。
Lex FridmanAnd that threshold is unknown at this time?而这个阈值目前还是未知的？
DJ SeoOh, yeah. Everything in this domain is speculation. Right?哦，是的。这个领域的一切都是推测。对吧？
Lex FridmanAnd then, you’d be continuously pleasantly surprised. Do you see a world where there is millions of people, like tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people walking around with a Neuralink device or multiple Neuralink devices in their brain?然后你会不断地收获惊喜。你能想象有一个数以百万计、数以千万计、数以亿计的人带着一个或多个 Neuralink 设备在大脑里行走的世界吗？
DJ SeoI do. First of all, there are, if you look at worldwide, people suffering from movement disorders and visual deficits, I mean, that’s in the tens if not hundreds of millions of people. So, that alone, I think there’s a lot of benefit and potential good that we can do with this type of technology. And once you start to get into psychiatric application, depression, anxiety, hunger or obesity, right? Mood, control of appetite. I mean, that starts to become very real to everyone.我能想象。首先，如果你看全球范围内，患有运动障碍和视觉缺陷的人，那是数以千万计，甚至数以亿计的人。仅此一点，我认为我们用这种技术能做的好事和带来的益处就已经很多了。而一旦你开始涉及精神病学应用——抑郁、焦虑、饥饿感或肥胖，对吧？情绪、食欲控制——这开始变得对所有人都非常现实。
Lex FridmanNot to mention that most people on Earth have a smartphone, and once BCI starts competing with a smartphone as a preferred methodology of interacting with the digital world, that also becomes an interesting thing.更不用说地球上大多数人都有智能手机，而一旦 BCI 开始作为与数字世界互动的首选方式与智能手机竞争，那也是一件有趣的事。
DJ SeoOh yeah, this is even before going to that, right? There’s almost, I mean, the entire world that could benefit from these types of things. And then, if we’re talking about next generation of how we interface with machines or even ourselves, in many ways, I think BCI can play a role in that. And some of the things that I also talk about is, I do think that there is a real possibility that you could see 8 billion people walking around with Neuralink.哦是的，这还是在进入那个阶段之前，对吧？几乎可以说，整个世界都可以从这类东西中受益。然后如果我们谈的是下一代我们与机器甚至与我们自己交互的方式，在很多方面，我认为 BCI 都可以在其中扮演角色。我也经常谈到的一件事是，我确实认为有一种真实的可能性：你可能会看到 80 亿人带着 Neuralink 走来走去。
Lex FridmanWell, thank you so much for pushing ahead. And I look forward to that exciting future.非常感谢你不断地推进这件事。我很期待那个令人兴奋的未来。
DJ SeoThanks for having me.谢谢邀请我。
Lex FridmanThanks for listening to this conversation with DJ Seo. And now, dear friends, here’s Matthew MacDougall, the head neurosurgeon at Neuralink.感谢大家收听这段与 DJ Seo 的对话。现在，亲爱的朋友们，接下来是 Matthew MacDougall，Neuralink 的首席神经外科医生。
Lex FridmanWhen did you first become fascinated with the human brain?你是什么时候开始对人脑着迷的？
Matthew MacDougallSince forever. As far back as I can remember, I’ve been interested in the human brain. I mean, I was a thoughtful kid and a bit of an outsider, and you sit there thinking about what the most important things in the world are in your little tiny adolescent brain. And the answer that I came to, that I converged on was that all of the things you can possibly conceive of as things that are important for human beings to care about are literally contained in the skull. Both the perception of them and their relative values and the solutions to all our problems, and all of our problems, are all contained in the skull. And if we knew more about how that worked, how the brain encodes information and generates desires and generates agony and suffering, we could do more about it.从我记事起就是了。我能想起的最早的记忆里，我就对人脑感兴趣。我的意思是，我是个爱思考的孩子，有点格格不入，你就坐在那里，用自己小小的青少年大脑思考世界上什么是最重要的。我得出的答案是，你能想到的所有人类可能关心的重要事情，字面意义上都装在颅骨里——对它们的感知、它们相对的价值、所有问题的解决方案，还有我们所有的问题，全部都在颅骨里。如果我们对那套运作机制了解更多——大脑如何编码信息、如何产生欲望、产生痛苦和煎熬——我们就能做得更多。
Matthew MacDougallYou think about all the really great triumphs in human history. You think about all the really horrific tragedies. You think about the Holocaust, you think about any prison full of human stories, and all of those problems boil down to neurochemistry. So, if you get a little bit of control over that, you provide people the option to do better. In the way I read history, the way people have dealt with having better tools is that they most often, in the end, do better, with huge asterisks. But I think it’s an interesting, a worthy, a noble pursuit to give people more options, more tools.你想想人类历史上所有真正伟大的胜利，你想想所有真正骇人的悲剧，你想想大屠杀，你想想任何一所监狱里的人类故事，所有这些问题归根结底都是神经化学。所以如果你能对那稍加掌控，你就给了人们一个做得更好的选项。从我解读历史的方式来看，人们面对更好的工具时，最终——大多数情况下——做得更好，虽然有很大的保留。但我认为这是一个有趣的、值得的、高尚的追求：给人们更多的选择，更多的工具。
Lex FridmanYeah, that’s a fascinating way to look at human history. You just imagine all these neurobiological mechanisms, Stalin, Hitler, Genghis Khan, all of them just had a brain, just a bunch of neurons, few times of billions of neurons gaining a bunch of information over a period of time. They have a set of modules that does language and memory and all that. And from there, in the case of those people, they’re able to murder millions of people. And all that coming from … There’s not some glorified notion of a dictator of this enormous mind or something like this. It’s just the brain.是的，这是一种看待人类历史非常迷人的方式。你就想象所有这些神经生物学机制，斯大林、希特勒、成吉思汗，他们所有人都只是有一个大脑，就是一堆神经元，数十亿个神经元，在一段时间内积累了大量信息。他们有一套负责语言、记忆等等的模块。从那里出发，就这些人的情况而言，他们能够屠杀数百万人。而这一切来自……这里没有什么关于独裁者拥有宏大思想或类似东西的荣耀概念。就是大脑而已。
Matthew MacDougallYeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of that has to do with how well people like that can organize those around them.是的，是的。我的意思是，这很大程度上与这样的人能够如何组织他们周围的人有关。
Lex FridmanOther brains.其他大脑。
Matthew MacDougallYeah. And so, I always find it interesting to look to primatology, look to our closest non-human relatives for clues as to how humans are going to behave and what particular humans are able to achieve. And so, you look at chimpanzees and bonobos, and they’re similar but different in their social structures particularly. And I went to Emory in Atlanta and studied under the great Frans de Waal, who was kind of the leading primatologist, who recently died. And his work looking at chimps through the lens of how you would watch an episode of Friends and understand the motivations of the characters interacting with each other. He would look at a chimp colony and basically apply that lens. I’m massively oversimplifying it.是的。所以，我总是觉得观察灵长类学很有趣，观察我们最近的非人类近亲，来寻找人类如何行为以及特定的人能成就什么的线索。你看黑猩猩和倭黑猩猩，它们相似但不同，尤其是在社会结构上。我去了亚特兰大的埃默里大学，在伟大的 Frans de Waal 门下学习，他是领先的灵长类动物学家，最近去世了。他的工作是用你看《老友记》一集、理解角色互动动机的那种眼光来观察黑猩猩。他会观察一个黑猩猩种群，然后基本上用那种视角去看。我在极度简化它。
Matthew MacDougallIf you do that, instead of just saying, “Subject 473 threw his feces at subject 471.” You talk about them in terms of their human struggles, accord them the dignity of themselves as actors with understandable goals and drives, what they want out of life. And primarily, it’s the things we want out of life, food, sex, companionship, power. You can understand chimp and bonobo behavior in the same lights much more easily. And I think doing so gives you the tools you need to reduce human behavior from the kind of false complexity that we layer onto it with language, and look at it in terms of, oh, well, these humans are looking for companionship, sex, food, power. And I think that that’s a pretty powerful tool to have in understanding human behavior.如果你这样做，而不是说"473 号受试者向 471 号受试者扔了它的粪便"，你就可以从它们的人性挣扎出发去谈论它们，给予它们作为有着可理解的目标和驱动的行动者的尊严——它们想从生活中得到什么。而归根结底，是那些我们想要的东西：食物、性、陪伴、权力。用同样的眼光去理解黑猩猩和倭黑猩猩的行为会容易得多。而我认为这样做给了你需要的工具，把人类行为从我们用语言层层包裹的那种虚假复杂性中剥离出来，用这种眼光来看：哦，好吧，这些人类在寻求陪伴、性、食物、权力。我认为这是理解人类行为的一个相当有力的工具。
Lex FridmanAnd I just went to the Amazon jungle for a few weeks and it’s a very visceral reminder that a lot of life on Earth is just trying to get laid. They’re all screaming at each other. I saw a lot of monkeys and they’re just trying to impress each other, or maybe if there’s a battle for power, but a lot of the battle for power has to do with them getting laid.我刚在亚马逊丛林待了几周，这是一个非常直观的提醒：地球上大量的生命不过是在尝试交配。它们都在彼此嚎叫。我看了好多猴子，它们只是想要给对方留下印象，或者也许在进行权力争斗，但很多权力争斗都与能不能交配有关。
Matthew MacDougallRight. Breeding rights often go with alpha status. And so, if you can get a piece of that, then you’re going to do okay.对。支配权往往与首领地位挂钩。所以只要能分到一杯羹，你就能过得不错。
Lex FridmanAnd we’d like to think that we’re somehow fundamentally different, and especially when it comes to primates, we really aren’t. We can use fancier poetic language, but maybe some of the underlying drives and motivators are similar.我们总以为自己和其他动物有本质区别，尤其跟灵长类动物比，但其实并没有。我们能用更华丽的诗意语言来表达，但底层的驱动力和动机也许大同小异。
Matthew MacDougallYeah, I think that’s true.是的，我觉得确实如此。
Lex FridmanAnd all of that is coming from this, the brain.而这一切都来自于大脑。
Matthew MacDougallYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanSo, when did you first start studying the brain as the biological mechanism?那你是什么时候开始把大脑当作一种生物机制来研究的？
Matthew MacDougallBasically, the moment I got to college, I started looking around for labs that I could do neuroscience work in. I originally approached that from the angle of looking at interactions between the brain and the immune system, which isn’t the most obvious place to start, but I had this idea at the time that the contents of your thoughts would have a direct impact, maybe a powerful one, on non-conscious systems in your body. The systems we think of as homeostatic automatic mechanisms, like fighting off a virus, like repairing a wound. And sure enough, there are big crossovers between the two.基本上是我一进大学，就开始四处寻找可以做神经科学研究的实验室。起初我是从脑与免疫系统相互作用这个角度切入的——这不是最显眼的起点，但我当时有个想法：你的思想内容会直接影响身体里那些非意识系统，而且影响可能很深远。我说的是那些我们通常认为属于稳态自动机制的系统，比如对抗病毒、愈合伤口。事实证明，两者之间确实存在很大的交叉。
Matthew MacDougallI mean, it gets to kind of a key point that I think goes under-recognized. One of the things people don’t recognize or appreciate about the human brain enough, and that is that it basically controls or has a huge role in almost everything that your body does. You try to name an example of something in your body that isn’t directly controlled or massively influenced by the brain, and it’s pretty hard. I mean, you might say like bone healing or something. But even those systems, the hypothalamus and pituitary end up playing a role in coordinating the endocrine system, that does have a direct influence on say, the calcium level in your blood, that goes to bone healing. So, non-obvious connections between those things implicate the brain as really a potent prime mover in all of health.这触及了一个我觉得被严重低估的关键点。人们对人类大脑认识不够、不够欣赏的一件事是：大脑基本上控制着你身体所做的几乎一切，或者对其有巨大影响。你试着举出一个身体里不受大脑直接控制或不被大脑深度影响的例子，真的很难。也许你会说骨骼愈合之类的。但就连这些系统，下丘脑和垂体最终也在协调内分泌系统方面发挥作用，而内分泌系统确实对血钙水平有直接影响，进而影响骨骼愈合。这些非显而易见的关联都表明，大脑是健康的真正强力原动力。
Lex FridmanOne of the things I realized in the other direction too, how most of the systems in the body are integrated with the human brain, they affect the brain also, like the immune system. I think there’s just, people who study Alzheimer’s and those kinds of things, it’s just surprising how much you can understand of that from the immune system, from the other systems that don’t obviously seem to have anything to do with the nervous system. They all play together.我也意识到另一个方向同样成立：身体里大多数系统都与大脑融合在一起，它们反过来也影响大脑，比如免疫系统。研究阿尔茨海默症等疾病的人会发现，从免疫系统、从那些表面上似乎与神经系统毫无关系的其他系统入手，竟然能解释那么多现象，让人大吃一惊。它们都是相互作用的。
Matthew MacDougallYeah, you could understand how that would be driven by evolution too. Just in some simple examples, if you get sick, if you get a communicable disease, you get the flu, it’s pretty advantageous for your immune system to tell your brain, “Hey, now be antisocial for a few days. Don’t go be the life of the party tonight. In fact, maybe just cuddle up somewhere warm, under a blanket, and just stay there for a day or two.” And sure enough, that tends to be the behavior that you see both in animals and in humans. If you get sick, elevated levels of interleukins in your blood and TNF-alpha in your blood, ask the brain to cut back on social activity and even moving around, you have lower locomotor activity in animals that are infected with viruses.是的，从进化角度也能理解这种机制。举几个简单的例子：如果你生病了，感染了传染病，得了流感，免疫系统告诉大脑"嘿，接下来几天不要社交。今晚别去当派对焦点，其实你最好找个温暖的地方缩起来，盖着毯子，待上一两天"——这对你是很有利的。事实上，无论在动物还是人类身上，这种行为确实普遍存在。生病时，血液中升高的白细胞介素和 TNF-alpha 水平会让大脑减少社交活动，甚至减少走动，感染了病毒的动物运动活性也会降低。
Lex FridmanSo, from there, the early days in neuroscience to surgery, when did that step happen? Which is a leap.从早期的神经科学研究到走上外科手术这条路，这个转变是什么时候发生的？这可是个很大的跨越。
Matthew MacDougallYeah. It was sort of an evolution of thought. I wanted to study the brain. I started studying the brain in undergrad in this neuroimmunology lab. I, from there, realized at some point that I didn’t want to just generate knowledge. I wanted to affect real changes in the actual world, in actual people’s lives. And so, after having not really thought about going into medical school, I was on a track to go into a PhD program. I said, “Well, I’d like that option. I’d like to actually potentially help tangible people in front of me.”是的，这是一个思想演变的过程。我想研究大脑，本科时就在一个神经免疫学实验室里开始了研究。后来我意识到，我不只是想积累知识，我想在现实世界、在真实的人的生活中产生真正的改变。所以，尽管之前并没有想过要上医学院——我当时走的是攻读博士项目的路——我就想，好吧，我想要那个选项，我想要能够切实帮助站在我面前的真实的人。
Matthew MacDougallAnd doing a little digging, found that there exists these MD-PhD programs where you can choose not to choose between them and do both. And so, I went to USC for medical school and had a joint PhD program with Caltech, where I actually chose that program particularly because of a researcher at Caltech named Richard Andersen, who’s one of the godfathers of primate neuroscience, and has a macaque lab where Utah arrays and other electrodes were being inserted into the brains of monkeys to try to understand how intentions were being encoded in the brain.经过一番调查，我发现存在 MD-PhD 联合项目，可以两者兼顾，不必非此即彼。于是我去了 USC 读医学院，同时与 Caltech 联合读博士。我之所以特别选择那个项目，是因为 Caltech 有一位名叫 Richard Andersen 的研究员——他是灵长类神经科学的教父级人物之一，有一个 macaque 实验室，在那里他们将 Utah Array 和其他电极植入猴子大脑，试图了解意图是如何在大脑中被编码的。
Matthew MacDougallSo, I ended up there with the idea that maybe I would be a neurologist and study the brain on the side. And then discovered that neurology … Again, I’m going to make enemies by saying this, but neurology predominantly and distressingly to me, is the practice of diagnosing a thing and then saying, “Good luck with that. There’s not much we can do.” And neurosurgery, very differently, it’s a powerful lever on taking people that are headed in a bad direction and changing their course in the sense of brain tumors that are potentially treatable or curable with surgery. Even aneurysms in the brain, blood vessels that are going to rupture, you can save lives, really, is at the end of the day what mattered to me.于是我带着也许会成为神经内科医生、顺带研究大脑的想法去了那里。但后来发现神经内科……我说这话可能又要树敌了，但神经内科主要而且令我沮丧地停留在"诊断某种病症，然后说'好自为之吧，我们也没什么办法'"。而神经外科则截然不同，它是改变那些走向不归路的人命运的有力杠杆——比如在某些情况下可以通过手术治疗甚至治愈的脑肿瘤。即使是脑部动脉瘤，那些即将破裂的血管，你也可以救人性命——归根结底，这才是对我来说真正重要的事。
Matthew MacDougallAnd so, I was at USC, as I mentioned, that happens to be one of the great neurosurgery programs. And so, I met these truly epic neurosurgeons, Alex Khalessi, and Mike Apuzzo, and Steve Giannotta, and Marty Weiss, these epic people that were just human beings in front of me. And so, it kind of changed my thinking from neurosurgeons are distant gods that live on another planet and occasionally come and visit us, to these are humans that have problems and are people, and there’s nothing fundamentally preventing me from being one of them. And so, at the last minute in medical school, I changed gears from going into a different specialty and switched into neurosurgery, which cost me a year. I had to do another year of research because I was so far along in the process that to switch into neurosurgery, the deadlines had already passed. So, it was a decision that cost time, but absolutely worth it.所以我在 USC 读书——正如我提到的，那里恰好是顶尖的神经外科项目之一。我遇到了真正史诗级的神经外科医生：Alex Khalessi、Mike Apuzzo、Steve Giannotta、Marty Weiss，这些人就站在我面前，是活生生的人。这改变了我的认知——神经外科医生不是住在另一个星球上偶尔来访的遥远神明，他们是有问题、有烦恼的普通人，本质上没有什么东西阻止我成为他们中的一员。于是，在医学院最后阶段，我临时改变方向，从另一个专科转入神经外科，为此付出了一年的代价。由于我在那个流程上走得太远，错过了转入神经外科的截止时间，不得不再做一年研究。这个决定虽然耗费了时间，但绝对值得。
Lex FridmanWhat was the hardest part of the training on the neurosurgeon track?神经外科培训过程中最难的部分是什么？
Matthew MacDougallYeah, two things, I think, that residency in neurosurgery is sort of a competition of pain, of how much pain can you eat and smile? And so, there’s work hour restrictions that are not really … They’re viewed, I think, internally among the residents as weakness. And so, most neurosurgery residents try to work as hard as they can, and that, I think necessarily means working long hours and sometimes over the work hour limits.我觉得有两件事。神经外科住院医师培训某种程度上是一场痛苦的竞赛——你能承受多少痛苦、还能笑着撑下去？所以有工作时长限制，但这些限制在住院医师眼里，我觉得内部是被视为软弱的表现。因此大多数神经外科住院医师都尽可能地拼命工作，这意味着工作时间很长，有时会超过工作时长上限。
Matthew MacDougallWe care about being compliant with whatever regulations are in front of us, but I think more important than that, people want to give their all in becoming a better neurosurgeon because the stakes are so high. And so, it’s a real fight to get residents to say, go home at the end of their shift and not stay and do more surgery.我们当然在乎遵守面前的各种规定，但我觉得比这更重要的是，大家都想在成为更优秀的神经外科医生这件事上倾尽全力，因为赌注太高了。所以要劝住住院医们在换班结束时回家、不要继续留下来做手术，是真的很难。
Lex FridmanAre you seriously saying one of the hardest things is literally forcing them to get sleep and rest and all this kind of stuff?你认真的吗？其中一件最难的事居然是逼他们去睡觉、去休息之类的？
Matthew MacDougallHistorically that was the case.历史上确实如此。
Lex FridmanThat’s hilarious. And that’s awesome.太好笑了，又太赞了。
Matthew MacDougallI think the next generation is more compliant and more self-care-我觉得新一代更配合，更注重自我照顾——
Lex FridmanWeaker is what you mean. All right. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding.你的意思是更弱了。好吧，我只是开个玩笑，开个玩笑。
Matthew MacDougallI didn’t say it.不是我说的。
Lex FridmanNow I’m making enemies.现在是我在树敌了。
Matthew MacDougallNo.没有。
Lex FridmanOkay, I get it. Wow, that’s fascinating. So, what was the second thing?好吧，明白了。哇，太有意思了。那第二件事是什么？
Matthew MacDougallThe personalities. And maybe the two are connected.人际关系。也许这两件事是有关联的。
Lex FridmanSo, was it pretty competitive?那竞争很激烈？
Matthew MacDougallIt’s competitive, and it’s also, as we touched on earlier, primates like power. And I think neurosurgery has long had this aura of mystique and excellence and whatever about it. And so, it’s an invitation, I think, for people that are cloaked in that authority. A board certified neurosurgeon is basically a walking fallacious appeal to authority. Right? You have license to walk into any room and act like you’re an expert on whatever. And fighting that tendency is not something that most neurosurgeons do well. Humility isn’t the forte.竞争是很激烈，而且正如我们之前谈到的，灵长类动物喜欢权力。我觉得神经外科长久以来都笼罩着一种神秘感和卓越感。这某种程度上是对那些披着这种权威外衣的人的邀请。一位通过认证的神经外科医生，基本上就是一个走进任何房间都能做出诉诸权威的谬误的活招牌，对吧？你有特权走进任何房间，装出一副在任何话题上都是专家的样子。而抵抗这种倾向，不是大多数神经外科医生擅长的事。谦逊不是他们的强项。
Lex FridmanYeah. I have friends who know you and whenever they speak about you that you have the surprising quality for a neurosurgeon of humility, which I think indicates that it’s not as common as perhaps in other professions, because there is a kind of gigantic sort of heroic aspect to neurosurgery, and I think it gets to people’s head a little bit.是的。我有认识你的朋友，他们每次提起你，都说你有一种神经外科医生中少见的谦逊品质。我觉得这说明这种品质在神经外科这一行并不像其他行业那样普遍，因为神经外科本身带有一种宏大的英雄色彩，我觉得这会让人有点飘飘然。
Matthew MacDougallYeah. Well, I think that allows me to play well at an Elon company because Elon, one of his strengths, I think, is to just instantly see through fallacy from authority. So, nobody walks into a room that he’s in and says, “Well, goddammit, you have to trust me. I’m the guy that built the last 10 rockets,” or something. And he says, “Well, you did it wrong and we can do it better.” Or, “I’m the guy that kept Ford alive for the last 50 years. You listen to me on how to build cars.” And he says, “No.”是的。我觉得这让我在 Elon 的公司里能游刃有余，因为 Elon 的一个强项就是能立刻看穿诉诸权威的谬误。没有人能走进他所在的房间然后说，'管他的，你必须信任我，我是造了最近 10 枚火箭的那个人'之类的。他会说，'你做错了，我们可以做得更好。'或者说，'我是过去 50 年让福特续命的人，你得听我说怎么造车。'他会说，'不。'
Matthew MacDougallAnd so, you don’t walk into a room that he’s in and say, “Well, I’m a neurosurgeon. Let me tell you how to do it.” He’s going to say, “Well, I’m a human being that has a brain. I can think from first principles myself. Thank you very much. And here’s how I think it ought to be done. Let’s go try it and see who’s right.” And that’s proven, I think over and over in his case, to be a very powerful approach.所以你不能走进他所在的房间说，'我是神经外科医生，听我说怎么做。'他会说，'我是一个有大脑会独立思考的人，会从第一性原理出发自己推导，非常感谢。我认为应该这样做，我们去试试看谁是对的。'在他身上，这已经一次又一次被证明是非常强大的思路。
Lex FridmanIf we just take that tangent, there’s a fascinating interdisciplinary team at Neuralink that you get to interact with, including Elon. What do you think is the secret to a successful team? What have you learned from just getting to observe these folks, world experts in different disciplines work together?顺着这个话题说，Neuralink 有一支迷人的跨学科团队，你能与他们互动，包括 Elon。你认为一支成功团队的秘诀是什么？观察这些各个领域的世界级专家共事，你学到了什么？
Matthew MacDougallThere’s a sweet spot where people disagree and forcefully speak their mind and passionately defend their position, and yet, are still able to accept information from others and change their ideas when they’re wrong. And so, I like the analogy of how you polish rocks. You put hard things in a hard container and spin it. People bash against each other, and out comes a more refined product. And so, to make a good team at Neuralink, we’ve tried to find people that are not afraid to defend their ideas passionately and occasionally strongly disagree with people that they’re working with, and have the best idea come out on top.有一个最佳平衡点：大家能够各持己见、据理力争、热情捍卫自己的立场，同时还能接纳他人的信息，在被证明错误时改变想法。我喜欢磨石头的比喻：把硬东西放进硬容器里转动，石头互相碰撞，最终磨出更精良的产品。所以为了在 Neuralink 建立一支好团队，我们努力寻找那些敢于热情捍卫自己想法、有时与同事强烈意见相左，同时又能让最好的想法脱颖而出的人。
Matthew MacDougallIt’s not an easy balance. Again, to refer back to the primate brain. It’s not something that is inherently built into the primate brain to say, “I passionately put all my chips on this position, and now I’m just going to walk away from it and admit you are right.” Part of our brains tell us that that is a power loss, that is a loss of face, a loss of standing in the community, and now you’re a zeta chump because your idea got trounced. And you just have to recognize that that little voice in the back of your head is maladaptive and it’s not helping the team win.这个平衡并不容易。再次回到灵长类大脑的话题。灵长类大脑并没有内置这样的程序：'我把所有筹码押在这个立场上，然后就这么放弃，承认你是对的。'大脑的一部分会告诉我们，这是权力的失败，是颜面的丧失，是在群体中地位的下降，你的想法被打败，你现在是个末位的废物。你必须认识到头脑后面那个小声音是不适应的，它在阻碍团队赢得胜利。
Lex FridmanYeah, you have to have the confidence to be able to walk away from an idea that you hold on to. Yeah.是的，你必须有足够的自信，才能从自己执着的想法里走出来。
Matthew MacDougallYeah.对。
Lex FridmanAnd if you do that often enough, you’re actually going to become the best in the world at your thing. I mean, that rapid iteration.如果你经常这样做，你实际上会在自己的领域里成为世界上最优秀的人。我是说，就是这种快速迭代。
Matthew MacDougallYeah, you’ll at least be a member of a winning team.是的，你至少会成为一支胜利团队的一员。
Lex FridmanRide the wave. What did you learn … You mentioned there’s a lot of amazing neurosurgeons at USC. What lessons about surgery and life have you learned from those folks?乘势而上。你提到 USC 有很多出色的神经外科医生。从这些人身上，你学到了哪些关于手术和人生的东西？
Matthew MacDougallYeah. I think working your ass off, working hard while functioning as a member of a team, getting a job done that is incredibly difficult, working incredibly long hours, being up all night, taking care of someone that you think probably won’t survive no matter what you do. Working hard to make people that you passionately dislike look good the next morning.我觉得是拼命工作、在团队中努力完成极其艰难的任务、熬过漫长的工时、通宵照顾那些无论你怎么做可能都救不回来的人，以及努力让自己打心底里厌恶的人第二天早上看起来很体面。
Matthew MacDougallThese folks were relentless in their pursuit of excellent neurosurgical technique, decade over decade, and I think were well-recognized for that excellence. So, especially Marty Weiss, Steve Giannotta, Mike Apuzzo, they made huge contributions not only to surgical technique, but they built training programs that trained dozens or hundreds of amazing neurosurgeons. I was just lucky to be in their wake.这些人对卓越神经外科技术的追求几十年如一日、从不懈怠，我认为他们的卓越是有口皆碑的。尤其是 Marty Weiss、Steve Giannotta、Mike Apuzzo，他们不仅在手术技术上做出了巨大贡献，还建立了培训项目，培养出了几十乃至上百位出色的神经外科医生。我只是有幸追随在他们身后。
Lex FridmanWhat’s that like … You mentioned doing a surgery where the person is likely not to survive. Does that wear on you?你提到要做那种病人很可能撑不过去的手术，那是什么感觉？这会让你很受煎熬吗？
Matthew MacDougallYeah. It’s especially challenging when you … With all respect to our elders, it doesn’t hit so much when you’re taking care of an 80-year-old, and something was going to get them pretty soon anyway. And so, you lose a patient like that, and it was part of the natural course of what is expected of them in the coming years, regardless.是的。尤其是当……对我们的长辈所有尊重，照顾一位 80 岁的病人时冲击感不那么强，因为无论如何，人到了这个年纪，什么事都随时可能发生。所以失去这样的病人，在某种程度上是他们接下来岁月里可以预见的事，不论你怎么做。
Matthew MacDougallTaking care of a father of two or three, four young kids, someone in their 30s that didn’t have it coming, and they show up in your ER having their first seizure of their life, and lo and behold, they’ve got a huge malignant inoperable or incurable brain tumor. You can only do that, I think, a handful of times before it really starts eating away at your armor. Or, a young mother that shows up that has a giant hemorrhage in her brain that she’s not going to survive from. And they bring her four-year-old daughter in to say goodbye one last time before they turn the ventilator off. The great Henry Marsh is an English neurosurgeon who said it best, I think. He says, “Every neurosurgeon carries with them a private graveyard.” And I definitely feel that, especially with young parents, that kills me. They had a lot more to give. The loss of those people specifically has a knock-on effect that’s going to make the world worse for people for a long time. And it’s just hard to feel powerless in the face of that. And that’s where I think you have to be borderline evil to fight against a company like Neuralink or to constantly be taking pot shots at us, because what we’re doing is to try to fix that stuff. We’re trying to give people options to reduce suffering. We’re trying to take the pain out of life that broken brains brings in. And yeah, this is just our little way that we’re fighting back against entropy, I guess.但照顾一个有两三四个幼儿的父亲，一个三十多岁还没到那个时候的人，他们到你急诊室来，经历了人生第一次癫痫发作，结果发现大脑里有一个巨大的恶性、不可手术或无法治愈的肿瘤——这种事，我觉得经历几次之后就真的会侵蚀你的铠甲。或者一位年轻的母亲出现了巨大的脑出血，根本救不过来，他们带着她四岁的女儿来最后道别，然后关掉呼吸机。杰出的英国神经外科医生 Henry Marsh 说过一句话，我觉得他说到了精髓：'每个神经外科医生心里都藏着一座私人墓园。'这句话我深有体会，尤其是年轻的父母，那会要了我的命。他们本来还有很多可以给予的，失去他们会对很多人的生活长期造成连锁影响。面对这种无力感真的很难。也正因为此，我觉得要反对像 Neuralink 这样的公司、不断朝我们放冷箭，那你得有多邪恶——因为我们就是在努力修复这些东西。我们在努力给人们选择，减少痛苦，从破碎的大脑带来的人生苦难中把痛楚剔除出去。是的，这只是我们对抗熵增的一点方式吧。
Lex FridmanYeah. The amount of suffering that’s endured when some of the things that we take for granted that our brain is able to do is taken away, is immense. And to be able to restore some of that functionality is a real gift.是的。当那些我们习以为常、理所当然的大脑功能被剥夺，所承受的苦难是巨大的。能够恢复这部分功能，是真正的馈赠。
Matthew MacDougallYeah. We’re just starting. We’re going to do so much more.是的，我们才刚刚开始，未来要做的事多着呢。
Lex FridmanWell, can you take me through the full procedure for implanting, say, the N1 chip in Neuralink?那你能带我了解一下植入 Neuralink N1 芯片的完整手术流程吗？
Matthew MacDougallSure. Yeah. It’s a really simple, straightforward procedure. The human part of the surgery that I do is dead simple. It’s one of the most basic neurosurgery procedures imaginable. And I think there’s evidence that some version of it has been done for thousands of years. That there are examples, I think, from ancient Egypt of healed or partially healed trepanations, and from Peru or ancient times in South America where these proto-surgeons would drill holes in people’s skulls, presumably to let out the evil spirits, but maybe to drain blood clots. And there’s evidence of bone healing around the edge, meaning the people at least survived some months after a procedure.当然可以。这是一个非常简单直接的手术。我做的人工部分是神经外科里最基础的操作之一，我觉得某种形式的这个手术已经做了几千年了。古埃及有证据表明存在已愈合或部分愈合的颅骨钻孔手术，秘鲁或古代南美也有——那些原始外科医生会在人头骨上钻孔，也许是为了驱除邪灵，也许是为了引流血块。而且有骨骼在边缘愈合的证据，说明这些人手术后至少又活了几个月。
Matthew MacDougallAnd so, what we’re doing is that. We are making a cut in the skin on the top of the head over the area of the brain that is the most potent representation of hand intentions. And so, if you are an expert concert pianist, this part of your brain is lighting up the entire time you’re playing. We call it the hand knob.我们做的就是这个。我们在头顶部位的皮肤上切开一道口，这个部位上方的大脑区域是手部意图的最强代表区。如果你是一位专业的音乐会钢琴家，这部分大脑在你演奏时会持续高度激活。我们把它叫做'hand knob'（手部凸起区）。
Lex FridmanThe hand knob. So, it’s all the finger movements, all of that is just firing away.Hand knob。所以所有手指动作都是在这里激烈放电的。
Matthew MacDougallYep. There’s a little squiggle in the cortex right there. One of the folds in the brain is kind of doubly folded right on that spot. And so, you can look at it on an MRI and say, “That’s the hand knob.” And then you do a functional test and a special kind of MRI called a functional MRI, fMRI. And this part of the brain lights up when-对。皮层那里有一道小小的折叠，大脑的那道折痕在那个位置是双重折叠的。所以你看 MRI 就能说，'那就是 hand knob。'然后做功能测试，一种叫做功能性 MRI（fMRI）的特殊 MRI。当人们……
Matthew MacDougallMRI, fMRI, and this part of the brain lights up when people, even quadriplegic people whose brains aren’t connected to their finger movements anymore, they imagine finger movements and this part of the brain still lights up. So we can ID that part of the brain in anyone who’s preparing to enter our trial and say, okay, that part of the brain we confirm is your hand intention area. And so I’ll make a little cut in the skin, we’ll flap the skin open, just like kind of opening the hood of a car, only a lot smaller, make a perfectly round one inch diameter hole in the skull, remove that bit of skull, open the lining of the brain, the covering of the brain, it’s like a little bag of water that the brain floats in, and then show that part of the brain to our robot. And then this is where the robot shines.……当人们——甚至是四肢瘫痪、大脑已经与手指运动断开连接的人——想象手指动作时，这部分大脑仍然会激活。所以我们能在任何准备参加我们试验的人身上定位这个区域，然后说，好的，确认了，这部分大脑就是你的手部意图区。然后我在皮肤上切一个小口，把皮瓣翻开，就像打开汽车引擎盖，只是小很多，在颅骨上打一个完美的直径 1 英寸的圆孔，取下那块颅骨，打开大脑的包裹层——大脑浮在其中的那个小水囊——然后把那片大脑展示给我们的机器人。接下来就是机器人大显身手的时候了。
Matthew MacDougallIt can come in and take these tiny, much smaller than human hair, electrodes and precisely insert them into the cortex, into the surface of the brain to a very precise depth, in a very precise spot that avoids all the blood vessels that are coating the surface of the brain. And after the robot’s done with its part, then the human comes back in and puts the implant into that hole in the skull and covers it up, screwing it down to the skull and sewing the skin back together. So the whole thing is a few hours long. It’s extremely low risk compared to the average neurosurgery involving the brain that might, say, open up a deeper part of the brain or manipulate blood vessels in the brain. This opening on the surface of the brain with only cortical micro- insertions carries significantly less risk than a lot of the tumor or aneurysm surgeries that are routinely done.机器人进来，把这些比头发丝细得多的电极精准地插入皮层——也就是大脑表面——到非常精确的深度和位置，同时避开覆盖在大脑表面的所有血管。机器人完成自己的部分之后，人工再回来，把植入物放入颅骨上的那个孔里盖好，用螺丝固定在颅骨上，再缝合皮肤。整个过程耗时几个小时。与普通的涉及大脑的神经外科手术相比，这个手术风险极低，比如那些需要打开大脑深部或操作大脑血管的手术。这种仅涉及皮层微插入的大脑表面手术，风险显著低于常规的肿瘤或动脉瘤手术。
Lex FridmanSo cortical micro-insertions that are via robot and computer vision are designed to avoid the blood vessels.所以皮层微插入是通过机器人和计算机视觉完成的，目的是避开血管。
Matthew MacDougallExactly.正是。
Lex FridmanSo I know you’re a bit biased here, but let’s compare human and machine. So what are human surgeons able to do well and what are robot surgeons able to do well at this stage of our human civilization and development?我知道你在这方面有点先入为主，但我们来比较一下人类和机器。在人类文明和发展的当前阶段，人类外科医生擅长做什么，机器人外科医生又擅长做什么？
Matthew MacDougallYeah. Yeah, that’s a good question. Humans are general purpose machines. We’re able to adapt to unusual situations. We’re able to change the plan on the fly. I remember well a surgery that I was doing many years ago down in San Diego where the plan was to open a small hole behind the ear and go reposition a blood vessel that had come to lay on the facial nerve, the trigeminal nerve, the nerve that goes to the face. When that blood vessel lays on the nerve, it can cause just intolerable, horrific shooting pain that people describe like being zapped with a cattle prod. And so the beautiful, elegant surgery is to go move this blood vessel off the nerve. The surgery team, we went in there and started moving this blood vessel and then found that there was a giant aneurysm on that blood vessel that was not easily visible on the pre-op scans. And so the plan had to dynamically change and that the human surgeons had no problem with that, were trained for all those things.是的，这是个好问题。人类是通用机器，能够适应不寻常的情况，能够临时改变计划。我记得很多年前在圣地亚哥做的一台手术，原计划是在耳后开一个小孔，进去重新定位一根血管——那根血管压在了面部神经（三叉神经）上。当血管压在神经上，会造成难以忍受的、可怕的射击样疼痛，人们形容就像被电击枪电到一样。那台漂亮优雅的手术就是去移开那根血管。手术团队进去开始移动血管，结果发现那根血管上有一个巨大的动脉瘤，在术前扫描上不容易看到。于是计划必须动态调整，而人类外科医生处理这些完全没有问题，因为所有这些都是受过训练的。
Matthew MacDougallRobots wouldn’t do so well in that situation, at least in their current incarnation, fully robotic surgery, like the electrode insertion portion of the neural link surgery, it goes according to a set plan. And so the humans can interrupt the flow and change the plan, but the robot can’t really change the plan midway through. It operates according to how it was programmed and how it was asked to run. It does its job very precisely, but not with a wide degree of latitude in how to react to changing conditions.机器人在这种情况下就不那么擅长了，至少在目前的形态下，完全机器人化的手术——比如 Neuralink 手术的电极插入部分——是按照一套既定计划执行的。所以人类可以中断流程、改变计划，但机器人无法在中途真正改变计划。它按照编程方式和指令运行，执行得非常精准，但对变化条件的应对范围并不宽泛。
Lex FridmanSo there could be just a very large number of ways that you could be surprised as a surgeon? When you enter a situation, there could be subtle things that you have to dynamically adjust to.所以作为外科医生，你进入手术情境时可能遭遇的意外可能非常多种多样，有些很细微，需要动态调整。
Matthew MacDougallCorrect.正是。
Lex FridmanAnd robots are not good at that.而机器人不擅长处理这些。
Matthew MacDougallCurrently.目前是这样。
Lex FridmanCurrently.目前。
Matthew MacDougallI think we are at the dawn of a new era with AI of the parameters for robot responsiveness to be dramatically broadened, right? I mean, you can’t look at a self-driving car and say that it’s operating under very narrow parameters. If a chicken runs across the road, it wasn’t necessarily programmed to deal with that specifically, but a Waymo or a self-driving Tesla would have no problem reacting to that appropriately. And so surgical robots aren’t there yet, but give it time.我认为我们正处于 AI 带来的新时代的曙光之中，机器人响应参数的范围将被大幅拓展。我是说，你不能看着一辆自动驾驶汽车说它只在非常窄的参数内运行。如果一只鸡跑过马路，它不一定被专门编程来处理这种情况，但 Waymo 或特斯拉自动驾驶汽车都能正确应对。所以手术机器人目前还没到那一步，但等着瞧。
Lex FridmanAnd then there could be a lot of semi-autonomous possibilities of maybe a robotic surgeon could say this situation is perfectly familiar, or this situation is not familiar, and in the not familiar case, a human could take over, but basically be very conservative in saying, okay, this for sure has no issues, no surprises, and let the humans deal with the surprises with the edge cases and all that. That’s one possibility. So you think eventually you’ll be out of the job? Well, you being neurosurgeon, your job being a neurosurgeon. Humans, there will not be many neurosurgeons left on this earth.而且可能存在很多半自动化的可能性——机器人外科医生可以识别'这种情况完全熟悉'或者'这种情况不熟悉'，遇到不熟悉的情况时，人类可以接管，但基本上对完全确定没有意外的情况非常保守地放行，把那些意外情况和边缘案例留给人类处理。这是一种可能。那你觉得你最终会失业吗？也就是说，你的神经外科医生职业。地球上不会有太多神经外科医生了。
Matthew MacDougallI’m not worried about my job in the course of my professional life. I think I would tell my kids not necessarily to go in this line of work depending on how things look in 20 years.在我的职业生涯期间，我不担心我的工作。但如果 20 年后情况看起来不一样了，我可能会告诉我的孩子不必然要走这条路。
Lex FridmanIt’s so fascinating because if I have a line of work, I would say it’s programming. And if you ask me, for the last, I don’t know, 20 years, what I would recommend for people, I would tell them, yeah, you’ll always have a job if you’re a programmer because there’s more and more computers and all this kind of stuff and it pays well. But then you realize these large language models come along and they’re really damn good at generating code. So overnight you could be surprised like, wow, what is the contribution of the human really? But then you start to think, okay, it does seem that humans have ability, like you said, to deal with novel situations. In the case of programming, it’s the ability to come up with novel ideas to solve problems. It seems like machines aren’t quite yet able to do that. And when the stakes are very high, when it’s life critical as it is in surgery, especially in neurosurgery, then the stakes are very high for a robot to actually replace a human. But it’s fascinating that in this case of Neuralink, there’s a human robot collaboration.这太有意思了，因为如果说我有一条职业线，那就是编程。如果你问我过去大概 20 年，我会给别人什么建议，我会说，你是程序员的话永远都有工作，因为计算机越来越多之类的，薪水也不错。但后来你意识到大型语言模型出现了，而且在生成代码方面真的非常厉害。于是一夜之间你可能会惊觉，人类的贡献究竟在哪里？但接着你开始想，好吧，人类似乎确实有一种能力——就像你说的——处理新颖情境。在编程的场景下，这种能力是构思解决问题的新颖想法。机器目前似乎还做不到这一点。而且在赌注极高、事关生死的场合——比如手术，尤其是神经外科——机器人真正取代人类的风险代价极高。但有趣的是，在 Neuralink 的这个案例里，是人类与机器人的协作。
Matthew MacDougallYeah, yeah. I do the parts it can’t do and it does the parts I can’t do, and we are friends.是的，它做不了的部分我来做，我做不了的部分它来做，我们是朋友。
Lex FridmanI saw that there’s a lot of practice going on. I mean everything in Neuralink is tested extremely rigorously, but one of the things I saw that there’s a proxy on which the surgeries are performed. So this is both for the robot and for the human, for everybody involved in the entire pipeline. What’s that like, practicing the surgery?我看到 Neuralink 做了很多练习，每件事都经过极其严格的测试，其中我看到手术是在一个替代模型上进行练习的。这对机器人、对人类、对整个流程中的每个人都是如此。练习手术是什么感受？
Matthew MacDougallIt’s pretty intense. So there’s no analog to this in human surgery. Human surgery is sort of this artisanal craft that’s handed down directly from master to pupil over the generations. I mean, literally the way you learn to be a surgeon on humans is by doing surgery on humans. I mean, first you watch your professors do a bunch of surgery, and then finally they put the trivial parts of the surgery into your hands, and then the more complex parts, and as your understanding of the point and the purposes of the surgery increases, you get more responsibility in the perfect condition. Doesn’t always go well. In Neuralink’s case, the approach is a bit different. We, of course, practiced as far as we could on animals. We did hundreds of animal surgeries. And when it came time to do the first human, we had just an amazing team of engineers build incredibly lifelike models. One of the engineers, Fran Romano in particular, built a pulsating brain in a custom 3-D printed skull that matches exactly the patient’s anatomy, including their face and scalp characteristics.相当紧张。在人类外科手术中没有类似的先例。人类外科手术是一种工匠式的技艺，世代直接从师傅传给徒弟。真的，你学习在人体上做手术的方式就是直接在人体上做手术。先是看教授做一堆手术，然后他们终于把手术里微不足道的部分交到你手上，再逐渐交给你更复杂的部分，随着你对手术目的和要点理解的加深，你在理想情况下会被赋予更多责任。但并不总是顺利的。Neuralink 的做法有些不同。我们当然尽可能在动物身上练习，做了数百次动物手术。而到了第一次在人体上操作的时候，我们有一支令人惊叹的工程师团队，建造了极其逼真的模型。其中一位工程师 Fran Romano 尤其出色，他制作了一个搏动的大脑，放在一个根据患者解剖完全定制 3D 打印的颅骨里，包括他们的面部和头皮特征。
Matthew MacDougallAnd so when I was able to practice that, it’s as close as it really reasonably should get to being the real thing in all the details, including having a mannequin body attached to this custom head. And so when we were doing the practice surgeries, we’d wheel that body into the CT scanner and take a mock CT scan and wheel it back in and conduct all the normal safety checks, verbally, “Stop. This patient we’re confirming his identification is mannequin number…” Blah, blah, blah. And then opening the brain in exactly the right spot using standard operative neuro-navigation equipment, standard surgical drills in the same OR that we do all of our practice surgeries in at Neuralink and having the skull open and have the brain pulse, which adds a degree of difficulty for the robot to perfectly precisely plan and insert those electrodes to the right depth and location. And so we kind of broke new ground on how extensively we practiced for this surgery.当我能够在上面练习时，它在所有细节上都尽可能地接近真实——包括这个定制头部连接着一个假人身体。所以当我们做练习手术时，我们会把那个身体推进 CT 扫描仪，做一个模拟 CT 扫描，然后推回来，进行所有正常的安全核查，口头确认，'停。我们现在确认这位患者的身份，假人编号……'之类的。然后用标准的术中神经导航设备，在完全正确的位置打开颅骨，使用标准的外科钻，就在我们平时做所有练习手术的手术室里，让颅骨打开、大脑搏动——这为机器人精准计划并将电极插入正确深度和位置增加了难度。就这样，我们在这台手术的练习程度上开创了新标准。
Lex FridmanSo there was a historic moment, a big milestone for Neuralink, in part for humanity, with the first human getting a Neuralink implant in January of this year. Take me through the surgery on Noland. What did it feel like to be part of this?Neuralink 有过一个历史性时刻——对人类来说也是一个重要里程碑——今年 1 月，第一位人类接受了 Neuralink 植入。带我回顾一下 Noland 的手术，参与其中是什么感受？
Matthew MacDougallYeah. Well, we are lucky to have just incredible partners at the Barrow Neurologic Institute. They are, I think, the premier neurosurgical hospital in the world. They made everything as easy as possible for the trial to get going and helped us immensely with their expertise on how to arrange the details. It was a much more high pressure surgery in some ways. I mean, even though the outcome wasn’t particularly in question in terms of our participant’s safety, the number of observers, the number of people, there’s conference rooms full of people watching live streams in the hospital rooting for this to go perfectly, and that just adds pressure that is not typical for even the most intense production neurosurgery, say, removing a tumor or placing deep brain stimulation electrodes, and it had never been done on a human before. There were unknown unknowns.是的。我们非常幸运，在 Barrow Neurologic Institute 有极好的合作伙伴。他们是我认为全球顶尖的神经外科医院，把一切都安排得尽可能顺利，用他们在细节安排上的专业知识给了我们巨大帮助。那台手术在某些方面压力确实大得多。我是说，尽管就参与者安全而言，结果并不特别存疑，但观看人数、观察者人数，医院里有好几个会议室的人在看直播，为这台手术完美进行加油——这种压力是即使最紧张的常规神经外科手术也不常有的，比如切除肿瘤或放置深脑刺激电极。而且从来没有在人体上做过。存在未知的未知。
Matthew MacDougallAnd so definitely a moderate pucker factor there for the whole team not knowing if we were going to encounter, say, a degree of brain movement that was unanticipated or a degree of brain sag that took the brain far away from the skull and made it difficult to insert or some other unknown unknown problem. Fortunately everything went well and that surgery is one of the smoothest outcomes we could have imagined.所以整个团队在那整个过程中都有相当程度的紧张感，不知道会不会遇到比预期更大的脑移位，或者大脑下沉太远偏离颅骨导致植入困难，或者其他意想不到的问题。幸运的是，一切顺利，那台手术的结果是我们能想象到的最顺利的结果之一。
Lex FridmanWere you nervous?你紧张吗？
Matthew MacDougallExtremely.非常紧张。
Lex FridmanI mean, you’re a bit of a quarterback in the Super Bowl kind of situation.我是说，你有点像在超级碗里担任四分卫的感觉。
Matthew MacDougallExtremely nervous. Extremely. I was very pleased when it went well and when it was over. Looking forward to number two.非常、非常紧张。手术顺利结束时，我真的松了一口气。很期待第二例。
Lex FridmanEven with all that practice, all of that, you’ve never been in a situation that’s so high stakes in terms of people watching. And we should also probably mention, given how the media works, a lot of people may be in a dark kind of way hoping it doesn’t go well.就算经历了那么多练习，到了真正面对如此高风险——这么多人在看——的时刻，你也没有经历过这种局面。另外，我们可能还应该提一下，鉴于媒体的运作方式，很多人也许暗地里希望事情不顺利。
Matthew MacDougallI think wealth is easy to hate or envy or whatever, and I think there’s a whole industry around driving clicks and bad news is great for clicks, and so any way to take an event and turn it into bad news is going to be really good for clicks.我觉得财富很容易招来仇视和嫉妒之类的情绪，而且整个行业都在靠流量赚钱，坏消息是流量利器，所以任何能把一件事变成坏消息的方式都会非常有利于流量。
Lex FridmanIt just sucks because I think it puts pressure on people. It discourages people from trying to solve really hard problems because to solve hard problems, you have to go into the unknown. You have to do things that haven’t been done before and you have to take risks, calculated risks, you have to do all kinds of safety precautions, but risks nevertheless. I just wish there would be more celebration of that, of the risk taking versus people just waiting on the sidelines waiting for failure and then pointing out the failure. Yeah, it sucks. But in this case, it’s really great that everything went just flawlessly, but it’s unnecessary pressure, I would say.这很让人沮丧，因为我觉得这给人带来了压力，让人不敢去尝试真正解决难题——因为解决难题就必须进入未知领域，做前人未做之事，承担风险、有计算的风险，必须进行各种安全预防，但终归是风险。我只希望人们能更多地赞美这种精神，赞美这种冒险行为，而不是旁观者在旁边等着失败、然后幸灾乐祸地指出失败。是的，很遗憾。但这次一切都近乎完美，不过那种不必要的压力确实存在。
Matthew MacDougallNow that there’s a human with literal skin in the game, there’s a participant whose well-being rides on this doing well. You have to be a pretty person to be rooting for that to go wrong. And so hopefully people look in the mirror and realize that at some point.现在有了一个字面意义上拿皮肉来押注的真实人类，有了一个幸福与否取决于这件事能否顺利进行的参与者。如果有人希望这件事出错，那他/她得是一个品行相当差的人。希望大家在某个时刻能照照镜子，认识到这一点。
Lex FridmanSo did you get to actually front row seat, watch the robot work? You get to see the whole thing?那你是亲眼在第一排看着机器人工作的吗？你看到了整个过程？
Matthew MacDougallYeah, because an MD needs to be in charge of all of the medical decision-making throughout the process, I unscrubbed from the surgery after exposing the brain and presenting it to the robot and placed the targets on the robot software interface that tells the robot where it’s going to insert each thread. That was done with my hand on the mouse, for whatever that’s worth.是的，因为整个过程中医疗决策必须由医生负责，所以我在暴露大脑并把它呈现给机器人之后，从手术台上撤了下来，在机器人软件界面上放置了目标——那些指示机器人在哪里插入每根线的目标点。是我用鼠标完成的，不管这有什么意义。
Lex FridmanSo you were the one placing the targets?所以是你在放置目标点？
Matthew MacDougallYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanOh, cool. So the robot with a computer vision provides a bunch of candidates and you kind of finalize the decision.哦，很酷。所以机器人通过计算机视觉提供一批候选点，然后你来最终做决定。
Matthew MacDougallRight. The software engineers are amazing on this team, and so they actually provided an interface where you can essentially use a lasso tool and select a prime area of brain real estate, and it will automatically avoid the blood vessels in that region and automatically place a bunch of targets. That allows the human robot operator to select really good areas of brain and make dense applications of targets in those regions, the regions we think are going to have the most high fidelity representations of finger movements and arm movement intentions.对。这个团队的软件工程师太厉害了，他们实际上提供了一个界面，你可以用套索工具选取一块优质的大脑区域，它会自动避开那个区域里的血管，自动放置一批目标点。这让人工机器人操作者可以选择大脑的优质区域，在那些区域密集部署目标点——那些我们认为对手指动作和手臂运动意图有最高保真度代表性的区域。
Lex FridmanI’ve seen images of this and for me with OCD, for some reason, are really pleasant. I think there’s a Subreddit called Oddly Satisfying.我见过这些图像，对我这种有点强迫症的人来说，莫名让人觉得很舒适。我觉得有个 Subreddit 叫 Oddly Satisfying（莫名令人满足）。
Matthew MacDougallYeah, love that Subreddit.是的，我也喜欢那个 Subreddit。
Lex FridmanIt’s oddly satisfying to see the different target sites avoiding the blood vessels and also maximizing the usefulness of those locations for the signal. It just feels good. It’s like, ah.看到那些不同的目标点避开血管同时最大化位置利用率，就是很爽。就像，啊——
Matthew MacDougallAs a person who has a visceral reaction to the brain bleeding, I can tell you it’s extremely satisfying watching the electrodes themselves go into the brain and not cause bleeding.作为一个看到大脑出血会有发自内心反应的人，我可以告诉你，看着电极自己插进大脑却没有造成出血，真的非常令人满意。
Lex FridmanYeah. Yeah. So you said the feeling was of relief when everything went perfectly?是的。所以你说当一切完美结束时，你感受到的是如释重负？
Matthew MacDougallYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanHow deep in the brain can you currently go and eventually go, let’s say on the Neuralink side. It seems the deeper you go in the brain, the more challenging it becomes.目前可以进入多深？以及 Neuralink 最终能做到多深？越深入大脑，似乎挑战就越大。
Matthew MacDougallYeah. So talking broadly about neurosurgery, we can get anywhere. It’s routine for me to put deep brain stimulating electrodes near the very bottom of the brain, entering from the top and passing about a two millimeter wire all the way into the bottom of the brain. And that’s not revolutionary, a lot of people do that, and we can do that with very high precision. I use a robot from Globus to do that surgery several times a month. It’s pretty routine.是的，从整个神经外科来说，我们可以到达任何位置。对我来说，把深脑刺激电极放置到大脑最底部是常规操作，从头顶进入，把一根 2 毫米左右的导线一路送到大脑底部。这并不是革命性的技术，很多人都会做，而且精度很高。我用一台 Globus 公司的机器人每个月做好几次这个手术，挺常规的。
Lex FridmanWhat are your eyes in that situation? What are you seeing? What kind of technology can you use to visualize where you are to light your way?在那种情况下，你的眼睛是什么？你看到的是什么？可以用什么技术来可视化你所处的位置、为你指路？
Matthew MacDougallYeah, so it’s a cool process on the software side. You take a preoperative MRI that’s extremely high resolution, data of the entire brain, you put the patient to sleep, put their head in a frame that holds the skull very rigidly, and then you take a CT scan of their head while they’re asleep with that frame on and then merge the MRI and the CT in software. You have a plan based on the MRI where you can see these nuclei deep in the brain. You can’t see them on CT, but if you trust the merging of the two images, then you indirectly know on the CT where that is, and therefore indirectly know where in reference to the titanium frame screwed to their head those targets are. And so this is sixties technology to manually compute trajectories given the entry point and target and dial in some goofy looking titanium manual actuators with little tick marks on them.是的，软件端有一套很酷的流程。你先做一个极高分辨率的术前 MRI，获取整个大脑的数据，然后让病人进入睡眠状态，把头部固定在一个非常牢固地固定颅骨的框架里，接着在他们睡着、戴着那个框架的状态下做 CT 扫描，然后在软件里将 MRI 和 CT 融合。你基于 MRI 制定计划，可以在 MRI 上看到大脑深处的那些核团。CT 上看不到它们，但如果你信任两张图像的融合，就能间接知道它们在 CT 上的位置，也就间接知道相对于固定在他们头上的钛制框架，那些目标在哪里。这是六十年代的技术，用于手动计算给定入口点和目标点的轨迹，然后拨动那些带有小刻度的奇形状钛制手动调节器。
Matthew MacDougallThe modern version of that is to use a robot. Just like a little Kuka arm you might see building cars at the Tesla factory, this small robot arm can show you the trajectory that you intended from the pre-op MRI and establish a very rigid holder through which you can drill a small hole in the skull and pass a small rigid wire deep into that area of the brain that’s hollow, and put your electrode through that hollow wire and then remove all of that except the electrode. So you end up with the electrode very, very precisely placed far from the skull surface. Now, that’s standard technology that’s already been out in the world for a while. Neuralink right now is focused entirely on cortical targets, surface targets because there’s no trivial way to get, say, hundreds of wires deep inside the brain without doing a lot of damage. So your question, what do you see? Well, I see an MRI on a screen. I can’t see everything that DBS electrode is passing through on its way to that deep target.现代版本是使用机器人。就像你可能在特斯拉工厂见到的那种用于组装汽车的小型 Kuka 机械臂，这个小机械臂可以向你显示你根据术前 MRI 规划的轨迹，并建立一个非常稳固的导管，通过它可以在颅骨上钻一个小孔，把一根细硬导丝送入那块空心的大脑区域，然后把电极穿过那根空心导丝，再把导丝全部取出，只留下电极。这样，电极就被非常精准地放置在远离颅骨表面的深处。这已经是成熟的技术，在世界上应用了一段时间了。Neuralink 目前完全专注于皮层目标，也就是表面目标，因为在不造成大量损伤的情况下，将数百根导线送入大脑深部并没有简单的办法。所以你问我看到什么？我看的是屏幕上的 MRI，我看不到 DBS 电极在通往深部目标途中穿过的一切。
Matthew MacDougallAnd so it’s accepted with this approach that there’s going to be about one in a hundred patients who have a bleed somewhere in the brain as a result of passing that wire blindly into the deep part of the brain. That’s not an acceptable safety profile for Neuralink. We start from the position that we want this to be dramatically maybe two or three orders of magnitude safer than that, safe enough, really, that you or I, without a profound medical problem, might on our lunch break someday say, “Yeah, sure, I’ll get that. I’d been meaning to upgrade to the latest version.” And so the safety constraints given that are high, and so we haven’t settled on a final solution for arbitrarily approaching deep targets in the brain.所以这种方式被接受的前提是：每一百名患者中，大概会有一人因为那根导线盲目插入大脑深部而在某处发生出血。这对 Neuralink 来说是无法接受的安全指标。我们的出发点是希望做到显著更安全——也许高出两三个数量级——安全到足以让你或我在某天午休时说，'好啊，我去做一下，我一直想升级到最新版本。'所以安全约束是很高的，我们目前还没有最终敲定一个任意进入大脑深部目标的方案。
Lex FridmanIt’s interesting because you have to avoid blood vessels somehow, and you have to… Maybe there’s creative ways of doing the same thing, like mapping out high resolution geometry of blood vessels, and then you can go in blind, but how do you map out that in a way that’s super stable? There’s a lot of interesting challenges there, right?很有意思，因为你得设法避开血管，而且……也许有一些创造性的方法能实现同样的效果，比如高分辨率地绘制血管几何图，然后可以盲目进入，但如何以超高稳定性绘制这张图？这其中有很多有趣的挑战，对吧？
Matthew MacDougallYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanBut there’s a lot to do on the surface.但表面还有很多事情可以做。
Matthew MacDougallExactly. So we’ve got vision on the surface. We actually have made a huge amount of progress sewing electrodes into the spinal cord as a potential workaround for a spinal cord injury that would allow a brain mounted implant to translate motor intentions to a spine mounted implant that can affect muscle contractions in previously paralyzed arms and legs.正是。我们在表面有视觉。我们在脊髓电极缝合方面已经取得了巨大进展，作为脊髓损伤的潜在替代方案——让安装在大脑上的植入物将运动意图转化为安装在脊柱上的植入物，从而激活此前瘫痪的手臂和腿部的肌肉收缩。
Lex FridmanThat’s mind blowing. That’s just incredible. So the effort there is to try to bridge the brain to the spinal cord to the peripheral in your nervous… So how hard is that to do?这太令人震撼了，太不可思议了。所以努力方向是尝试在大脑和脊髓之间、以及末梢神经系统之间架设桥梁——这有多难？
Matthew MacDougallWe have that working in very crude forms in animals.我们在动物身上已经实现了非常初步的形式。
Lex FridmanThat’s amazing.太了不起了。
Matthew MacDougallYeah, we’ve done…是的，我们做了……
Lex FridmanSo similar to with Noland where he’s able to digitally move the cursor. Here you’re doing the same kind of communication, but with the effectors that you have.这和 Noland 能在数字界面上移动光标是类似的，只是你现在做的是同样的信号传递，但作用于你真实的效应器。
Matthew MacDougallYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanThat’s fascinating.太迷人了。
Matthew MacDougallSo we have anesthetized animals doing grasp and moving their legs in a sort of walking pattern. Again, early days, but the future is bright for this kind of thing, and people with paralysis should look forward to that bright future. They’re going to have options.我们已经让麻醉状态下的动物做出抓握动作，并以类似行走的模式移动腿部。再说一遍，这是早期阶段，但这类事情的未来是光明的，有瘫痪症状的人应该对那个光明的未来充满期待。他们将会有选择。
Lex FridmanAnd there’s a lot of sort of intermediate or extra options where you take an optimist robot like the arm, and to be able to control the arm, the fingers and hands of the arm as a prosthetic.还有很多中间选项或额外选项，比如用 Optimus 机器人这样的机械臂，能够控制机械臂的手指和手作为假肢。
Matthew MacDougallExoskeletons are getting better too.外骨骼也在不断进步。
Lex FridmanExoskeletons. So that goes hand in hand. Although I didn’t quite understand until thinking about it deeply and doing more research about Neuralink how much you can do on the digital side. So this digital telepathy. I didn’t quite understand that you can really map the intention, as you described in the hand knob area, that you can map the intention. Just imagine it. Think about it. That intention can be mapped to actual action in the digital world, and now more and more, so much can be done in the digital world that it can reconnect you to the outside world. It can allow you to have freedom, have independence if you’re a quadriplegic. That’s really powerful. You can go really far with that.外骨骼。所以这些是配套的。不过我直到深入思考、更深入研究 Neuralink 才真正明白，在数字层面能做到多少事情。就说这种数字意念传输——我以前没能完全理解，你真的能像你描述的在 hand knob 区域一样，把意图映射出来，只需要想象它、脑子里设想它，那个意图就能映射到数字世界的真实动作上。而数字世界里能做的事越来越多，这让你能重新连接到外部世界，能让四肢瘫痪的人拥有自由和独立。这真的很强大，能走很远。
Matthew MacDougallYeah, our first participant is… He’s incredible. He’s breaking world records left and right.是的，我们的第一位参与者……他太了不起了。他在不断打破世界纪录。
Lex FridmanAnd he’s having fun with it. It’s great. Just going back to the surgery. Your whole journey, you mentioned to me offline you have surgery on Monday, so like you’re doing surgery all the time. Yeah. Maybe the ridiculous question, what does it take to get good at surgery?而且他玩得很开心，很好。回到手术本身。你整个职业生涯，你提到周一还有手术，所以你一直在做手术。也许是个荒唐的问题——要把手术做好，需要什么？
Matthew MacDougallPractice, repetitions. Same with anything else. There’s a million ways of people saying the same thing and selling books saying it, but you call it 10,000 hours, you call it spend some chunk of your life, some percentage of your life focusing on this, obsessing about getting better at it. Repetitions, humility, recognizing that you aren’t perfect at any stage along the way, recognizing you’ve got improvements to make in your technique, being open to feedback and coaching from people with a different perspective on how to do it, and then just the constant will to do better. That, fortunately, if you’re not a sociopath, I think your patients bring that with them to the office visits every day. They force you to want to do better all the time.练习，重复。和其他任何事情一样。有无数种说法、无数本书在讲同一件事，你叫它一万小时也好，叫它把生命里某段时间、某个百分比专注于此、对变得更好这件事着魔也好。重复、谦逊、认识到自己在任何阶段都不完美、认识到自己的技术还有提升空间、对不同视角的人的反馈和指导保持开放，然后就是不断想要做得更好的意志力。幸运的是，如果你不是一个反社会者，我觉得你的病人每天来门诊时都会带着这份力量。他们迫使你始终想要做得更好。
Lex FridmanYeah, just step up. I mean, it’s a real human being, a real human being that you can help.是的，就是要拿出最好的状态。我是说，那是一个真实的人，一个你能帮助的真实的人。
Matthew MacDougallYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanSo every surgery, even if it’s the same exact surgery, is there a lot of variability between that surgery in a different person?那每台手术，即使是完全相同的手术，在不同人身上是否也有很大差异？
Matthew MacDougallYeah. A fair bit. A good example for us is the angle of the skull relative to the normal plane of the body axis of the skull over hand knob is pretty wide variation. Some people have really flat skulls and some people have really steeply angled skulls over that area, and that has consequences for how their head can be fixed in sort of the frame that we use and how the robot has to approach the skull. Yeah, people’s bodies are built as differently as the people you see walking down the street, as much variability and body shape and size as you see there. We see in brain anatomy and skull anatomy, there are some people who we’ve had to exclude from our trial for having skulls that are too thick or too thin or scalp that’s too thick or too thin. I think we have the middle 97% or so of people, but you can’t account for all human anatomy variability.是的，有相当大的差异。对我们来说，一个好例子是颅骨相对于身体轴线正常平面的角度——hand knob 区域上方的颅骨角度差异相当大。有些人颅骨非常平，有些人那个区域的颅骨角度非常陡，这对他们的头部如何固定在我们使用的框架里，以及机器人如何靠近颅骨都有影响。是的，人们的身体构造就像你走在大街上看到的人一样各有不同，身形体型的差异有多大，大脑解剖和颅骨解剖的差异就有多大。有些人颅骨太厚或太薄，或者头皮太厚或太薄，因此我们不得不把他们排除在试验之外。我觉得我们覆盖了大约中间 97% 的人群，但不可能对所有人类的解剖变异都做到万全。
Lex FridmanHow much mushiness and mess is there? Because taking biology classes, the diagrams are always really clean and crisp. Neuroscience, the pictures of neurons are always really nice and [inaudible 04:32:44], but whenever I look at pictures of real brains, they’re all… I don’t know what is going on. So how much our biological systems in reality, how hard is it to figure out what’s going on?有多少软软的、乱糟糟的成分？因为上生物课时图示总是非常干净清晰，神经科学里神经元的图片也总是很漂亮……但我每次看到真实大脑的图片，都完全不知道在看什么。所以生物系统在现实中究竟有多复杂，要搞清楚状况有多难？
Matthew MacDougallNot too bad. Once you really get used to this, that’s where experience and skill and education really come into play is if you stare at a thousand brains, it becomes easier to kind of mentally peel back the, say, for instance, blood vessels that are obscuring the sulci and gyri, know kind of the wrinkle pattern of the surface of the brain. Occasionally when you’re first starting to do this and you open the skull, it doesn’t match what you thought you were going to see based on the MRI. And with more experience, you learn to kind of peel back that layer of blood vessels and see the underlying pattern of wrinkles in the brain and use that as a landmark for where you are.不算太难。一旦真的习惯了之后，就是经验、技能和知识发挥作用的时候了——如果你盯着一千个大脑看，就会越来越容易在脑子里剥开那些——比如说——遮住脑沟脑回的血管，认出大脑表面的折叠模式。刚开始做这个的时候，偶尔打开颅骨，看到的东西会和你根据 MRI 预期的不一样。经验越多，你就越学会在心里剥开血管那一层，看到大脑皱纹的底层模式，把它作为定位自己在哪里的地标。
Lex FridmanThe wrinkles are a landmark?皱纹是地标？
Matthew MacDougallYeah. So I was describing hand knob earlier. That’s a pattern of the wrinkles in the brain. It’s sort of this Greek letter, omega shaped area of the brain.是的。我刚才描述的 hand knob 就是大脑皱纹的一个模式，它是大脑里那个形状像希腊字母 omega 的区域。
Lex FridmanSo you could recognize the hand knob area. If I show you a thousand brains and give you one minute with each, you’d be like, “Yep, that’s that.”所以你能识别出 hand knob 区域。如果给你一千个大脑、每个给你一分钟，你会说'对，就是那个'。
Matthew MacDougallSure.当然。
Lex FridmanAnd so there is some uniqueness to that area of the brain in terms of the geometry, the topology of the thing.所以那个大脑区域在几何形状和拓扑结构上是有某种独特性的。
Matthew MacDougallYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanWhere is it about in the…它在哪个位置大概……
Matthew MacDougallSo you have this strip of brain running down the top called the primary motor area, and I’m sure you’ve seen this picture of the homunculus laid over the surface of the brain, the weird little guy with huge lips and giant hands. That guy sort of lays with his legs up at the top of the brain and face arm areas farther down, and then some kind of mouth, lip, tongue areas farther down. And so the hand is right in there, and then the areas that control speech, at least on the left side of the brain in most people are just below that. And so any muscle that you voluntarily move in your body, the vast majority of that references that strip or those intentions come from that strip of brain, and the wrinkle for hand knob is right in the middle of that.头顶有一条叫做初级运动皮层的脑区带状延伸，我相信你见过那张覆盖在大脑表面的 homunculus 图——那个嘴唇夸张、手掌巨大的奇怪小人。那个小人大概是腿搭在大脑顶部、手臂面部区域往下，再往下是嘴、唇、舌头区域。手就在中间那里，而在大多数人的大脑左侧，控制言语的区域就在手的正下方。所以你身体里几乎每一块你主动控制的肌肉，绝大多数都参照那条带状区域，或者说意图来自那条脑区，而 hand knob 的折叠就在正中间。
Lex FridmanAnd vision is back here?视觉在后面？
Matthew MacDougallYep.对。
Lex FridmanAlso close to the surface.也靠近表面。
Matthew MacDougallVision’s a little deeper. And so this gets to your question about how deep can you get. To do vision, we can’t just do the surface of the brain. We have to be able to go in, not as deep as we’d have to go for DBS, but maybe a centimeter deeper than we’re used to for hand insertions. And so that’s work in progress. That’s a new set of challenges to overcome.视觉稍微深一点。这就回到了你问的能深入多远。要做视觉，我们不能只停留在大脑表面，需要进得比处理手部插入时更深——不像 DBS 那么深，但大概要深进去 1 厘米。所以这是正在攻克的课题，是需要克服的一套新挑战。
Lex FridmanBy the way, you mentioned the Utah Array and I just saw a picture of that and that thing looks terrifying.顺便说一句，你提到了 Utah Array，我刚看到那玩意儿的图片，看起来真的很可怕。
Matthew MacDougallYeah. The nails.是啊，就像钉床。
Lex FridmanIt’s because it’s rigid and then if you look at the threads, they’re flexible. What can you say that’s interesting to you about that kind of approach of the flexible threads to deliver the electrodes next to the neurons?因为它是刚性的，而你们的线是柔性的。关于这种柔性线将电极送到神经元旁边的方案，你有什么有意思的见解？
Matthew MacDougallYeah. I mean, the goal there comes from experience. I mean, we stand on the shoulders of people that made Utah Arrays and used Utah Arrays for decades before we ever even came along. Neuralink arose, partly this approach to technology arose out of a need recognized after Utah Arrays would fail routinely because the rigid electrodes, those spikes that are literally hammered using an air hammer into the brain, those spikes generate a bad immune response that encapsulates the electrode spikes in scar tissue essentially. And so one of the projects that was being worked on in the Anderson Lab at Caltech when I got there was to see if you could use chemotherapy to prevent the formation of scars. Things are pretty bad when you’re jamming a bed of nails into the brain, and then treating that with chemotherapy to try to prevent scar tissue, it’s like, maybe we’ve gotten off track here, guys. Maybe there’s a fundamental redesign necessary.是的，这个方向来自于经验积累。我们站在那些在我们出现之前，几十年里制造和使用 Utah Array 的人的肩膀上。Neuralink 的出现，以及这种技术路线的形成，部分原因正是认识到了 Utah Array 会常规失效这个问题——那些字面意义上用气锤锤进大脑的刚性电极尖刺，会引发恶性免疫反应，将电极尖刺包裹在瘢痕组织里。所以在我到 Caltech 的 Anderson 实验室时，他们正在研究一个项目：能否用化疗来防止瘢痕形成。当你把一张钉床打进大脑，然后再用化疗来防止瘢痕，情况已经糟到了这个地步——这就像是，大概我们已经跑偏了吧，伙计们。也许需要从根本上重新设计。
Matthew MacDougallAnd so Neuralink’s approach of using highly flexible, tiny electrodes avoids a lot of the bleeding, avoids a lot of the immune response that ends up happening when rigid electrodes are pounded into the brain. And so what we see is our electrode longevity and functionality and the health of the brain tissue immediately surrounding the electrode is excellent. I mean, it goes on for years now in our animal models.所以 Neuralink 使用高柔性、极细电极的方案，避免了大量出血，避免了刚性电极被锤入大脑时所产生的大量免疫反应。我们观察到的是，我们的电极寿命、功能性，以及紧邻电极的脑组织健康状况都非常出色。我是说，在我们的动物模型里，到现在已经持续了好几年了。
Lex FridmanWhat do most people not understand about the biology of the brain? We will mention the vasculature. That’s really interesting.大多数人对大脑生物学不了解的是什么？你提到了血管，这很有意思。
Matthew MacDougallI think the most interesting maybe underappreciated fact is that it really does control almost everything. I don’t know, for an out of the blue example, imagine you want a lever on fertility. You want to be able to turn fertility on and off. There are legitimate targets in the brain itself to modulate fertility, say blood pressure. You want to modulate blood pressure, there are legitimate targets in the brain for doing that. Things that aren’t immediately obvious as brain problems are potentially solvable in the brain. And so I think it’s an under-explored area for primary treatments of all the things that bother people.我觉得最有意思、也许最被低估的事实是：大脑真的控制着几乎一切。举个不那么显而易见的例子，假设你想要一个调节生育能力的开关，想要打开或关闭生育能力——在大脑本身就有合法的靶点可以调节生育。血压也一样，想要调节血压，大脑里有合法的靶点。那些不是立刻联想到大脑问题的疾病，在大脑里可能是有解决方案的。所以我觉得这是一个尚未充分探索的领域，可以作为各种困扰人们的问题的初级治疗靶点。
Lex FridmanThat’s a really fascinating way to look at it. There’s a lot of conditions we might think have nothing to do with the brain, but they might just be symptoms of something that actually started in the brain. The actual source of the problem, the primary source is something in the brain.这是一个很迷人的视角。很多我们以为与大脑无关的疾病，也许只是症状，而真正的源头、最初的病根，实际上在大脑里。
Matthew MacDougallYeah. Not always. I mean, kidney disease is real, but there are levers you can pull in the brain that affect all of these systems.是的，但也不总是这样。肾病是真实存在的，但大脑里确实有可以影响所有这些系统的调节杠杆。
Lex FridmanThere’s knobs.有旋钮。
Matthew MacDougallYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanOn-off switches and knobs in the brain from which this all originates. Would you have a Neuralink chip implanted in your brain?大脑里的开关和旋钮，一切都从这里发源。你会把 Neuralink 芯片植入自己大脑吗？
Matthew MacDougallYeah. I think use case right now is use a mouse, right? I can already do that, and so there’s no value proposition. On safety grounds alone, sure. I’ll do it tomorrow.会。我觉得现在的使用场景是用鼠标，对吧？我已经能做到这件事了，所以暂时没有价值主张。但单从安全角度来说，当然，我明天就去做。
Lex FridmanYou know, when you say the use case of the mouse, is it…你说到鼠标这个使用场景，这是……
Lex FridmanThe use case of the mouse is after researching all this and part of it’s just watching Nolan have so much fun. If you can get that bits per second look really high with the mouse, being able to interact, because if you think about the way on the smartphone, the way you swipe, that was transformational. How we interact with the thing, it’s subtle, you don’t realize it, but to be able to touch a phone and to scroll with your finger, that changed everything. People were sure you need a keyboard to type. There’s a lot of HCI aspects to that that changed how we interact with computers, so there could be a certain rate of speed with the mouse that would change everything. You might be able to just click around a screen extremely fast. I can’t see myself getting a Neuralink for much more rapid interaction with the digital devices.鼠标的使用场景，是在研究了这一切之后，部分也是看着 Noland 玩得那么开心得出的感悟。如果能让鼠标的比特率真的做得很高——能够交互，因为想想智能手机上的那种滑动体验，那是革命性的。我们与设备交互的方式，是很微妙的，你不会意识到，但能够触摸手机、用手指滚动，改变了一切。人们曾经确信打字必须用键盘。HCI（人机交互）有很多层面发生了改变，影响了我们与计算机的交互方式，所以鼠标可能有某种速度会改变一切。你也许能以极快的速度在屏幕上点来点去。我无法想象自己不是为了与数字设备更快速交互而去装 Neuralink。
Matthew MacDougallYeah, I think recording speech intentions from the brain might change things as well, the value proposition for the average person. A keyboard is a pretty clunky human interface, requires a lot of training. It’s highly variable in the maximum performance that the average person can achieve. I think taking that out of the equation and just having a natural word to computer interface might change things for a lot of people.是的，我觉得从大脑中记录言语意图也许同样会改变事情，改变普通人的价值主张。键盘是一种相当笨拙的人机界面，需要大量训练，而普通人能达到的最高性能也参差不齐。我觉得把键盘从方程里去掉，直接做一个自然的语言到计算机的界面，可能会改变很多人的体验。
Lex FridmanIt’d be hilarious if that is the reason people do it. Even if you have speech to text, that’s extremely accurate. It currently isn’t, but it’d say you’ve gotten super accurate. It’d be hilarious if people went for Neuralink. Just so you avoid the embarrassing aspect of speaking, looking like a douchebag speaking to your phone in public, which is a real, that’s a real constraint.这太好笑了，如果那真的成为人们选择 Neuralink 的原因的话。即使语音转文字变得极其精准——现在还不够准，但假设真的做到了——人们还是去装 Neuralink，只是为了避免在公共场合对着手机说话那种尴尬感、那种傻感，那真的是个真实的制约因素。
Matthew MacDougallI mean with a bone conducting case, that can be an invisible headphone, say, and the ability to think words into software and have it respond to you. That starts to sound sort of like embedded super intelligence. If you can silently ask for the Wikipedia article on any subject and have it read to you without any observable change happening in the outside world. For one thing, standardized testing is obsolete.我是说，配上骨传导耳机，可以做到完全隐形，然后能把思维中的词语直接输入软件并得到回应。这开始听起来像是内嵌的超级智能了。如果你能无声地请求获取任何主题的维基百科文章，并在外部世界毫无可观察变化的情况下听它被读给你听——光是这一点，标准化考试就已经过时了。
Lex FridmanIf it’s done well in the UX side, it could change, I don’t know if it transforms society, but it really can create a kind of shift in the way we interact with digital devices in the way that a smartphone did. Just having to look into the safety of everything involved, I would totally try it. So it doesn’t have to go to some incredible thing where you have, it connects your vision or to some other, it connects all over your brain. That could be just connecting to the hand knob. You might have a lot of interesting interaction, human computer interaction possibilities. That’s really interesting.如果在 UX 体验上做得好，它可能会改变……我不知道它是否能改变整个社会，但确实可能创造一种类似智能手机的交互方式转变。只要安全性的方方面面都审查到位，我完全愿意试试。所以也不必达到什么惊天动地的高度——连接你的视觉，或者连接整个大脑的其他部分，这些都不是必要条件。光是连接 hand knob，可能就有大量有趣的人机交互可能性。这真的很有意思。
Matthew MacDougallAnd the technology on the academic side is progressing at light speed here. There was a really amazing paper out of UC Davis at Sergey Stavisky’s lab that basically made an initial solve of speech decode. It was something like 125,000 words that they were getting with very high accuracy, which is-而且学术界这方面的技术正在以光速进步。UC Davis 的 Sergey Stavisky 实验室最近发表了一篇非常出色的论文，基本上对言语解码做了一个初步攻关。准确率很高，词汇量大概达到了 125,000 个词——这已经是——
Lex FridmanSo you’re just thinking the word?所以你只是在脑子里想那个词？
Matthew MacDougallYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanThinking the word and you’re able to get it?想着那个词，就能读取出来？
Matthew MacDougallYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanOh, boy. You have to have the intention of speaking it. So do the inner voice. Man, it’s so amazing to me that you can do the intention, the signal mapping. All you have to do is just imagine yourself doing it. And if you get the feedback that it actually worked, you can get really good at that. Your brain will first of all adjust and you develop, like any other skill, like touch typing. You develop in that same kind of way.哦天哪。你得有想说出来的意图，就是那个内心声音。真让我震惊，仅凭意图、仅凭信号映射就能做到这一点。你只需要想象自己在做那件事，一旦有了它真的成功的反馈，就能越来越精通。你的大脑首先会适应，然后你就像习得任何其他技能一样——比如盲打，以同样的方式习得这项技能。
Lex FridmanTo me, it’s just really fascinating to be able to even to play with that, honestly, I would get a Neuralink just to be able to play with that, just to play with the capacity, the capability of my mind to learn this skill. It’s like learning the skill of typing and learning the skill of moving a mouse. It’s another skill of moving the mouse, not with my physical body, but with my mind.对我来说，光是能玩一玩这件事就已经真的很吸引人了，说实话，我装 Neuralink 就是为了能玩一玩，探索我的大脑学习这项技能的能力。就像学打字、学移鼠标，这是另一种技能——不是用我的物理身体移动鼠标，而是用我的大脑来移动。
Matthew MacDougallI can’t wait to see what people do with it. I feel like we’re cavemen right now. We’re banging rocks with a stick and thinking that we’re making music. At some point when these are more widespread, there’s going to be the equivalent of a piano that someone can make art with their brain in a way that we didn’t even anticipate. Looking forward to it.我迫不及待想看看人们会用它做什么。我觉得我们现在就像穴居人，用棍子敲石头，以为自己在演奏音乐。等到这些设备更加普及的时候，会有人用它来演奏等价于钢琴的那种东西——用大脑来创作我们甚至想象不到的艺术。期待那一天。
Lex FridmanGive it to a teenager. Anytime I think I’m good at something I’ll always go to… I don’t know. Even with the bits per second and playing a video game, you realize you give it to a teenager, you give a Neuralink to a teenager. Just a large number of them, the kind of stuff they get good at stuff, they’re going to get hundreds of bits per second. Even just with the current technology.把它交给青少年。每次我以为自己在某件事上很厉害，我都会想到……我不知道。哪怕就是比特率和打电子游戏，你把它交给一个青少年，你给一大群青少年装 Neuralink，他们那种迅速上手新事物的劲儿——他们会达到每秒数百比特。就算是用现在的技术。
Matthew MacDougallProbably. Probably.很可能，很可能。
Lex FridmanBecause it’s also addicting, the number go up aspect of it of improving and training. It is almost like a skill and plus there’s the software on the other end that adapts to you, and especially if the adapting procedure algorithm becomes better and better and better. You’re like learning together.因为这也会上瘾，那种数字不断提升的感觉、持续进步和训练的感觉。这几乎就像一项技能，加上另一端的软件会适应你，尤其是适应算法越来越好的话。感觉像是在一起学习。
Matthew MacDougallYeah, we’re scratching the surface on that right now. There’s so much more to do.是的，我们在这方面才刚刚起步，还有太多可以做的事。
Lex FridmanSo on the complete other side of it, you have an RFID chip implanted in you?那换到完全另一个话题，你自己体内植入了一个 RFID 芯片？
Matthew MacDougallYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanSo I hear.我听说了。
Matthew MacDougallNice.哦。
Lex FridmanSo this is-所以这是——
Matthew MacDougallLittle subtle thing.一个小小的、不起眼的玩意儿。
Lex FridmanIt’s a passive device that you use for unlocking a safe with top secrets or what do you use it for? What’s the story behind it?这是一个无源设备，你用它来开一个装着机密的保险箱，还是用来做什么？背后有什么故事？
Matthew MacDougallI’m not the first one. There’s this whole community of weirdo biohackers that have done this stuff, and I think one of the early use cases was storing private crypto wallet keys and whatever. I dabbled in that a bit and had some fun with it.我不是第一个这样做的人。有整个一个圈子的怪咖生物黑客做了这种事，我觉得早期的使用场景之一是存储私人加密钱包密钥等等。我也涉足过一点，玩得挺开心的。
Lex FridmanYou have some Bitcoin implanted in your body somewhere. You can’t tell where. Yeah, yeah.你有些 Bitcoin 植在你身体某处。不能说在哪里。对对对。
Matthew MacDougallActually, yeah. It was the modern day equivalent of finding change in the sofa cushions after I put some orphaned crypto on there that I thought was worthless and forgot about it for a few years. Went back and found that some community of people loved it and had propped up the value of it, and so it had gone up fifty-fold, so there was a lot of change in those cushions.其实还真是。这就像是找沙发垫里的零钱的现代版——我把一些我以为毫无价值、被我遗忘了的孤儿加密币存进去，几年后再去看，发现有个社区爱上了它，把它的价值撑了起来，结果涨了 50 倍，那些垫子里真的有不少'零钱'。
Lex FridmanThat’s hilarious.太好笑了。
Matthew MacDougallBut the primary use case is mostly as a tech demonstrator. It has my business card on it. You can scan that in by touching it to your phone. It opens the front door to my house, whatever, simple stuff.但主要用途大多是作为技术展示品。上面存着我的名片，把它贴近手机就能扫出来。还能开我家前门，诸如此类，挺简单的用途。
Lex FridmanIt’s a cool step. It’s a cool leap to implant something in your body. I mean, perhaps it’s a similar leap to a Neuralink because for a lot of people, that kind of notion of putting something inside your body, something electronic inside a biological system is a big leap.这是很酷的一步。在体内植入东西是个很大的跨越。我是说，对 Neuralink 来说也许是类似的跨越，因为对很多人来说，在身体里放入某样东西、把电子设备放进生物系统，是一个很大的思想跨越。
Matthew MacDougallWe have a kind of mysticism around the barrier of our skin. We’re completely fine with knee replacements, hip replacements, dental implants, but there’s a mysticism still around the inviolable barrier that the skull represents, and I think that needs to be treated like any other pragmatic barrier. The question isn’t how incredible is it to open the skull? The question is what benefit can we provide?我们对皮肤屏障有某种神秘主义。我们对膝关节置换、髋关节置换、牙科植入物完全接受，但颅骨代表的那道不可侵犯屏障上仍然有某种神秘色彩，我觉得这应该像对待其他任何实用障碍一样来对待。问题不是打开颅骨这件事有多惊天动地，问题是我们能提供什么价值。
Lex FridmanSo from all the surgeries you’ve done, from everything you understand the brain, how much does neuroplasticity come into play? How adaptable is the brain? For example, just even in the case of healing from surgery or adapting to the post-surgery situation.从你做过的所有手术、以及你对大脑的全部理解来看，神经可塑性在其中扮演了多大的角色？大脑的适应能力有多强？比如，仅仅在从手术中恢复、或适应手术后的状态这个层面上。
Matthew MacDougallThe answer that is sad for me and other people of my demographic is that plasticity decreases with age. Healing decreases with age. I have too much gray hair to be optimistic about that. There are theoretical ways to increase plasticity using electrical stimulation. Nothing that is totally proven out as a robust enough mechanism to offer widely to people.对我和我这个年龄层的人来说，答案让人有点伤感：可塑性随年龄降低，愈合能力也随年龄降低。我头上的白发太多，无法对此保持乐观。理论上可以用电刺激来提升可塑性，但目前还没有哪种机制被完全证实为足够稳健、可以广泛推广给大众的方案。
Matthew MacDougallBut yeah, I think there’s cause for optimism that we might find something useful in terms of say, an implanted electrode that improves learning. Certainly there’s been some really amazing work recently from Nicholas Schiff, Jonathan Baker and others who have a cohort of patients with moderate traumatic brain injury who have had electrodes placed in the deep nucleus in the brain called the central median nucleus or just near central median nucleus, and when they apply small amounts of electricity to that part of the brain, it’s almost like electronic caffeine.不过我觉得有理由保持乐观，我们也许会在比如植入电极改善学习这方面找到一些有用的东西。Nicholas Schiff、Jonathan Baker 等人最近做了一些真正出色的工作，他们有一批中度创伤性脑损伤患者，在大脑深部一个叫做中央正中核（central median nucleus）或其附近区域植入了电极，当他们对那个大脑部位施加微量电流时，效果几乎像是电子版咖啡因。
Matthew MacDougallThey’re able to improve people’s attention and focus. They’re able to improve how well people can perform a task. I think in one case, someone who was unable to work, after the device was turned on, they were able to get a job. And that’s sort of one of the holy grails for me with Neuralink and other technologies like this is from a purely utilitarian standpoint, can we make people able to take care of themselves and their families economically again? Can we make it so someone who’s fully dependent and even maybe requires a lot of caregiver resources, can we put them in a position to be fully independent, taking care of themselves, giving back to their communities? I think that’s a very compelling proposition and what motivates a lot of what I do and what a lot of the people at Neuralink are working for.他们能够改善人们的注意力和专注度，改善人们完成任务的表现。我记得其中有一个案例，有人原本无法工作，设备开启之后，他们能够找到工作了。这对我来说是 Neuralink 及类似技术的圣杯之一——从纯粹功利主义的角度来说，我们能否让人们重新有能力在经济上照顾自己和家人？我们能否让一个完全依赖他人、甚至需要大量护理资源的人，重新完全独立、照顾自己、回馈社区？我觉得这是一个非常有力的命题，也是驱动我所做的一切、以及 Neuralink 很多人工作的动力。
Lex FridmanIt’s just a cool possibility that if you put a Neuralink in there, that the brain adapts the other part of the brain adapts too and integrates it. The capacity of the brain to do that is really interesting. Probably unknown to the degree to which you can do that, but you’re now connecting an external thing to it, especially once it’s doing stimulation. The biological brain and the electronic brain outside of it working together, the possibilities there are really interesting. It’s still unknown, but interesting. It feels like the brain is really good at adapting to whatever, but of course it is a system that by itself is already, everything serves a purpose and so you don’t want to mess with it too much.这是一个很酷的可能性——如果你在里面放一个 Neuralink，大脑的其他部分也会随之适应并整合它。大脑做到这一点的能力真的很有意思。可能程度还未知，但有趣。你现在是在把一个外部的东西连接进去，尤其是一旦它开始做刺激。生物大脑和它之外的电子大脑协同工作，这其中的可能性真的很有意思。还是未知的，但很有意思。感觉大脑非常擅长适应任何事情，但当然，它本身已经是一个所有部分都各司其职的系统，所以你不想过多干预它。
Matthew MacDougallYeah, it’s like eliminating a species from an ecology. You don’t know what the delicate interconnections and dependencies are. The brain is certainly a delicate, complex beast, and we don’t know every potential downstream consequence of a single change that we make.是的，就像把一个物种从生态系统中移除。你不知道那些细腻的相互关联和依存关系在哪里。大脑肯定是一个精妙而复杂的生物体，我们无法预知我们所做的每一个单一改变的所有潜在下游影响。
Lex FridmanDo you see yourself doing, so you mentioned P1, surgeries of P2, P3, P4, P5? Just more and more and more humans.你是否想过，就这样继续做下去——你提到了 P1 的手术，P2、P3、P4、P5，就是越来越多的人类。
Matthew MacDougallI think it’s a certain kind of brittleness or a failure on the company’s side if we need me to do all the surgeries. I think something that I would very much like to work towards is a process that is so simple and so robust on the surgery side that literally anyone could do it. We want to get away from requiring intense expertise or intense experience to have this done and make it as simple and translatable as possible. I mean, I would love it if every neurosurgeon on the planet had no problem doing this. I think we’re probably far from a regulatory environment that would allow people that aren’t neurosurgeons to do this, but not impossible.我觉得如果所有手术都需要我来做，那是公司的某种脆弱性，是一种失败。我非常希望朝着这样的方向努力：手术流程在手术端变得如此简单、如此稳健，以至于任何人字面意义上都可以做。我们希望摆脱对强烈的专业知识或丰富经验的依赖，让这件事尽可能简单、可移植。我是说，我非常希望全球每一位神经外科医生都能毫无困难地完成这个手术。我觉得我们距离能让非神经外科医生做这件事的监管环境还很远，但并非不可能。
Lex FridmanAll right, I’ll sign up for that. Did you ever anthropomorphize the robot R1? Do you give it a name? Do you see it as a friend as working together with you?好，我去报名参加。你有没有对机器人 R1 进行拟人化？有没有给它起个名字？你把它看作朋友，是在一起工作的伙伴吗？
Matthew MacDougallI mean, to a certain degree it’s-我是说，在某种程度上，它是——
Lex FridmanOr an enemy who’s going to take your job?还是一个要来抢你饭碗的敌人？
Matthew MacDougallTo a certain degree, yeah. It’s complex relationship.某种程度上，是的。这是个复杂的关系。
Lex FridmanAll the good relationships are.好的关系都是这样的。
Matthew MacDougallIt’s funny when in the middle of the surgery, there’s a part of it where I stand basically shoulder to shoulder with the robot, and so if you’re in the room reading the body language, it’s my brother in arms there. We’re working together on the same problem. Yeah, I’m not threatened by it.有趣的是，在手术中间有一个环节，我基本上是与机器人肩并肩站在一起的，所以如果你在现场看这个姿态，那就是我的并肩战友在那里。我们在一起解决同一个问题。是的，我不感到被它威胁。
Lex FridmanKeep telling yourself that. How have all the surgeries that you’ve done over the years, the people you’ve helped and the stakes, the high stakes that you’ve mentioned, how has that changed your understanding of life and death?继续这样告诉自己吧。这些年来你做的所有手术、你帮助过的人，以及你提到的那种高风险——这些是如何改变了你对生死的理解？
Matthew MacDougallYeah, it gives you a very visceral sense, and this may sound trite, but it gives you a very visceral sense that death is inevitable. On one hand, as a neurosurgeon, you’re deeply involved in these, just hard to fathom tragedies, young parents dying, leaving a four-year-old behind, say. And on the other hand, it takes the sting out of it a bit because you see how just mind-numbingly universal death is. There’s zero chance that I’m going to avoid it. I know techno-optimists right now and longevity buffs right now would disagree on that 0.000% estimate, but I don’t see any chance that our generation is going to avoid it. Entropy is a powerful force and we are very ornate, delicate, brittle, DNA machines that aren’t up to the cosmic ray bombardment that we’re subjected to.是的，它给你一种非常直观的感受——这听起来可能有些陈腐——但它给你一种非常直观的感受：死亡是不可避免的。一方面，作为神经外科医生，你深深卷入这些简直难以想象的悲剧，年轻的父母离世，留下四岁的孩子之类的。另一方面，又让这件事的刺痛减轻了一点，因为你亲眼看见死亡是多么令人麻木地普遍。我绝对没有可能避开它。我知道现在的技术乐观派和长寿信徒会对这个 0.000% 的估计持异议，但我看不到我们这一代避开死亡的任何可能。熵是一股强大的力量，我们是非常精巧、脆弱、容易损坏的 DNA 机器，扛不住我们所受到的宇宙射线轰击。
Matthew MacDougallSo on the one hand, every human that has ever lived died or will die. On the other hand, it’s just one of the hardest things to imagine inflicting on anyone that you love is having them gone. I mean, I’m sure you’ve had friends that aren’t living anymore and it’s hard to even think about them. And so I wish I had arrived at the point of nirvana where death doesn’t have a sting, I’m not worried about it. But I can at least say that I’m comfortable with the certainty of it, if not having found out how to take the tragedy out of it. When I think about my kids either not having me or me not having them or my wife.所以，一方面，有史以来每一个活过的人都死了，或者终将死去。另一方面，能想象加诸于任何你爱的人身上最难受的事，就是他们的离去。我相信你也有已经不在人世的朋友，即使只是想起他们都很难。所以我希望自己已经到达那种涅槃的境界——死亡不再有刺痛，我不再为此担忧。但我至少可以说，我已经坦然接受了它的必然性，即使还没有找到如何把它的悲剧性抽走。当我想到我的孩子失去我，或者我失去他们，或者我的妻子……
Lex FridmanMaybe I’ve come to accept the intellectual certainty of it, but it may be the pain that comes with losing the people you love. But I don’t think I’ve come to understand the existential aspect of it, that this is going to end, and I don’t mean in some trite way. I mean, it certainly feels like it’s not going to end. You live life like it’s not going to end. And the fact that this light that’s shining, this consciousness is going to no longer be in one moment, maybe today. It fills me when I really am able to load all that in with Ernest Becker’s terror. It is a real fear.也许我已经在理智上接受了死亡的必然性，但真正让我痛苦的，是失去挚爱之人。不过我觉得自己仍未真正理解那种存在性的维度——这一切终将结束。我说的不是什么陈词滥调式的感叹，而是：活着的时候，你真的感觉它永远不会结束，你也是这样过每一天的。然而有那么一刻，这道正在照耀的光、这个意识，将会消失——也许就是今天。当我真正把这一切装进脑子里，我感受到的是Ernest Becker所说的那种terror，是真实的恐惧。
Lex FridmanI think people aren’t always honest with how terrifying it is. I think the more you are able to really think through it, the more terrifying it is. It’s not such a simple thing, “Oh, well, it’s the way life is.” If you really can load that in, it’s hard, but I think that’s why the Stoics did it, because it helps you get your shit together and be like, “The moment, every single moment you’re alive is just beautiful” and it’s terrifying that it’s going to end, and it’s almost like you’re shivering in the cold, a child helpless. This kind of feeling,我觉得人们并不总是诚实面对它有多可怕。你越能真正想透它，它就越可怕。不能用"哦，这不过是生命的一部分"来轻轻带过。如果你真的把它完整地装进心里，是很沉重的。但我想这正是斯多葛派这么做的原因——它能让你收拾好自己、然后意识到："活着的每一刻都是美好的"，同时也无比恐惧它终将结束，那种感觉就像在寒冷中瑟瑟发抖、一个孤立无援的孩子。
Lex FridmanAnd then it makes you, when you have warmth, when you have the safety, when you have the love to really appreciate it. I feel like sometimes in your position when you mentioned armor just to see death, it might make you not be able to see that, the finiteness of life because if you kept looking at that, it might break you. So it is good to know that you’re kind of still struggling with that. There’s the neurosurgeon and then there’s a human, and the human is still able to struggle with that and feel the fear of that and the pain of that.正因如此，当你拥有温暖、安全与爱的时候，你才能真正珍视它。我感觉在你那样的位置上——你提到要为自己穿上盔甲来直面死亡——也许正是这副盔甲让你无法看见生命的有限性，因为如果你一直盯着它看，它可能会把你击垮。所以得知你依然在与之抗争，是件好事。有神经外科医生的那一面，也有作为人的那一面，而那个人依然能够挣扎，依然能够感受那份恐惧与痛苦。
Matthew MacDougallYeah, it definitely makes you ask the question of how many of these can you see and not say, “I can’t do this anymore”? But I mean you said it well, I think it gives you an opportunity to just appreciate that you’re alive today and I’ve got three kids and an amazing wife, and I am really happy. Things are good. I get to help on a project that I think matters. I think it moves us forward. I’m a very lucky person.是啊，这确实让你不得不问自己：你能见证多少这样的事，才会说"我撑不下去了"？但就像你说得好，我觉得它给了你一个机会，让你真切地感受到今天还活着。我有三个孩子，有一个了不起的妻子，我真的很幸福。一切都很好。我能参与一个我认为有意义的项目，我相信它在推动人类向前。我是个非常幸运的人。
Lex FridmanIt’s the early steps of a potentially gigantic leap for humanity. It’s a really interesting one. And it’s cool because you read about all this stuff in history where it’s like the early days. I’ve been reading, before going to the Amazon, I would read about explorers that would go and explore even the Amazon jungle for the first time. It’s just those are the early steps or early steps into space, early steps in any discipline in physics and mathematics, and it’s cool because on the grand scale, these are the early steps into delving deep into the human brain, so not just observing the brain but be able to interact with the human brain. It’s going to help a lot of people, but it also might help us understand what the hell’s going on in there.这是人类可能迈出的一次巨大飞跃的早期步骤，真的很有意思。而且很有意思的是，你读到历史上的那些时刻，那种"早期岁月"的感觉——我去亚马逊之前，一直在读探险家首次深入亚马逊丛林的故事。那些都是早期的步伐：进入太空的早期步伐、任何物理和数学学科的早期步伐。从宏观尺度来看，现在这些，正是深入人类大脑的早期步伐——不只是观察大脑，而是能与人类大脑进行交互。这将帮助很多人，但也可能帮助我们弄清楚大脑里到底发生了什么。
Matthew MacDougallYeah. I think ultimately we want to give people more levers that they can pull. You want to give people options. If you can give someone a dial that they can turn on how happy they are, I think that makes people really uncomfortable. But now talk about major depressive disorder. Talk about people that are committing suicide at an alarming rate in this country, and try to justify that queasiness in that light of, you can give people a knob to take away suicidal ideation, suicidal intention. I would give them that knob. I don’t know how you justify not doing that.是的。我认为我们最终想做的是给人们更多可以拨动的杠杆，让人们有更多选择。如果你能给某人一个旋钮，让他们调节自己的幸福感，我想这会让很多人感到不舒服。但现在来谈谈重度抑郁症，谈谈这个国家自杀率高得令人警觉的现实，然后试着用"你可以给人们一个旋钮，消除自杀意念和自杀冲动"来为那种不安感辩护——我会把这个旋钮给他们。我不知道有什么理由不这样做。
Lex FridmanYou can think about all the suffering that’s going on in the world, every single human being that’s suffering right now. It’ll be a glowing red dot. The more suffering, the more it’s glowing, and you just see the map of human suffering and any technology that allows you to dim that light of suffering on a grand scale is pretty exciting. Because there’s a lot of people suffering and most of them suffer quietly, and we look away too often, and we should remember those are suffering because once again, most of them are suffering quietly.你可以想象世界上所有正在经历痛苦的人，每一个此刻正在受苦的人。把它们想象成一个发光的红点，苦难越深，红点越亮，你就这样看着人类苦难的地图——任何能在宏观层面上让那道苦难之光变暗的技术，都是令人振奋的。因为有太多人在受苦，而且大多数人都是悄无声息地受苦，我们太频繁地视而不见。我们应该记住那些正在受苦的人，因为他们大多数都在沉默地煎熬。
Matthew MacDougallWell, and on a grander scale, the fabric of society. People have a lot of complaints about how our social fabric is working or not working, how our politics is working or not working. Those things are made of neurochemistry too in aggregate, right? Our politics is composed of individuals with human brains, and the way it works or doesn’t work is potentially tunable in the sense that, I don’t know, say remove our addictive behaviors or tune our addictive behaviors for social media or our addiction to outrage, our addiction to sharing the most angry political tweet we can find. I don’t think that leads to a functional society, and if you had options for people to moderate that maladaptive behavior, there could be huge benefits to society. Maybe we could all work together a little more harmoniously toward useful ends.而且往更大的层面说，整个社会的结构。人们对我们社会肌理的运作方式、对我们政治的运作方式有很多抱怨。但这些东西归根结底也是由神经化学构成的，对吧？我们的政治由拥有人类大脑的个体组成，它运作或失灵的方式，在某种意义上是可以调节的——比如，消除或调节我们对社交媒体的成瘾行为，或者我们对愤怒的成瘾、对转发最愤怒政治推文的成瘾。我不认为这能带来一个功能健全的社会，如果人们能有选择来缓和这种失调行为，对社会可能有巨大的好处。也许我们就能更和谐地朝着有价值的目标共同努力。
Lex FridmanThere’s a sweet spot, like you mentioned. You don’t want to completely remove all the dark sides of human nature. Those are somehow necessary to make the whole thing work, but there’s a sweet spot.有个甜蜜点，就像你说的。你不会想完全消除人性中所有的阴暗面，那些东西以某种方式是让整体运转所必需的，但确实存在一个甜蜜点。
Matthew MacDougallYeah, I agree. You got to suffer a little, just not so much that you lose hope.是的，我同意。必须要有一点苦难，只是不要多到让你失去希望。
Lex FridmanYeah. When you, all the surgeries you’ve done, have you seen consciousness in there ever? Was there a glowing light?是啊。那么你做了这么多手术，你曾经在大脑里"看见过"意识吗？有没有看到过那道闪光？
Matthew MacDougallI have this sense that I never found it, never removed it like a Dementor in Harry Potter. I have this sense that consciousness is a lot less magical than our instincts want to claim it is. It seems to me like a useful analog for about what consciousness is in the brain is that we have a really good intuitive understanding of what it means to say, touch your skin and know what’s being touched. And I think consciousness is just that level of sensory mapping applied to the thought processes in the brain itself.我有一种感觉：我从未找到过它，也从未像《哈利·波特》里的摄魂怪那样把它取出来。我有这样一种感觉——意识远没有我们的直觉想要赋予它的那么神奇。在我看来，关于意识在大脑中是什么，一个很有用的类比是这样的：我们对"触摸自己的皮肤并感知到哪里被触碰"这件事有一种非常好的直觉理解。我认为意识就是这种感觉层面的映射，被应用到大脑自身的思维过程上。
Matthew MacDougallSo what I’m saying is, consciousness is the sensation of some part of your brain being active, so you feel it working. You feel the part of your brain that thinks of red things or winged creatures or the taste of coffee. You feel those parts of your brain being active, the way that I’m feeling my palm being touched, and that sensory system that feels the brain working is consciousness.我的意思是，意识是大脑某个部分处于活跃状态时产生的感觉——你感觉到它在工作。你感觉到大脑中那个思考红色事物、长翅膀的生物或咖啡味道的部分正在活跃，就像我感觉到手掌被触碰一样。而那个感知大脑运作的感觉系统，就是意识。
Lex FridmanThat’s so brilliant. It’s the same way. It’s the sensation of touch when you’re touching a thing. Consciousness is the sensation of you feeling your brain working, your brain thinking, your brain perceiving.这太精彩了。就是同一回事——触摸某样东西时的触觉感受。意识，就是你感知到自己的大脑在运作、在思考、在感知时所产生的那种感觉。
Matthew MacDougallWhich isn’t like a warping of space-time or some quantum field effect, right? It’s nothing magical. People always want to ascribe to consciousness something truly different, and there’s this awesome long history of people looking at whatever the latest discovery in physics is to explain consciousness because it’s the most magical, the most out there thing that you can think of, and people always want to do that with consciousness. I don’t think that’s necessary. It’s just a very useful and gratifying way of feeling your brain work.它并不像时空弯曲或某种量子场效应，对吧？它没有什么神奇之处。人们总是想把意识归结为某种真正不同的东西，而且有这样一段很长的历史：人们总是借用物理学最新的发现来解释意识，因为它是你能想到的最神奇、最离奇的东西，人们总是想把意识往那个方向靠。我不认为那是必要的。它只是感知自己大脑运作的一种非常有用且令人愉悦的方式。
Lex FridmanAnd as we said, it’s one heck of a brain. Everything we see around us, everything we love, everything that’s beautiful came from brains like these.就像我们说的，这是一台非凡的大脑。我们周围看到的一切，我们爱的一切，一切美好的事物，都是从像这样的大脑里诞生的。
Matthew MacDougallIt’s all electrical activity happening inside your skull.这一切都是发生在你颅骨内部的电活动。
Lex FridmanAnd I, for one, am grateful there’s people like you that are exploring all the ways that it works and all the ways it can be made better.而我，作为其中一员，非常感激有像你这样的人在探索它运作的所有方式，以及它可以被改善的所有方式。
Matthew MacDougallThanks, Lex.谢谢你，Lex。
Lex FridmanThank you so much for talking today.非常感谢你今天和我交谈。
Matthew MacDougallIt’s been a joy.这是一次愉快的对话。
Lex FridmanThanks for listening to this conversation with Matthew MacDougall. Now, dear friends, here’s Bliss Chapman, brain interface software lead at Neuralink. You told me that you’ve met hundreds of people with spinal cord injuries or with ALS, and that your motivation for helping at Neuralink is grounded in wanting to help them. Can you describe this motivation?感谢收听这次与Matthew MacDougall的对话。现在，亲爱的朋友们，接下来是Bliss Chapman，Neuralink的脑机接口软件负责人。你告诉我，你已经见过数百名患有脊髓损伤或ALS的人，你在Neuralink工作的动力根植于想要帮助他们。你能描述一下这种动力吗？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. First, just a thank you to all the people I’ve gotten a chance to speak with for sharing their stories with me. I don’t think there’s any world really in which I can share their stories as powerful way as they can, but just I think to summarize at a very high level, what I hear over and over again is that people with ALS or severe spinal cord injury in a place where they basically can’t move physically anymore, really at the end of the day are looking for independence. And that can mean different things for different people.好的。首先，要感谢所有与我有过交流机会的人，感谢他们与我分享自己的故事。我不认为我能像他们本人那样有力地讲述那些故事，但概括来说，我一遍又一遍地听到的是：患有ALS或严重脊髓损伤、基本上无法再进行身体活动的人，从根本上寻求的是独立。而这对不同的人意味着不同的事情。
Bliss ChapmanFor some folks, it can mean the ability just to be able to communicate again independently without needing to wear something on their face, without needing a caretaker to be able to put something in their mouth. For some folks, it can mean independence to be able to work again, to be able to navigate a computer digitally, efficiently enough to be able to get a job, to be able to support themselves, to be able to move out and ultimately be able to support themselves after their family maybe isn’t there anymore to take care of them.对有些人来说，这意味着能够重新独立地进行交流，不用在脸上戴东西，不需要护理人员帮他们把东西放进嘴里。对另一些人来说，这意味着能够重新工作的独立——能够在数字世界里高效地操作电脑，足以找到一份工作，能够养活自己，能够搬出去住，最终在家人也许不再能照顾他们的时候，能够自力更生。
Bliss ChapmanAnd for some folks, it’s as simple as just being able to respond to their kid in time before they run away or get interested in something else. And these are deeply personal and very human problems. And what strikes me again and again when talking with these folks is that this is actually an engineering problem. This is a problem that with the right resources, with the right team, can make a lot of progress on. And at the end of the day, I think that’s a deeply inspiring message and something that makes me excited to get up every day.而对另一些人来说，那件事简单到只是：能够在孩子跑开或对别的事情产生兴趣之前，及时回应他们。这些都是极为私人、非常人性化的问题。而每次与这些人交谈，让我一次次感到震撼的是：这其实是一个工程问题。这是一个只要有正确的资源、正确的团队，就能取得很大进展的问题。归根结底，我认为这是一个令人深感鼓舞的信息，也是让我每天都充满干劲的东西。
Lex FridmanSo it’s both an engineering problem in terms of a BCI, for example, that can give them capabilities where they can interact with the world, but also on the other side, it’s an engineering problem for the rest of the world to make it more accessible for people living with quadriplegia?所以这既是一个工程问题——比如BCI能给他们与世界交互的能力——同时，对世界另一面来说，也是一个让世界对四肢瘫痪者更易于接入的工程问题？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. And actually, I’ll take a broad view lens on this for a second. I think I’m very in favor of anyone working in this problem space. So beyond BCI, I’m happy and excited and willing to support any way I can, folks working on eye tracking systems, working on speech to text systems, working on head trackers or mouse sticks or quad sticks. And I’ve met many engineers and folks in the community that do exactly those things.是的。说实话，我想在这里用更宏观的视角看一眼。我非常支持任何在这个问题领域工作的人。所以在BCI之外，我也乐于支持并愿意用任何方式帮助那些在研究眼球追踪系统、语音转文字系统、头部追踪器、鼠标棒或quad stick的人。我已经认识了很多工程师和社区里做这些事情的人。
Bliss ChapmanAnd I think for the people we’re trying to help, it doesn’t matter what the complexity of the solution is as long as the problem is solved. And I want to emphasize that there can be many solutions out there that can help with these problems. And BCI is one of a collection of such solutions. So BCI in particular, I think offers several advantages here. And I think the folks that recognize this immediately are usually the people who have spinal cord injury or some form of paralysis.我认为对于我们试图帮助的人来说，只要问题得到解决，方案的复杂程度并不重要。我想强调，可以有很多种解决方案来解决这些问题，BCI只是众多方案之一。BCI尤其提供了一些优势，而通常能立刻看出这一点的，正是那些患有脊髓损伤或某种形式瘫痪的人。
Bliss ChapmanUsually you don’t have to explain to them why this might be something that could be helpful. It’s usually pretty self-evident, but for the rest of us folks that don’t live with severe spinal cord injury or who don’t know somebody with ALS, it’s not often obvious why you would want a brain implant to be able to connect and navigate a computer.通常你不需要向他们解释为什么这可能会有帮助，这对他们来说往往是不言而喻的。但对于我们这些没有严重脊髓损伤、也不认识ALS患者的人来说，为什么你会想要一个脑植入物来连接并操作电脑，往往并不显而易见。
Bliss ChapmanAnd it’s surprisingly nuanced, and to the degree that I’ve learned a huge amount just working with Noland in the first Neuralink clinical trial and understanding from him and his words why this device is impactful for him, and it’s a nuanced topic. It can be the case that even if you can achieve the same thing, for example, with a mouse stick when navigating a computer, he doesn’t have access to that mouse stick every single minute of the day. He only has access when someone is available to put it in front of him. And so a BCI can really offer a level of independence and autonomy that, if it wasn’t literally physically part of your body, it’d be hard to achieve in any other way.这其中有出人意料的微妙之处——实际上，在与Neuralink第一个临床试验的Noland合作的过程中，我学到了大量知识，从他的语言和角度理解为什么这个设备对他有意义，这是个很微妙的话题。即使你能用鼠标棒实现同样的事情——比如操作电脑——他也并非每分每秒都能用到那根鼠标棒。他只有在有人能把它放到他面前时才能使用。而BCI真的能提供一种独立性和自主性，如果它不是字面意义上成为你身体的一部分，其他方式很难实现。
Lex FridmanSo there’s a lot of fascinating aspects to what it takes to get Noland to be able to control a cursor on the screen with his mind. You texted me something that I just love. You said, “I was part of the team that interviewed and selected P1, I was in the operating room during the first human surgery monitoring live signals coming out of the brain. I work with the user basically every day to develop new UX paradigms, decoding strategies, and I was part of the team that figured out how to recover useful BCI to new world record levels when the signal quality degraded.” We’ll talk about, I think every aspect of that, but just zooming out, what was it like to be a part of that team and part of that historic, I would say, historic first?所以，让Noland能够用意念控制屏幕上的光标，其中有很多令人着迷的方面。你发给我一段话，我非常喜欢。你说："我是面试和筛选P1的团队成员之一，我在第一台人体手术的手术室里实时监测从大脑中传出的信号。我几乎每天都与用户合作，开发新的UX范式和解码策略，我也是那个在信号质量下降后想出如何将有效BCI恢复到新的世界纪录水平的团队成员之一。"我想聊聊其中的每一个方面，但先放眼整体——成为那个团队的一员，成为那次历史性——我要说是历史性——第一次的参与者，是什么感觉？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. I think for me, this is something I’ve been excited about for close to 10 years now. And so to be able to be even just some small part of making it a reality is extremely exciting. A couple maybe special moments during that whole process that I’ll never really truly forget. One of them is entering the actual surgery. At that point in time, I know Noland quite well. I know his family. And so I think the initial reaction when Noland is rolled into the operating room is just an “Oh, shit” kind of reaction. But at that point, muscle memory kicks in and you sort of go into, you let your body just do all the talking.是的。对我来说，这件事我已经兴奋了将近10年了。所以能够成为将它变为现实的哪怕是一个小小的部分，都极为令人振奋。在整个过程中，有几个也许格外特殊的时刻，是我永远真正无法忘怀的。其中之一是进入手术室的那一刻。那时候我已经非常了解Noland，也了解他的家人。所以当Noland被推进手术室的时候，第一反应就是一种"哦，妈的"的感觉。但在那一刻，肌肉记忆启动了，你就让身体自己去做所有事情。
Bliss ChapmanAnd I have the lucky job in that particular procedure to just be in charge of monitoring the implant. So my job is to sit there, to look at the signals coming off the implant, to look at the live brain data streaming off the device as threads are being inserted into the brain and just to basically observe and make sure that nothing is going wrong or that there’s no red flags or fault conditions that we need to go and investigate or pause the surgery to debug.而我在那个手术中非常幸运，我的工作就是负责监控植入物。所以我的任务是坐在那里，看着从植入物上传来的信号，看着设备传出的实时脑部数据——随着线程被插入大脑，流式传输出来的数据——只是观察，确保没有任何出错，或者没有红色警报或故障状态需要我们去排查或暂停手术来调试。
Bliss ChapmanAnd because I had that sort of spectator view of the surgery, I had a slightly removed perspective than I think most folks in the room. I got to sit there and think to myself, “Wow, that brain is moving a lot.” When you look inside the craniectomy that we stick the threads in, one thing that most people don’t realize is the brain moves. The brain moves a lot when you breathe, your heart beats, and you can see it visibly. So that’s something that I think was a surprise to me and very, very exciting to be able to see someone’s brain who you physically know and have talked with that length, actually pausing and moving inside their skull.因为我在手术中处于一种旁观者的视角，所以我的观察角度比房间里大多数人都要稍微超然一些。我得以坐在那里想："哇，那个大脑动得好厉害。"当你看进颅骨切开术插入线程的地方，大多数人不知道的一件事是：大脑会动。大脑动得非常厉害——当你呼吸、心脏跳动，你可以肉眼看到它在动。这是让我惊讶的事情，而且能够看到你亲自认识、与之长谈过的人的大脑，在他的颅骨内暂停和律动，是一件非常非常令人兴奋的事情。
Lex FridmanAnd they used that brain to talk to you previously, and now it’s right there moving.而他之前就是用那个大脑跟你说话的，现在就在那里，在动。
Bliss ChapmanYep.对。
Lex FridmanActually, I didn’t realize that in terms of the thread sending, so the Neuralink implant is active during surgery and one thread at a time, you’re able to start seeing the signal?其实我之前没意识到，在线程插入方面——Neuralink植入物在手术期间就是激活状态，每插入一根线程，你就能开始看到信号了？
Bliss ChapmanYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanSo that’s part of the way you test that the thing is working?这也是验证它正常工作的方式之一？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. So actually in the operating room, right after we sort of finished all the thread insertions, I started collecting what’s called broadband data. So broadband is basically the most raw form of signal you can collect from a Neuralink electrode. It’s essentially a measurement of the local fuel potential or the voltage essentially measured by that electrode. And we have a certain mode in our application that allows us to visualize where detected spikes are. So it visualizes where in the broadband signal and it’s very, very raw form of the data, a neuron is actually spiking. And so one of these moments that I’ll never forget as part of this whole clinical trial is seeing live in the operating room while he’s still under anesthesia, beautiful spikes being shown in the application, just streaming live to a device I’m holding in my hand.是的。实际上在手术室里，就在我们完成所有线程插入之后，我开始采集所谓的宽带数据。宽带数据基本上是你能从Neuralink电极采集到的最原始的信号形式，本质上是那个电极测量到的局部电位或电压。我们的应用程序有一种特定模式，可以可视化检测到的峰电位在哪里——它会在宽带信号中，以非常非常原始的数据形式，可视化出神经元实际放电的位置。所以在整个临床试验过程中，那些我永远不会忘记的时刻之一，就是在手术室里，他还在麻醉状态下，我手里拿着的设备上，就实时地看到漂亮的峰电位在应用程序里流式呈现出来。
Lex FridmanSo this is no signal processing the raw data, and then the signals processing is on top of it, you’re seeing the spikes detected?所以这是原始数据，没有信号处理，然后在它之上再叠加信号处理，你看到的是检测到的峰电位？
Bliss ChapmanRight.对。
Lex FridmanAnd that’s a UX too, that looks beautiful as well.那也是一种UX，看起来也很漂亮。
Bliss ChapmanDuring that procedure, there was actually a lot of cameramen in the room, so they also were curious and wanted to see, there’s several neurosurgeons in the room who were all just excited to see robots taking their job, and they were all crowded around a small little iPhone watching this live brain data stream out of his brain.在那次手术中，房间里其实有很多摄像师，他们也好奇，想看看——房间里还有几位神经外科医生，都很兴奋地看着机器人来抢他们的饭碗，他们全都挤在一个小小的iPhone屏幕前，看着他大脑里的实时数据流。
Lex FridmanWhat was that like seeing the robot do some of the surgery? So the computer vision aspect where it detects all the spots that avoid the blood vessels, and then obviously with the human supervision, then actually doing the really high precision connection of the threads to the brain?看着机器人做手术是什么感觉？就是那个计算机视觉部分——它检测所有避开血管的位置，然后在人工监督下，真正以极高精度完成将线程连接到大脑的操作？
Bliss ChapmanThat’s a good question. My answer is going to be pretty lame here, but it was boring. I’ve seen it so many times.这是个好问题。我的回答可能会很没劲，但就是：无聊。我已经见过太多次了。
Lex FridmanThe way you want it to be.这正是你希望它有的样子。
Bliss ChapmanYeah, that’s exactly how you want surgery to be. You want it to be boring. I’ve seen it so many times. I’ve seen the robot do the surgery literally hundreds of times, and so it was just one more time.对，这就是你希望手术呈现的样子——无聊。我见过实在太多次了，机器人做手术我字面意义上见了数百次，这不过又是一次而已。
Lex FridmanYeah, all the practice surgeries and the proxies, and this is just another day.是的，所有的练习手术和模拟，这只是平常的一天。
Bliss ChapmanYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanSo what about when Noland woke up? Do you remember a moment where he was able to move the cursor, not move the cursor, but get signal from the brain such that it was able to show that there’s a connection?那Noland醒来之后呢？你记得有没有那么一刻，他能够移动光标——或者说，从大脑获取到信号，证明连接已经建立？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. Yeah. So we are quite excited to move as quickly as we can, and Noland was really, really excited to get started. He wanted to get started, actually the day of surgery, but we waited until the next morning very patiently. It’s a long night.有，有。我们都很想尽快推进，Noland也非常非常迫切地想开始。他其实想在手术当天就开始，但我们很有耐心地等到了第二天早上。那一夜很漫长。
Bliss Chapman… we waited until the next morning very patiently. So a long night. And the next morning in the ICU where he was recovering, he wanted to get started and actually start to understand what kind of signal we can measure from his brain. And maybe for folks who are not familiar with the Neuralink system, we implant the Neuralink system or the Neuralink implant in the motor cortex. So the motor cortex is responsible for representing things like motor intent. If you imagine closing and opening your hand, that kind of signal representation would be present in the motor cortex.……我们很有耐心地等到了第二天早上。那是一个漫长的夜晚。第二天早上，在他恢复的ICU里，他想开始，真正开始了解我们能从他大脑中测量到什么样的信号。对于不熟悉Neuralink系统的人来说，我们把Neuralink系统，即Neuralink植入物，植入在运动皮层。运动皮层负责表征运动意图这类事情。如果你想象握紧和张开手，这类信号表征就会出现在运动皮层中。
Bliss ChapmanIf you imagine moving your arm back and forth or wiggling a pinky, this sort of signal can be present in the motor cortex. So one of the ways we start to map out what kind of signal do we actually have access to, in any particular individual’s brain, is through this task called body mapping. And body mapping is where you essentially present a visual to the user and you say, “Hey, imagine doing this,” and their visual is a 3D hand opening, closing or index finger modulating up and down.如果你想象手臂前后移动，或者小手指在抖动，这类信号也可以出现在运动皮层中。所以我们开始绘制在某个具体个体的大脑中，我们实际上能访问哪种信号——通过一项叫做"身体映射"的任务。身体映射是这样进行的：你给用户呈现一个视觉画面，然后说"来，想象做这个动作"，视觉画面是一只3D的手在张开、合拢，或者食指上下移动。
Bliss ChapmanAnd you ask the user to imagine that, and obviously you can’t see them do this, because they’re paralyzed, so you can’t see them actually move their arm. But while they do this task, you can record neural activity and you can basically offline model and check, “Can I predict, or can I detect the modulation corresponding with those different actions?” And so we did that task and we realized, “Hey, there’s actually some modulation associated with some of his hand motion,” which was a first indication that, “okay, we can potentially use that modulation to do useful things in the world.” For example, control a computer cursor.你让用户去想象那个动作，当然你看不到他们做这件事，因为他们是瘫痪的，看不到他们真的在移动手臂。但当他们做这个任务的时候，你可以记录神经活动，然后离线建模和验证："我能预测到，或者说能检测到与这些不同动作相对应的调制吗？"我们做了这个任务，然后意识到："嘿，实际上确实有些调制是与他某些手部动作相关联的。"这是第一个迹象——"好，我们或许可以利用那种调制在现实中做有用的事，比如控制电脑光标。"
Bliss ChapmanAnd he started playing with it, the first time we showed him it. And we actually just took the same live view of his brain activity and put it in front of him and we said, “Hey, you tell us what’s going on? We’re not you. You’re able to imagine different things, and we know that it’s modulating some of these neurons, so you figure out for us, what that is actually representing.” And so he played with it for a bit. He was like, “I don’t quite get it yet.” He played for a bit longer and he said, “Oh, when I move this finger, I see this particular neuron start to fire more.”他第一次看到的时候就开始玩了。我们实际上只是把他大脑活动的实时视图放在他面前，说："嘿，你来告诉我们是怎么回事？我们不是你。你可以想象不同的事情，我们知道这在调制某些神经元，所以你来搞清楚，这实际上代表什么。"他玩了一会儿，说"我还没完全弄明白。"又玩了一会儿，他说："哦，当我动这根手指的时候，我看到这个特定的神经元开始更频繁地放电。"
Bliss ChapmanAnd I said, “Okay, prove it. Do it again.” And so he said, “Okay, three, two, one,” boom. And the minute he moved, you can see instantaneously this neuron is firing, single neuron. I can tell you the exact channel number if you’re interested. It’s stuck in my brain now forever. But that single channel firing was a beautiful indication that it was behaved really modulated, neural activity, that could then be used for downstreaming tasks, like decoding a computer cursor.我说："好，证明给我看。再做一遍。"他说："好，三、二、一"——嘭。就在他动那一刻，你能即时看到这个神经元在放电，单个神经元。我现在能告诉你确切的通道编号，如果你感兴趣的话，它已经永远刻在我脑子里了。但那个单通道的放电，是一个漂亮的信号，表明这是真实调制的神经活动，随后可以用于下游任务，比如解码电脑光标。
Lex FridmanAnd when you say single channel, is that associated with a single electrode?你说单通道，那和单个电极是对应的吗？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. Channel and electrode are interchangeable.是的，通道和电极是可以互换的概念。
Lex FridmanAnd there’s a 1,024 of those?那共有1,024个？
Bliss Chapman1,024. Yeah.1,024个，是的。
Lex FridmanThat’s incredible that, that works. When I was learning about all this and loading it in, it was just blowing my mind that the intention, you can visualize yourself moving the finger. That can turn into a signal, and the fact that you can then skip that step and visualize the cursor moving, or have the intention of the cursor moving. And that leading to a signal that can then be used to move the cursor? There is so many exciting things there to learn about the brain, about the way the brain works, the very fact of there existing signal that can be used, is really powerful.这太不可思议了，它居然能起作用。当我在了解这一切、把它装进脑子里的时候，真的让我惊叹不已——意图，你可以在脑海中想象移动手指，这能变成一个信号；而且你还可以跳过那一步，直接想象光标在移动，或者有想让光标移动的意图，进而产生一个信号，然后用这个信号去移动光标。这里面有太多令人兴奋的东西值得去探索——关于大脑，关于大脑的工作方式，以及那个可以被利用的信号的存在本身，真的非常有力量。
Bliss ChapmanYep.是的。
Lex FridmanBut it feels like that’s just the beginning of figuring out how that signal could be used really, really effectively? I should also just, there’s so many fascinating details here, but you mentioned the body mapping step. At least in the version I saw, that Noland was showing off, there’s a super nice interface, a graphical interface, but it just felt like I was in the future.但感觉这仅仅是开始，才刚开始弄清楚那个信号能被多么有效地利用。我还想说——这里面有太多迷人的细节，但你提到了身体映射步骤。至少在我看到的版本里，也就是Noland展示的那个，有一个非常好的图形界面，让我感觉我就在未来。
Lex FridmanI guess it visualizes you moving the hand, and there’s a very sexy polished interface that, “Hello,” I don’t know if there’s a voice component, but it just felt like when you wake up in a really nice video game, and this is the tutorial at the beginning of that video game. This is what you’re supposed to do. It’s cool.我猜它会可视化你的手在移动，而且有一个非常精致、打磨得很漂亮的界面，感觉像是"你好，"——我不知道有没有语音组件，但整个感觉就像在一款非常好的电子游戏里醒来，这是游戏开头的教程。这就是你该做的。太酷了。
Bliss ChapmanNo, I mean the future should feel like the future.嗯，未来本来就应该有未来的感觉。
Lex FridmanBut it’s not easy to pull that off. I mean, it needs to be simple, but not too simple.但做到这一点并不容易。它需要简单，但又不能过于简单。
Bliss ChapmanYeah. And I think the UX design component here is underrated for BCI development in general. There’s a whole interaction effect between the ways in which you visualize an instruction to the user, and the kinds of signal you can get back. And that quality of your behavioral alignment to the neural signal, is a function of how good you are at expressing to the user what you want them to do. And so yeah, we spend a lot of time thinking about the UX, of how we build our applications, of how the decoder actually functions, the control surfaces it provides to the user. All these little details matter a lot.是的。我认为UX设计这个部分在BCI开发中普遍被低估了。你向用户可视化呈现指令的方式，和你能获得的信号种类之间，存在完整的交互效应。你的行为与神经信号的对齐质量，是你向用户表达你想要他们做什么的能力的函数。所以是的，我们花了大量时间思考如何构建应用程序的UX，解码器实际上是如何运作的，它向用户提供的控制界面。所有这些小细节都非常重要。
Lex FridmanSo maybe it’d be nice to get into a little bit more detail of what the signal looks like, and what the decoding looks like?所以也许深入聊一聊信号是什么样的，以及解码是什么样的，会很有意思？
Bliss ChapmanYep.好的。
Lex FridmanSo there’s a N1 implant that has, like we mentioned, 1,024 electrodes, and that’s collecting raw data, raw signal. What does that signal look like? And what are the different steps along the way before it’s transmitted, and what is transmitted? All that kind of stuff.那么有一个N1植入物，像我们说的，有1,024个电极，它在采集原始数据、原始信号。那个信号是什么样的？在它被传输之前，各个步骤是什么？传输的又是什么？诸如此类的事情。
Bliss ChapmanYep. This is going to be a fun one. Grab the [inaudible 05:19:58].好的，这会很有意思。先去拿点东西吧。
Lex FridmanLet’s go.开始吧。
Bliss ChapmanSo maybe before diving into what we do, it’s worth understanding what we’re trying to measure, because that dictates a lot of the requirements for the system that we build. And what we’re trying to measure is really individual neurons, producing action potentials. And action potential is, you can think of it like a little electrical impulse that you can detect, if you’re close enough. And by being close enough, I mean within let’s say 100 microns of that cell. And 100 microns is a very, very tiny distance. And so the number of neurons that you’re going to pick up with any given electrode, is just a small radius around that electrode.在深入讲我们做什么之前，也许值得先理解我们试图测量什么，因为这决定了我们构建的系统的大量需求。我们试图测量的，是单个神经元产生的动作电位。动作电位，你可以把它想象成一个小小的电脉冲，如果你离得足够近，就能检测到它。"足够近"的意思是，距离那个细胞大约100微米以内。100微米是一个非常非常小的距离。所以任何给定的电极能捕获到的神经元，只是那个电极周围的一个小半径范围内的。
Bliss ChapmanAnd the other thing worth understanding about the underlying biology here, is that when neurons produce an action potential, the width of that action potential is about one millisecond. So from the start of the spike, to the end of the spike, that whole width of that characteristic feature, of a neuron firing, is one millisecond wide. And if you want to detect that an individual spike is occurring or not, you need to sample that signal, or sample the local fuel potential nearby that a neuron… Much more frequently than once a millisecond. You need to sample many, many times per millisecond, to be able to detect that this is actually the characteristic waveform of a neuron producing an action potential.关于底层生物学，另一件值得了解的事情是：当神经元产生动作电位时，那个动作电位的宽度大约是1毫秒。从峰电位开始到结束，神经元放电这一特征波形的整个宽度，是1毫秒宽。如果你想检测单个峰电位是否正在发生，你需要对那个信号进行采样——或者对神经元附近的局部电位进行采样——远比每毫秒一次更频繁。你需要每毫秒采样很多很多次，才能检测出这确实是神经元产生动作电位的特征波形。
Bliss ChapmanAnd so we sample across all 1,024 electrodes, about 20,000 times a second. 20,000 times a second means for any given one millisecond window, we have about 20 samples that tell us what that exact shape of that actual potential looks like. And once we’ve sort of sampled at super high rate the underlying electrical field nearby these cells, we can process that signal into just where do we detect a spike, or where do we not? Sort of a binary signal, one or zero. Do we detect a spike in this one millisecond or not?所以我们对全部1,024个电极进行采样，大约每秒20,000次。每秒20,000次意味着对于任意给定的1毫秒窗口，我们有大约20个样本告诉我们那个动作电位的确切形状。一旦我们对这些细胞附近的底层电场以超高频率采样，我们就可以将那个信号处理成：我们在哪里检测到了峰电位，哪里没有？一种二进制信号，0或1——在这1毫秒内我们是否检测到了峰电位。
Bliss ChapmanAnd we do that because the actual information carrying subspace of neural activity, is just when our spikes occurring. Essentially everything that we care about for decoding can be captured or represented in the frequency characteristics of spike trains. Meaning, how often are spikes firing in any given window of time. And so that allows us to do sort of a crazy amount of compression, from this very rich high-density signal, to something that’s much, much more sparse and compressible, that can be sent out over a wireless radio. Like a Bluetooth communication for example.我们这样做，是因为神经活动中真正携带信息的子空间，就是峰电位在何时发生。本质上，对解码而言我们关心的一切，都可以被捕获或表征在峰电位序列的频率特征中——也就是在任意给定的时间窗口内，峰电位放电的频率。这使我们能够进行某种程度上疯狂的压缩——从这种非常丰富的高密度信号，压缩成更加稀疏且可压缩的东西，可以通过无线电传输出去，比如蓝牙通信。
Lex FridmanQuick tangents here. You mentioned electrode neuron, there’s a local neighborhood of neurons nearby. How difficult is it to isolate from where the spike came from?顺便问个问题。你提到电极和神经元，有一个局部的邻近神经元群体。要分离出峰电位来自哪里，有多难？
Bliss ChapmanSo there’s a whole field of academic neuroscience work on exactly this problem, of basically given a single electrode, or given a set of electrodes measuring a set of neurons. How can you sort, spike sort, which spikes are coming from what neuron? And this is a problem that’s pursued in academic work, because you care about it for understanding what’s going on in the underlying neuroscience of the brain. If you care about understanding how the brain’s representing information, how that’s evolving through time, then that’s a very, very important question to understand.这是学术神经科学中一整个专门研究这个问题的领域——基本上就是：给定一个电极，或者给定一组电极在测量一组神经元，你如何做峰电位排序，分辨出哪些峰电位来自哪个神经元？这是学术研究中追求的问题，因为你关心它是为了理解大脑底层神经科学发生了什么。如果你关心理解大脑如何表征信息、这种表征如何随时间演化，那么这是一个非常非常重要的问题。
Bliss ChapmanFor the engineering side of things, at least at the current scale, if the number of neurons per electrode is relatively small, you can get away with basically ignoring that problem completely. You can think of it like a random projection of neurons to electrodes, and there may be in some cases more than one neuron per electrode. But if that number is small enough, those signals can be thought of as sort of a union of the two.但从工程角度来说，至少在目前的规模下，如果每个电极的神经元数量相对较少，你基本上可以完全忽略这个问题。你可以把它想成神经元到电极的随机投影，某些情况下每个电极可能不止一个神经元。但如果那个数量足够小，这些信号可以被看作两者的合并。
Bliss ChapmanAnd for many applications, that’s a totally reasonable trade-off to make, and can simplify the problem a lot. And as you sort of scale out channel count, the relevance of distinguishing individual neurons becomes less important. Because you have more overall signal, and you can start to rely on correlations or covariate structure in the data to help understand when that channel is firing… What does that actually represent? Because you know that when that channel’s firing in concert with these other 50 channels, that means move left. But when that same channel’s firing with concert with these other 10 channels, that means move right.对于很多应用来说，这是完全合理的权衡，可以大大简化问题。随着你扩大通道数量，区分单个神经元的重要性就越来越低——因为你有更多的整体信号，可以开始依赖数据中的相关性或协变结构，来帮助理解当那个通道放电时实际代表什么。因为你知道，当那个通道与另外50个通道一起放电，意味着"向左移"；但当同一个通道与另外10个通道一起放电，意味着"向右移"。
Lex FridmanOkay. So you have to do this kind of spike detection onboard, and you have to do that super efficiently? So fast, and not use too much power, because you don’t want to be generating too much heat, so it’d have to be a super simple signal processing step?好的。所以你必须在设备上完成这种峰电位检测，而且必须做到极度高效——速度要快，功耗不能太大，因为不希望产生过多热量，所以这必须是一个极其简单的信号处理步骤？
Bliss ChapmanYep.是的。
Lex FridmanIs there some wisdom you can share about what it takes to overcome that challenge?关于克服这个挑战需要什么，你有什么可以分享的智慧吗？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. So we’ve tried many different versions of basically turning this raw signal into a feature that you might want to send off the device. And I’ll say that I don’t think we’re at the final step of this process, this is a long journey. We have something that works clearly today, but there can be many approaches that we find in the future that are much better than what we do right now. So some versions of what we do right now, and there’s a lot of academic heritage to these ideas, so I don’t want to claim that these are original Neuralink ideas or anything like that.好的。我们尝试了很多不同的版本——基本上就是如何把原始信号转化成你想要从设备上发送出去的特征。我要说的是，我不认为我们已经处于这个过程的最终阶段，这是一段漫长的旅程。我们今天有了显然有效的方法，但未来可能会有许多比我们现在做的好得多的方法。所以关于我们目前做的一些版本——这些想法有很多学术传承，我不想把它们说成是原创的Neuralink想法或诸如此类的东西。
Bliss ChapmanBut one of these ideas is basically to build sort of like a convolutional filter almost, if you will. That slides across the signal and looks for a certain template to be matched. That template consists of how deep the spike modulates, how much it recovers, and what the duration and window of time is for that, the whole process takes. And if you can see in the signal that, that template is matched within certain bounds, then you can say, “Okay, that’s a spike.” One reason that approach is super convenient, is that you can actually implement that extremely efficiently in hardware. Which means that you can run it in low power across 1,024 channels all at once.其中一个想法，本质上是构建一种类似卷积滤波器的东西，如果你愿意这样类比的话。它在信号上滑动，寻找某个模板的匹配。那个模板包括：峰电位调制的深度、恢复的幅度，以及整个过程所需的持续时间和时间窗口。如果你能在信号中看到那个模板在一定范围内被匹配，那么你就可以说："好，这是一个峰电位。"这种方法非常方便的一个原因是，你实际上可以在硬件中极高效地实现它——这意味着你可以以低功耗在1,024个通道上同时运行它。
Bliss ChapmanAnother approach that we’ve recently started exploring, and this can be combined with the spike detection approach, is something called spike band power. And the benefits of that approach are that you may be able to pick up some signal from neurons that are maybe too far away to be detected as a spike, because the farther away you are from an electrode, the weaker that actual spike waveform will look like on that electrode. So you might be able to pick up population level activity of things that are maybe slightly outside the normal recording radius… What neuroscientists sometimes refer to as the hash of activity, the other stuff that’s going on. And you can look at across many channels how that background noise is behaving, and you might be able to get more juice out of the signal that way.我们最近开始探索的另一种方法——这可以与峰电位检测方法结合使用——叫做峰电位频带功率。这种方法的好处是，你可能能够从那些离电极太远、无法被检测为峰电位的神经元中获取一些信号，因为你离电极越远，那个实际的峰电位波形在该电极上看起来就越弱。所以你可能能够捕获到距离正常记录半径稍远一些的东西的群体级活动——神经科学家有时称之为活动的"背景噪声"，正在发生的其他事情。你可以观察跨许多通道的背景噪声的行为，也许可以从信号中获取更多有效信息。
Bliss ChapmanBut it comes at a cost. That signal is now a floating point representation, which means it’s more expensive to send out over a power. It means you have to find different ways to compress it, that are different than what you can apply to binary signals. So there’s a lot of different challenges associated with these different modalities.但这是有代价的。那个信号现在是浮点数表示，这意味着它在功率上传输的成本更高。这意味着你必须找到不同的压缩方式，不同于你可以应用于二进制信号的方法。所以与这些不同的模态相关的挑战也各不相同。
Lex FridmanSo also in terms of communication, you’re limited by the amount of data you can send?所以在通信方面，你也受限于能发送的数据量？
Bliss ChapmanYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanAnd also because you’re currently using the Bluetooth protocol, you have to batch stuff together? But you have to also do this, keeping the latency crazy low? Crazy low? Anything to say about the latency?而且因为你目前使用的是蓝牙协议，你必须对数据进行批处理，但同时又要把延迟控制得极低？非常非常低？关于延迟，有什么要说的吗？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. This is a passion project of mine. So I want to build the best mouse in the world. I don’t want to build the Chevrolet Spark or whatever of electric cars. I want to build the Tesla Roadster version of a mouse. And I really do think it’s quite possible that within five to 10 years that most eSports competitions are dominated by people with paralysis.这是我的激情项目。我想打造世界上最好的鼠标。我不想打造电动车里的雪佛兰Spark，我想打造鼠标中的Tesla Roadster。而且我确实认为，在五到十年内，大多数电竞比赛将由瘫痪患者主导，这是非常真实的可能性。
Bliss ChapmanThis is a very real possibility for a number of reasons. One is that they’ll have access to the best technology to play video games effectively. The second is they have the time to do so. So those two factors together are particularly potent for eSport competitors.这是一个非常真实的可能性，原因有几个。一是他们能用到最好的技术来有效地玩电子游戏。二是他们有时间这样做。这两个因素结合在一起，对电竞选手来说特别有力量。
Lex FridmanUnless, people without paralysis are also allowed to implant N1?除非没有瘫痪的人也被允许植入N1？
Bliss ChapmanRight.对。
Lex FridmanWhich, it is another way to interact with a digital device, and there’s something to that, if it’s a fundamentally different experience, more efficient experience? Even if it’s not like some kind of full-on high bandwidth communication, if it’s just the ability to move the mouse 10X faster, like the bits per second? If I can achieve a bits per second at 10X what I can do with a mouse, that’s a really interesting possibility of what that can do? Especially as you get really good at it. With training.这是另一种与数字设备交互的方式，这里面有些东西——如果它是一种根本上不同的体验、更高效的体验呢？即使它不是某种完整的高带宽通信，如果只是能以10倍速度移动鼠标，就每秒比特数而言——如果我能达到比用鼠标高10倍的每秒比特数，那是一种非常有意思的可能性，能做到什么？特别是当你通过训练真正擅长它之后。
Bliss ChapmanIt’s definitely the case that you have a higher ceiling performance, because you don’t have to buffer your intention through your arm, through your muscle. You get just by nature of having a brain implant at all, like 75 millisecond lead time on any action that you’re actually trying to take. And there’s some nuance to this, there’s evidence that the motor cortex, you can sort of plan out sequences of actions, so you may not get that whole benefit all the time. But for reaction time style games, where you just want to… Somebody’s over here, snipe them, that kind of thing? You actually do have just an inherent advantage, because you don’t need to go through muscle.你的性能上限肯定更高，因为你不必把意图通过手臂、通过肌肉缓冲出去。仅凭拥有脑植入物这一点，你在任何你要执行的动作上就有大约75毫秒的提前量。这里面有些细微之处——有证据表明运动皮层可以规划一系列动作，所以你也许不是一直都能获得那个完整的优势。但对于那种"反应时间"类型的游戏——你就是想要：有人在那边，狙杀他——你确实有一个天然优势，因为你不需要经过肌肉。
Bliss ChapmanSo the question is, just how much faster can you make it? And we’re already faster than what you would do if you’re going through muscle from a latency point of view, and we’re in the early stages of that. I think we can push it. So our end to end latency right now from brain spike to cursor movement, it’s about 22 milliseconds. If you think about the best mice in the world, the best gaming mice, that’s about five milliseconds ish of latency, depending on how you measure, depending how fast your screen refreshes, there’s a lot of characteristics that matter there. And the rough time for a neuron in the brain to actually impact your command of your hand is about 75 milliseconds.所以问题是，你能把它做得快多少？从延迟角度来说，我们已经比通过肌肉走的方式更快了，而且我们还处于早期阶段。我认为我们可以继续推进。我们目前从大脑峰电位到光标移动的端到端延迟，大约是22毫秒。如果你想想世界上最好的鼠标——最好的游戏鼠标——延迟大约是5毫秒左右，取决于你怎么测量，取决于你的屏幕刷新有多快，有很多特性都很重要。而大脑中一个神经元真正影响到你对手的控制，大概需要75毫秒。
Bliss ChapmanSo if you look at those numbers, you can see that we’re already competitive and slightly faster than what you’d get by actually moving your hand. And this is something that if you ask Noland about it, when he moved the cursor for the first time… We asked him about this, it was something I was super curious about. “What does it feel like when you’re modulating a click intention, or when you’re trying to just move the cursor to the right?” He said it moves before he is actually intending it to. Which is kind of a surreal thing, and something that I would love to experience myself one day, what is that like to have the thing just be so immediate, so fluid, that it feels like it’s happening before you’re actually intending it to move?所以看看这些数字，你可以看到，我们已经有竞争力，而且比你实际移动手的方式稍微更快。这是一件事，如果你问Noland——当他第一次移动光标时……我们问过他这个，这是我非常好奇的事情。"当你在调制点击意图，或者当你试图把光标向右移动时，感觉怎么样？"他说，它在他真正有那个意图之前就移动了。这有点超现实，也是我有一天很想亲身体验的事情——当那个东西如此即时、如此流畅，以至于感觉它在你真正打算让它移动之前就已经发生了，那是什么感觉？
Lex FridmanYeah. I suppose we’ve gotten used to that latency, that natural latency that happens. So is currently the bottleneck, the communication? So the Bluetooth communication? What’s the actual bottleneck? I mean there’s always going to be a bottleneck, what’s the current bottleneck?是啊，我想我们已经习惯了那种延迟，那种自然的延迟。那么目前瓶颈是通信吗？就是蓝牙通信？真正的瓶颈是什么？总会有瓶颈，目前的瓶颈是什么？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. A couple things. So kind of hilariously, Bluetooth low- energy protocol has some restrictions on how fast you can communicate. So the protocol itself establishes a standard of the most frequent sort of updates you can send, are on the order of 7.5 milliseconds. And as we push latency down to the level of individual spikes impacting control, that level of resolution, that kind of protocol is going to become a limiting factor at some scale.是的。有几件事。有点好笑的是，蓝牙低功耗协议对通信速度有一些限制。协议本身建立了一个标准：你能发送的最频繁的更新，大约在7.5毫秒量级。当我们把延迟压缩到单个峰电位影响控制的水平——那种分辨率——到某种规模，那种协议就会变成一个限制因素。
Bliss ChapmanAnother sort of important nuance to this, is that it’s not just the Neuralink itself that’s part of this equation. If you start pushing latency below the level of how fast you’re going to refresh, then you have another problem. You need your whole system to be able to be as reactive as the limits of what the technology can offer.另一个重要的细微之处是，方程里不只有Neuralink本身。如果你开始把延迟压缩到低于屏幕刷新频率的水平，那你就面临另一个问题——你需要整个系统都能跟上技术所能提供的极限。
Lex FridmanYes.是的。
Bliss Chapman120 hertz just doesn’t work anymore, if you’re trying to have something respond at something that’s at the level of one millisecond.如果你想让某个东西在1毫秒的分辨率上响应，120赫兹就已经不够用了。
Lex FridmanThat’s a really cool challenge. I also like that for a T-shirt, the best mouse in the world. Tell me on the receiving end, so the decoding step? Now we figured out what the spikes are, we’ve got them all together, now we’re sending that over to the app. What’s the decoding step look like?这是一个很酷的挑战。我也喜欢把"世界上最好的鼠标"做成T恤。那么在接收端，解码步骤呢？现在我们已经搞清楚了峰电位是什么，把它们汇集在一起，通过传输发送到应用程序。解码步骤是什么样的？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. So maybe first, what is decoding? I think there’s probably a lot of folks listening that just have no clue what it means to decode brain activity.好的。也许先说说什么是解码。我想听的人里面可能有很多人完全不知道解码大脑活动是什么意思。
Lex FridmanActually, even if we zoom out beyond that, what is the app? So there’s an implant that’s wirelessly communicating with any digital device that has an app installed.其实，即使再往外放一圈，应用程序是什么？所以有一个植入物，在无线地与安装了应用程序的数字设备通信。
Bliss ChapmanYep.是的。
Lex FridmanSo maybe can you tell me at high-level what the app is, what the software is outside of the brain?所以你能给我大体讲一下应用程序是什么，大脑之外的软件是什么吗？
Bliss ChapmanSo maybe working backwards from the goal. The goal is to help someone with paralysis. In this case, Noland. Be able to navigate his computer independently. And we think the best way to do that, is to offer them the same tools that we have to navigate our software. Because we don’t want to have to rebuild an entire software ecosystem for the brain, at least not yet. Maybe someday you can imagine there’s UXs that are built natively for BCI, but in terms of what’s useful for people today, I think most people would prefer to be able to just control mouse and keyboard inputs, to all the applications that they want to use for their daily jobs, for communicating with their friends, et cetera.也许从目标倒推来讲。目标是帮助瘫痪患者，在这个案例中是Noland，能够独立地操作他的电脑。我们认为最好的方式，是提供给他与我们操作软件相同的工具。因为我们不想为大脑重建一整套软件生态系统，至少暂时还不。也许有一天你能想象有专门为BCI原生构建的UX，但就目前对人们有用的东西而言，我认为大多数人更希望能够只控制鼠标和键盘输入，控制他们想要用于日常工作的所有应用程序，与朋友交流等等。
Bliss ChapmanAnd so the job of the application is really to translate this wireless stream of brain data, coming off the implant, into control of the computer. And we do that by essentially building a mapping from brain activity to sort of the HID inputs, to the actual hardware. So HID is just the protocol for communicating like input device events, so for example, move mouse to this position or press this key down. And so that mapping is fundamentally what the app is responsible for. But there’s a lot of nuance of how that mapping works, and we spent a lot of time to try to get it right, and we’re still in the early stages of a long journey to figure out how to do that optimally.所以应用程序的工作，实际上就是把从植入物上传来的无线大脑数据流，转化为对电脑的控制。我们通过构建从大脑活动到HID输入的映射来实现这一点，也就是映射到实际的硬件。HID只是通信输入设备事件的协议，比如把鼠标移动到这个位置，或者按下这个键。所以那个映射从根本上就是应用程序的职责所在。但关于那个映射如何工作，有很多微妙之处，我们花了大量时间试图把它做好，而且我们仍处于弄清楚如何最优地做到这一点的漫长旅程的早期阶段。
Bliss ChapmanSo one part of that process is decoding. So decoding is this process of taking the statistical patterns of brain data, that’s being channeled across this Bluetooth connection to the application. And turning it into, for example, a mouse movement. And that decoding step, you can think of it in a couple of different parts. So similar to any machine learning problem, there’s a training step, and there’s an [inaudible 05:32:39] step. The training step in our case is a very intricate behavioral process where the user has to imagine doing different actions. So for example, they’ll be presented a screen with a cursor on it, and they’ll be asked to push that cursor to the right. Then imagine pushing that cursor to the left, push it up, push it down. And we can basically build up a pattern or using any sort of modern ML method of mapping of given this brain data, and then imagine behavior, map one to the other.这个过程的一部分就是解码。解码是这样一个过程：获取通过蓝牙连接传输到应用程序的大脑数据的统计模式，然后将其转化为，比如说，一个鼠标移动。那个解码步骤，你可以把它理解成几个不同的部分。与任何机器学习问题类似，有一个训练步骤，和一个推理步骤。我们的训练步骤是一个非常复杂的行为过程，用户必须想象做不同的动作。比如，他们会看到一个屏幕，屏幕上有一个光标，然后被要求把光标推向右边，然后想象把它推向左边，往上推，往下推。我们基本上可以建立起一个模式，用任何现代机器学习方法，将给定的大脑数据和想象中的行为映射到一起。
Bliss ChapmanAnd then at test time you take that same pattern matching system. In our case it’s a deep neural network, and you run it and you take the live stream of brain data coming off their implant, you decode it by pattern matching to what you saw at calibration time, and you use that for a control of the computer. Now a couple sort of rabbit holes that I think are quite interesting. One of them has to do with how you build that best template matching system. Because there’s a variety of behavioral challenges and also debugging challenges when you’re working with someone who’s paralyzed.然后在测试时，你用同样的模式匹配系统——在我们的案例中是一个深度神经网络——你运行它，你取来自他们植入物的大脑数据实时流，通过与校准时所见内容进行模式匹配来解码，然后用它来控制电脑。现在有几个我认为相当有趣的兔子洞。其中一个与如何构建最佳模板匹配系统有关。因为在与瘫痪患者合作时，存在各种各样的行为挑战，以及调试挑战。
Bliss ChapmanBecause again, fundamentally you don’t observe what they’re trying to do, you can’t see them attempt to move their hand. And so you have to figure out a way to instruct the user to do something, and validate that they’re doing it correctly, such that then you can downstream, build with confidence, the mapping between the neural spikes and the intended action.因为归根结底，你观察不到他们试图做什么，你看不到他们尝试移动手。所以你必须找到一种方式，指导用户做某件事，并验证他们是否正确地在做，这样你才能在下游以高置信度，构建神经峰电位和意图动作之间的映射。
Bliss ChapmanAnd by doing the action correctly, what I really mean is, at this level of resolution of what neurons are doing. So if, in ideal world, you could get a signal of behavioral intent that is ground truth accurate at the scale of one millisecond resolution, then with high confidence, I could build a mapping from my neural spikes, to that behavioral intention. But the challenge is again, that you don’t observe what they’re actually doing. And so there’s a lot of nuance to how you build user experiences, that give you more than just a course on average correct representation of what the user’s intending to do.而"正确地做动作"，我真正的意思是，要达到神经元活动的那个分辨率。所以在理想世界中，如果你能获得一个行为意图的信号，在1毫秒的分辨率上达到真值精度，那么我就能以高置信度，构建我的神经峰电位与那个行为意图之间的映射。但挑战再次在于，你观察不到他们实际上在做什么。所以在如何构建用户体验方面，有很多微妙之处，让你获得的不只是用户意图的粗略的、平均意义上正确的表征。
Bliss ChapmanIf you want to build the world’s best mouse, you really want it to be as responsive as possible. You want it to be able to do exactly what the user’s intending, at every step along the way, not just on average be correct, when you’re trying to move it from left to right. And building a behavioral calibration game, or our software experience, that gives you that level of resolution, is what we spend a lot of time working on.如果你想打造世界上最好的鼠标，你真的希望它尽可能地响应。你希望它能在每一个步骤上都做到用户意图的事情，而不只是在你试图从左移到右的过程中平均正确。而构建一个行为校准游戏，或者我们的软件体验，让你获得那种分辨率，是我们花大量时间工作的地方。
Lex FridmanSo the calibration process, the interface, has to encourage precision. Meaning whatever it does, it should be super intuitive that the next thing the human is going to likely do, is exactly that intention that you need, and only that intention?所以校准过程、界面，必须鼓励精确性。也就是说，不管它做什么，都应该让人非常直觉地感到，人类接下来最可能要做的事，正是你需要的那个意图，而且只是那个意图？
Bliss ChapmanYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanAnd you don’t have any feedback except that may be speaking to you afterwards, what they actually did, you can’t… Oh, yeah.而且你没有任何反馈，除了也许事后他们告诉你他们实际上做了什么，你无法……哦，是的。
Bliss ChapmanRight.对。
Lex FridmanSo that’s fundamentally, that is a really exciting UX challenge. Because that’s all on the UX, it’s not just about being friendly or nice or usable.所以从根本上，这是一个非常令人兴奋的UX挑战。因为这完全依赖UX，它不只是关于友好、好看或易于使用。
Bliss ChapmanYep.是的。
Lex FridmanIt’s like-它就像是——
Bliss ChapmanUser experience is how it works.用户体验就是它如何运作。
Lex Fridman… it’s how it works, for the calibration. And calibration, at least at this stage of Neuralink is fundamental to the operation of the thing? And not just calibration, but continued calibration essentially?……它如何运作，对于校准而言。而校准，至少在Neuralink的这个阶段，是整个系统运作的根本所在？不只是校准，而是本质上的持续校准？
Bliss ChapmanYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanWow, yeah.哇，是的。
Bliss ChapmanYou said something that I think is worth exploring there a little bit. You said it’s primarily a UX challenge, and I think a large component of it is, but there is also a very interesting machine learning challenge here. Which is given some dataset, including some on average correct behavior, of asking the user to move up, or move down, move right, move left, and given a dataset of neural spikes. Is there a way to infer, in some kind of semi-supervised, or entirely unsupervised way, what that high resolution version of their intention is?你说了一件我觉得值得在这里稍微探讨一下的事情。你说这主要是一个UX挑战，我认为它在很大程度上确实是，但这里面也有一个非常有趣的机器学习挑战。那就是：给定某个数据集，包括一些平均意义上正确的行为——要求用户向上、向下、向右、向左移动——以及一个神经峰电位数据集，有没有一种方法，能以某种半监督或完全无监督的方式，推断出他们意图的那个高分辨率版本是什么？
Bliss ChapmanAnd if you think about it, there probably is, because there are enough data points in the dataset, enough constraints on your model. That there should be a way with the right sort of formulation, to let the model figure out itself, for example… At this millisecond, this is exactly how hard they’re pushing upwards, and at this millisecond, this is how hard they’re trying to push upwards.如果你想一想，可能确实有，因为数据集中有足够多的数据点，模型上有足够多的约束，用正确的公式表达，应该有一种方法让模型自己找出——比如，在这个毫秒，他们向上推得有多用力；在那个毫秒，他们又是多用力地试图向上推。
Lex FridmanIt’s really important to have very clean labels, yes? So the problem becomes much harder from the machine learning perspective if the labels are noisy?有干净的标签非常重要，对吗？所以如果标签有噪声，从机器学习的角度来说，问题就会困难得多？
Bliss ChapmanThat’s correct.没错。
Lex FridmanAnd then to get the clean labels, that’s a UX challenge?而获得干净的标签，那是UX挑战？
Bliss ChapmanCorrect. Although clean labels, I think maybe it’s worth exploring what that exactly means. I think any given labeling strategy will have some number of assumption to make, about what the user is attempting to do. Those assumptions can be formulated in a loss function, or they can be formulated in terms of heuristics that you might use, to just try to estimate or guesstimate what the user’s trying to do. And what really matters is, how accurate are those assumptions? For example, you might say, “Hey, user, push upwards and follow the speed of this cursor.” And your heuristic might be that they’re trying to do exactly what that cursor is trying to do.对。不过"干净标签"，我觉得也许值得探讨一下它的确切含义。我认为任何给定的标注策略，都必须做出一定数量的假设，关于用户试图做什么。这些假设可以被表达在一个损失函数中，也可以被表达为启发式方法，你可能用它来估计或猜测用户在做什么。而真正重要的是，那些假设有多准确。比如，你可能说："嘿，用户，向上推，跟上这个光标的速度。"你的启发式方法可能是，他们正试图做与那个光标完全相同的事情。
Bliss ChapmanAnother competing heuristic might be, they’re actually trying to go slightly faster at the beginning of the movement and slightly slower at the end. And those competing heuristics may or may not be accurate reflections of what the user is trying to do. Another version of the task might be, “Hey, user, imagine moving this cursor a fixed offset.” So rather than follow the cursor, just try to move it exactly 200 pixels to the right. So here’s the cursor, here’s the target, okay, cursor disappears, try to move that now invisible cursor, 200 pixels to the right. And the assumption in that case would be that the user can’t actually modulate correctly that position offset.另一个竞争性的启发式方法可能是，他们实际上是在运动开始时稍微快一点、结束时稍微慢一点。而这些竞争性的启发式方法可能是，也可能不是用户正在做的事情的准确反映。任务的另一个版本可能是："嘿，用户，想象把这个光标移动一个固定的偏移量。"所以不是跟着光标走，而是试着让它精确地移动200像素向右。所以光标在这里，目标在那里，好，光标消失了，试着现在把那个看不见的光标向右移动200像素。这种情况下的假设是，用户无法准确地调制那个位置偏移量。
Bliss ChapmanBut that position offset assumption might be a weaker assumption, and therefore potentially, you can make it more accurate, than these heuristics that are trying to guesstimate at each millisecond what the user’s trying to do. So you can imagine different tasks that make different assumptions about the nature of the user intention. And those assumptions being correct is what I would think of as a clean label.但那个位置偏移的假设可能是一个更弱的假设，因此可能更准确，比那些试图在每个毫秒猜测用户想做什么的启发式方法更准确。所以你可以想象不同的任务，对用户意图的性质做出不同的假设，而那些假设是否正确，就是我所说的干净标签。
Lex FridmanFor that step, what are we supposed to be visualizing? There’s a cursor, and you want to move that cursor to the right, or the left, or up and down, or maybe move them by a certain offset. So that’s one way. Is that the best way to do calibration?对于那个步骤，我们应该在想象什么？有一个光标，你想把那个光标向右、向左、或上下移动，或者按某个偏移量移动。这是一种方式。这是做校准的最佳方式吗？
Lex FridmanSo for example, an alternative crazy way that probably is playing a role here, is a game like WEG Grid. Where you’re just getting a very large amount of data, the person playing a game. Where if they’re in a state of flow, maybe you can get clean signal as a side effect?比如，另一种可能很疯狂但也许正在发挥作用的替代方式，是像Webgrid这样的游戏。你在那里获取大量数据，人在玩游戏。如果他们进入了心流状态，也许你能把干净的信号作为副产品获取到？
Bliss ChapmanYep.是的。
Lex FridmanOr is that not an effective way for initial calibration?还是说，这不是一种有效的初始校准方式？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. Great question. There’s a lot to unpack there. So the first thing I would draw a distinction between is, open loop versus closed loop. So open loop, what I mean by that is, the user is sort of going from zero to one. They have no model at all, and they’re trying to get to the place where they have some level of control, at all. In that setup, you really need to have some task that gives the user a hint of what you want them to do, such that you can build its mapping again, from brain data to output. Then once they have a model, you could imagine them using that model and actually adapting to it, and figuring out the right way to use it themself. And then retraining on that data to give you sort of a boost in performance.好问题，这里面有很多要说的。我首先要区分的是开环和闭环。开环，我的意思是，用户是从零到一的过程。他们根本没有模型，他们试图到达一个有任何程度控制的地方。在这种设置下，你真的需要有某种任务给用户一个提示，告诉他们你想让他们做什么，这样你才能再次建立起从大脑数据到输出的映射。一旦他们有了模型，你可以想象他们使用那个模型，并适应它，自己找出正确的使用方式。然后在那些数据上重新训练，给你带来某种性能上的提升。
Bliss ChapmanThere’s a lot of challenges associated with both of these techniques, and we can rabbit hole into both of them if you’re interested. But the sort of challenge with the open loop task is that the user themself doesn’t get proprioceptive feedback about what they’re doing. They don’t necessarily perceive themself or feel the mouse under their hand, when they’re trying to do an open loop calibration. They’re being asked to perform something… Imagine if you sort of had your whole right arm numbed, and you stuck it in a box and you couldn’t see it, so you had no visual feedback and you had no proprioceptive feedback, about what the position or activity of your arm was.这两种技术都有很多相关的挑战，如果你感兴趣，我们可以深入探讨。但开环任务的挑战大致是，用户本身没有得到关于他们在做什么的本体感觉反馈。他们不一定能感知自己，或在做开环校准时感觉到鼠标在手下。他们被要求做的事情……想象一下，你的整条右臂被麻痹了，你把它放在一个盒子里，你看不到它，所以你没有视觉反馈，也没有关于你手臂位置或活动的本体感觉反馈。
Bliss ChapmanAnd now you’re asked, “Okay, given this thing on the screen, that’s moving from left to right, match that speed?” And you basically can try your best to invoke whatever that imagined action is in your brain, that’s moving the cursor from left to right. But in any situation, you’re going to be inaccurate and maybe inconsistent in how you do that task. And so that’s sort of the fundamental challenge of open loop. The challenge with closed loop is that once the user’s given a model, and they’re able to start moving the mouse on their own, they’re going to very naturally adapt to that model. And that coadaptation between the model learning what they’re doing, and the user learning how to use the model, may not find you the best sort of global minima.现在你被要求："好，根据屏幕上这个从左向右移动的东西，跟上那个速度。"你基本上只能尽力在大脑中唤起那个让光标从左向右移动的想象动作。但在任何情况下，你做那个任务的方式都会不准确，也许也会不一致。这就是开环的根本挑战。闭环的挑战是，一旦用户有了模型，能够开始自己移动鼠标，他们会非常自然地适应那个模型。而那种模型学习用户在做什么、用户学习如何使用模型的共同适应，可能不会找到最好的某种全局最优解。
Bliss ChapmanAnd maybe that your first model was noisy in some ways, or maybe just had some quirk. There’s some part of the data distribution, it didn’t cover super well, and the user now figures out, because they’re a brilliant user like Noland, they figure out the right sequence of imagined motions, or the right angle they have to hold their hand at to get it to work. And they’ll get it to work great, but then the next day they come back to their device, and maybe they don’t remember exactly all the tricks that they used the previous day. And so there’s a complicated sort of feedback cycle here that can emerge, and can make it a very, very difficulty debugging process.也许你的第一个模型在某些方面有噪声，或者只是有某种怪癖。数据分布中有某个部分它没有覆盖得很好，然后用户开始发现——因为他们是像Noland这样聪明的用户——他们找出了让它工作的正确想象动作序列，或者他们必须把手保持在什么角度才能让它工作。他们会让它工作得很好，但第二天他们回来用设备，也许他们不完全记得前一天用过的所有技巧。所以这里可以产生一个复杂的反馈循环，会让调试过程变得非常非常困难。
Lex FridmanOkay. There’s a lot of really fascinating things there. Actually, just to stay on the closed loop… I’ve seen situations, this actually happened watching psychology grad students. They used a piece of software and they don’t know how to program themselves. They used a piece of software that somebody else wrote, and it has a bunch of bugs, and they’ve been using it for years. They figure out ways to walk around, “Oh, that just happens.” Nobody considers, “Maybe we should fix this.” They just adapt. And that’s a really interesting notion, that we’re really good at it adapting, but that might not be the optimal?好的，这里面有很多真的很有意思的东西。实际上，就停留在闭环上……我见过这样的情况，这实际上发生在心理学研究生那里。他们用别人写的软件，自己不会编程，而那个软件有一堆bug，他们已经用了好几年。他们发现了绕过的方法——"哦，就是会这样。"没有人想着"也许我们应该修这个"，他们直接适应了。这是一个很有意思的概念——我们非常善于适应，但那可能不是最优的？
Bliss ChapmanYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanOkay. So how do you solve that problem? Do you have to restart from scratch every once in a while, kind of thing?好的。那你怎么解决那个问题？是要每隔一段时间从头重新开始一次之类的？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. It’s a good question. First and foremost, I would say this is not a solve problem. And for anyone who’s listening in academia who works on BCIs, I would also say this is not a problem that’s solved by simply scaling channel count. So maybe that can help, and you can get sort of richer covariant structures that you can use to exploit, when trying to come up with good labeling strategies. But if you’re interested in problems that aren’t going to be solved inherently by scaling channel count, this is one of them.好问题。首先最重要的是，我要说这不是一个已解决的问题。而且对于任何在学术界研究BCI的听众，我也要说，这不是一个仅仅通过扩大通道数量就能解决的问题。也许那有帮助，你可以获得更丰富的协变结构，可以在尝试制定好的标注策略时加以利用。但如果你对那些本质上不会因扩大通道数量而得到解决的问题感兴趣，这就是其中之一。
Bliss ChapmanYeah. So how do you solve it? It’s not a solve problem. That’s the first thing I want to make sure it gets across. The second thing is, any solution that involves closed loop is going to become a very difficult debugging problem. And one of my general heuristics for choosing what prompts to tackle is, that you want to choose the one that’s going to be the easiest to debug. Because if you can do that, even if the ceiling is lower, you’re going to be able to move faster, because you have a tighter iteration loop debugging the problem.是的。那怎么解决它？这不是一个已解决的问题，这是我首先想确保传递出去的第一点。第二点是，任何涉及闭环的解决方案，都将变成一个非常困难的调试问题。我选择要攻克什么问题的一般启发式方法之一，是你要选择最容易调试的那个。因为如果能做到这一点，即使上限更低，你也能走得更快，因为你有一个更紧密的迭代调试循环。
Bliss ChapmanIn the open loop setting, there’s not a feedback cycle to debug with the user in the loop. And so there’s some reason to think that, that should be an easier debugging problem. The other thing that’s worth understanding is that even in the closed loop setting, there’s no special software magic of how to infer what the user is truly attempting to do. In the closed loop setting, although they’re moving the cursor on the screen, they may be attempting something different than what your model is outputting. So what the model is outputting is not a signal that you can use to retrain if you want to be able to improve the model further. You still have this very complicated guestimation, or unsupervised problem of figuring out what is the true user intention underlying that signal?在开环设置中，没有反馈循环要在用户在环的情况下调试。所以有理由认为，那应该是一个更容易调试的问题。另一件值得理解的事情是，即使在闭环设置中，也没有特别的软件魔法来推断用户真正试图做什么。在闭环设置中，尽管他们在屏幕上移动光标，他们可能试图做的事情与你的模型输出的不同。所以模型在输出什么，不是你可以用来重新训练的信号——如果你想进一步改进模型的话。你仍然面临这个非常复杂的猜测，或者说无监督问题——找出用户意图的真实底层信号是什么。
Bliss ChapmanAnd so the open loop problem has the nice property of being easy to debug, and the second nice property of, it has all the same information and content as the closed loop scenario. Another thing I want to mention and call out, is that this problem doesn’t need to be solved in order to give useful control to people. Even today with the solutions we have now, and that academia has built up over decades, the level of control that can be given to a user today, is quite useful. It doesn’t need to be solved to get to that level of control.所以开环问题有易于调试的良好特性，以及第二个良好特性：它拥有与闭环场景相同的所有信息和内容。我还想提及并指出的是，这个问题不需要被解决，才能给人们提供有用的控制。即使今天有了我们现有的解决方案，以及学术界几十年积累的成果，今天能给用户提供的控制水平已经相当有用了。不需要解决这个问题才能达到那种控制水平。
Bliss ChapmanBut again, I want to build the world’s best mouse. I want to make it so good that it’s not even a question that you want it. And to build the world’s best mouse, the superhuman version, you really need to nail that problem. And a couple maybe details of previous studies that we’ve done internally, that I think are very interesting to understand, when thinking about how to solve this problem. The first is that even when you have ground-truth data of what the user’s trying to do, and you can get this with an able-bodied monkey, a monkey that has a Neuralink device implanted, and moving a mouse to control a computer. Even with that ground-truth dataset, it turns out that the optimal thing to predict to produce high performance BCI, is not just the direct control of the mouse.但再说一次，我想打造世界上最好的鼠标。我想让它好到让人毫不犹豫地想要它。而要打造世界上最好的鼠标——那个超人版本——你真的需要把那个问题解决掉。还有几个我们内部做过的以前研究的细节，我认为在思考如何解决这个问题时非常有意思。第一个是，即使你有关于用户试图做什么的真值数据——你可以用一只有健全行动能力的猴子获得，一只植入了Neuralink设备、移动鼠标来控制电脑的猴子。即使有了那个真值数据集，事实证明，为了产生高性能的BCI，最优的预测目标，并不只是鼠标的直接控制。
Bliss ChapmanYou can imagine building a dataset of what’s going on in the brain, and what is the mouse exactly doing on the table? And it turns out that if you build the mapping from neurospikes to predict exactly what the mouse is doing, that model will perform worse, than a model that is trained to predict higher level assumptions about what the user might be trying to do. For example, assuming that the monkey is trying to go in a straight line to the target, it turns out that making those assumptions is actually more effective in producing a model, than actually predicting the underlying hand movement.你可以想象构建一个数据集，包括大脑中正在发生什么，以及鼠标在桌上的确切位置。结果证明，如果你构建从神经峰电位到精确预测鼠标在做什么的映射，那个模型的表现会比一个被训练来预测用户可能试图做什么的更高层假设的模型差。比如，假设猴子是试图直线到达目标的——这种假设事实上比实际预测底层的手部运动更有效地产生模型。
Lex FridmanSo the intention, not the physical movement, or whatever?所以是意图，而不是身体动作或其他什么？
Bliss ChapmanYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanThere’s obviously a really strong correlation between the two, but the intention is a more powerful thing to be chasing?两者之间显然有非常强的相关性，但意图是更有力量去追求的东西？
Bliss ChapmanRight.对。
Lex FridmanWell, that’s also super interesting. I mean, the intention itself is fascinating because yes, with the BCI here in this case with the digital telepathy, you’re acting on the intention, not the action. Which is why there’s an experience of feeling like it’s happening before you meant for it to happen? That is so cool. And that is why you could achieve superhuman performance problem, in terms of the control of the mouse? So for open loop, just to clarify, so whenever the person is tasked to move the mouse to the right, you said there’s not feedback, so they don’t get to get that satisfaction of actually getting it to move? Right?嗯，这也是超级有趣的。我的意思是，意图本身就很迷人——因为是的，在这里的BCI案例中，在这种数字心灵感应中，你是在对意图采取行动，而不是动作。这就是为什么会有那种感觉——东西在你打算让它动之前就动了。太酷了。而且这就是为什么在鼠标控制上可能实现超人表现。那么关于开环，就为了澄清一下——当一个人被要求把鼠标移向右边，你说没有反馈，所以他们得不到实际让它移动的那种满足感？对吧？
Bliss ChapmanSo you could imagine giving the user feedback on a screen, but it’s difficult, because at this point you don’t know what they’re attempting to do. So what can you show them that would basically give them a signal of, “I’m doing this correctly or not correctly?” So let’s take a very specific example. Maybe your calibration task looks like you’re trying to move the cursor, a certain position offset. So your instructions to the user are, “Hey, the cursor’s here. Now when the cursor disappears, imagine you’re moving it 200 pixels from where it was, to the right to be over this target.”所以你可以想象在屏幕上给用户一些反馈，但这很困难，因为此时你不知道他们试图做什么。所以你能给他们展示什么，让他们基本上得到一个"我做对了还是做错了"的信号？举一个非常具体的例子。也许你的校准任务看起来是这样的：你试图把光标移动一个特定的位置偏移量。所以你对用户的指令是："嘿，光标在这里。现在当光标消失的时候，想象你把它从它所在的位置向右移动200像素，到这个目标上。"
Bliss ChapmanIn that kind of scenario, you could imagine coming up with some sort of consistency metric that you could display to the user of, “Okay, I know what the spike trend looks like on average when you do this action to the right. Maybe I can produce some sort of probabilistic estimate of how likely is that to be the action you took, given the latest trial or trajectory that you imagined?” And that could give the user some sort of feedback of how consistent are they, across different trials.在那种场景下，你可以想象想出某种你可以向用户显示的一致性指标——"好，我知道你做这个向右的动作时，峰电位趋势平均是什么样的。也许我能产生某种概率估计，给定你刚才想象的最新试次或轨迹，这是你所执行动作的可能性有多大？"这能给用户某种关于他们在不同试次间有多一致的反馈。
Bliss ChapmanYou could also imagine that if the user is prompted with that kind of consistency metric, that maybe they just become more behaviorally engaged to begin with, because the task is kind of boring when you don’t have any feedback at all. And so there may be benefits to the user experience of showing something on the screen, even if it’s not accurate. Just because it keeps the user motivated to try to increase that number, or push it upwards.你也可以想象，如果用户被那种一致性指标所激励，也许他们从一开始就会变得更投入，因为在完全没有任何反馈的情况下，这个任务会有点无聊。所以在屏幕上显示某些东西，即使它不准确，也可能对用户体验有好处，只是因为它能让用户有动力去提高那个数字、或把它推更高。
Lex FridmanSo there’s this psychology element here?所以这里面有心理学元素？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. Absolutely.是的，绝对有。
Lex FridmanAnd again, all of that is UX challenge? How much signal drift is there hour-to-hour, day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month? How often do you have to recalibrate because of the signal drift?而且再说一次，所有这些都是UX挑战？信号漂移有多严重——小时到小时、天到天、周到周、月到月？因为信号漂移你需要多频繁地重新校准？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. So this is a problem we’ve worked on both with NHP, non-human primates, before our clinical trial, and then also with Noland during the clinical trial. Maybe the first thing that’s worth stating is what the goal is here. So the goal is really to enable the user to have a plug and play experience… Well, I guess they don’t have to plug anything in, but a play experience where they can use the device whenever they wanted, however they want to. And that’s really what we’re aiming for. And so there can be a set of solutions that get to that state without considering this non-stationary problem.是的。这个问题我们在临床试验之前与NHP（非人类灵长类动物）一起研究过，然后在临床试验期间也与Noland一起研究过。也许首先值得说明的是目标是什么。目标确实是让用户拥有即插即用的体验……好吧，我猜他们不用插任何东西，但就是一种即用体验——他们可以在任何时候、以任何方式使用设备。这是我们真正追求的目标。所以可以有一系列解决方案，在不考虑这个非平稳性问题的情况下就能达到那个状态。
Bliss ChapmanSo maybe the first solution here that’s important, is that they can recalibrate whenever they want. This is something that Noland has the ability to do today, so he can recalibrate the system at 2:00 AM, in the middle of the night without his caretaker, or parents or friends around, to help push a button for him. The other important part of the solution is that when you have a good model calibrated, that you can continue using that without needing to recalibrate it. So how often he has to do this recalibration to-date, depends really on his appetite for performance.所以这里首先重要的一个解决方案是，他们可以随时重新校准。这是Noland今天已经能做到的事情，所以他可以在凌晨2点，半夜里，在没有护理人员、父母或朋友在场帮他按按钮的情况下，自己重新校准系统。解决方案的另一个重要部分是，当你校准好了一个好的模型，你可以继续使用它而不需要重新校准。所以他迄今为止必须重新校准的频率，实际上取决于他对性能的追求程度。
Bliss ChapmanWe observe sort of a degradation through time, of how well any individual model works, but this can be mitigated behaviorally by the user adapting their control strategy. It can also be mitigated through a combination of software features that we provide to the user. For example, we let the user adjust exactly how fast the cursor is moving. We call that the gain, for example, the gain of how fast the cursor reacts to any given input intention.我们观察到随时间推移，任何单个模型的效果都有所退化，但这可以通过用户调整控制策略的方式在行为上得到缓解。也可以通过我们为用户提供的软件功能组合来缓解。比如，我们让用户精确调整光标移动的速度，我们称之为增益——光标对任何给定的输入意图的反应有多快的增益。
Bliss ChapmanThey can also adjust the smoothing, how smooth the output of that cursor intention actually is. That can also adjust the friction, which is how easy is it to stop and hold still? And all these software tools allow the user a great deal of flexibility and troubleshooting mechanisms to be able to solve this problem for themselves.他们还可以调整平滑度——那个光标意图的输出实际上有多平滑。还可以调整摩擦力——停止并保持静止有多容易。所有这些软件工具让用户拥有极大的灵活性和排查机制，能够自己解决这个问题。
Lex FridmanBy the way, all of this is done by looking to the right side of the screen, selecting the mixer. And the mixer you have, it’s-顺便说一下，所有这些都是通过把光标移到屏幕的右侧来操作，然后选择混音器。那个混音器你有——
Bliss ChapmanLike DJ mode. DJ mode for your BCI.就像DJ模式。你BCI的DJ模式。
Lex FridmanI mean, it’s a really well done interface. It’s really, really well done. And so there’s that bias that there’s a cursor drift that Noland talked about in a stream. Although he said that you guys were just playing around with it with him, and then constantly improving. So that could have been just a snapshot of that particular moment, a particular day, where he said that there was this cursor drift and this bias that could be removed by him. I guess, looking to the right side of the screen, or left side of the screen, to adjust the bias?我的意思是，这是一个做得非常好的界面，真的非常非常好。所以光标漂移这个问题，Noland在直播中提到过。不过他说你们只是在跟他一起玩，并且在持续改进。所以那也许只是那个特定时刻的一个快照，某一天，他说有这个光标漂移和偏差，可以通过——我猜——把光标移向屏幕的左侧或右侧来调整偏差。
Bliss ChapmanYeah, yeah.是的，对。
Lex FridmanThat’s one interface action, I guess, to adjust the bias?那是一个界面操作，我猜，用来调整偏差？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. So this is actually an idea that comes out of academia. There is some prior work with BrainGate clinical trial participants where they pioneered this idea of bias correction. The way we’ve done it, I think is, it’s very prioritized, very beautiful user experience. Where the user can essentially flash the cursor over to the side of the screen, and it opens up a window, where they can actually adjust or tune exactly the bias of the cursor. So bias, maybe for people who aren’t familiar, is just sort of what is the default motion of the cursor, if you’re imagining nothing? And it turns out that, that’s one of the first sort-是的。这实际上是一个来自学术界的想法。BrainGate临床试验参与者有一些前期工作，他们开创了偏差校正这个想法。我们做到这一点的方式，我认为是非常有优先级的、非常美好的用户体验。用户基本上可以把光标闪移到屏幕一侧，然后打开一个窗口，在那里他们可以实际调整或微调光标偏差的具体值。所以偏差，对于不熟悉的人，大概就是：如果你什么都不想，光标的默认运动是什么？事实证明，这是最早……
Bliss Chapman… and it turns out that that’s one of the first qualia of the cursor control experience that’s impacted by neuron [inaudible 05:50:07]……事实证明，这是那个随着神经元变化而受影响的光标控制体验的最早……
Lex FridmanQualia of the cursor experience.光标体验的感质。
Bliss ChapmanI mean, I don’t know how else to describe it. I’m not the guy moving thing.我是说，我不知道该怎么描述它。我不是那个在移动东西的人。
Lex FridmanIt’s very poetic. I love it. The qualia of the cursor experience. Yeah, I mean it sounds poetic, but it is deeply true. There is an experience. When it works well, it is a joyful… A really pleasant experience. And when it doesn’t work well, it’s a very frustrating experience. That’s actually the art of UX, you have the possibility to frustrate people, or the possibility to give them joy.这很有诗意，我喜欢。光标体验的感质。是的，听起来很有诗意，但它是深刻真实的。确实有一种体验。当它运作良好时，是一种令人愉悦的……真正愉快的体验。当它运作不好时，是一种非常令人沮丧的体验。这实际上是UX的艺术所在——你有可能让人们沮丧，也有可能给他们带来喜悦。
Bliss ChapmanAnd at the end of the day, it really is truly the case that UX is how the thing works. And so it’s not just what’s showing on the screen, it’s also, what control surfaces does a decoder provide the user? We want them to feel like they’re in the F1 car, not like some minivan. And that really truly is how we think about it. Noland himself is an F1 fan. We refer to ourself as a pit crew, he really is truly the F1 driver. And there’s different control surfaces that different kinds of cars and airplanes provide the user, and we take a lot of inspiration from that when designing how the cursor should behave.而归根结底，这确实真的是这样：UX就是这个东西如何工作。所以它不只是屏幕上显示什么，也是解码器向用户提供什么样的控制界面。我们想让他们感觉像是在F1赛车里，而不是在某辆厢式车里。这真的确实是我们的思考方式。Noland本人是F1的粉丝。我们把自己比作维修团队，他真的确实是F1车手。不同类型的汽车和飞机向用户提供不同的控制界面，我们在设计光标如何表现时，从这里汲取了很多灵感。
Bliss ChapmanAnd maybe one nuance of this is, even details like when you move a mouse on a MacBook trackpad, the sort of response curve of how that input that you give the trackpad translates to cursor movement is different than how it works with a mouse. When you move on the trackpad, there’s a different response function, a different curve to how much a movement translates to input to the computer than when you do it physically with a mouse. And that’s because somebody sat down a long time ago, when they’re designing the initial input systems to any computer, and they thought through exactly how it feels to use these different systems. And now we’re designing the next generation of this, input system to a computer, which is entirely done via the brain, and there’s no proprioceptive feedback, again, you don’t feel the mouse in your hand, you don’t feel the keys under your fingertips, and you want a control surface that still makes it easy and intuitive for the user to understand the state of the system, and how to achieve what they want to achieve. And ultimately the end goal is that that UX is completely… It fades in the background, it becomes something that’s so natural and intuitive that it’s subconscious to the user, and they just should feel like they have basically direct control over the cursor, just does what they want it to do. They’re not thinking about the implementation of how to make it do what they want it to do, it’s just doing what they want it to do.也许这里面有一个细微之处——即使是像当你在MacBook触控板上移动鼠标时，那个你给触控板的输入转化为光标移动的响应曲线，和用实体鼠标时是不同的。当你在触控板上移动时，有一个不同的响应函数，一个不同的曲线，描述多大的移动量转化为多少对电脑的输入，和你用实体鼠标移动时不同。这是因为很久以前，当有人在设计任何电脑的初始输入系统时，他们仔细思考了使用这些不同系统的感受。而现在我们在设计下一代输入系统——完全通过大脑完成，没有本体感觉反馈，你感觉不到手下的鼠标，感觉不到指尖下的按键——你想要一个控制界面，仍然能让用户轻松而直觉地理解系统的状态，以及如何实现他们想要的。而最终目标是那种UX完全……它退到背景中，变成如此自然和直觉以至于对用户来说是潜意识的，他们只是应该感觉到他们对光标有基本上的直接控制，光标就做他们想做的事。他们不在想如何让它做他们想做的事，它就是在做他们想做的事。
Lex FridmanIs there some kind of things along the lines of like Fitt’s Law, where you should move the mouse in a certain kind of way that maximizes your chance to hit the target? I don’t even know what I’m asking, but I’m hoping the intention of my question will land on a profound answer. No. Is there some kind of understanding of the laws of UX when it comes to the context of somebody using their brain to control it that’s different than with a mouse?有没有一些类似Fitt法则的东西，比如你应该以某种方式移动鼠标，来最大化你击中目标的机会？我甚至不知道我在问什么，但我希望我问题的意图能引出一个深刻的答案。不是。在有人用大脑来控制鼠标的情境下，有没有某种理解UX定律的方式，是与用实体鼠标不同的？
Bliss ChapmanI think we’re in the early stages of discovering those laws, so I wouldn’t claim to have solved that problem yet, but there’s definitely some things we’ve learned that make it easier for the user to get stuff done. And it’s pretty straightforward when you verbalize it, but it takes a while to actually get to that point, when you’re in the process of debugging the stuff in the trenches.我认为我们处于发现这些定律的早期阶段，所以我不会声称已经解决了那个问题，但我们确实已经学到了一些东西，让用户更容易完成任务。当你用语言表达出来，它是相当直接的，但当你在战壕里调试这些东西的过程中，到达那个点需要一段时间。
Bliss ChapmanOne of those things is that any machine learning system that you build has some number of errors, and it matters how those errors translate to the downstream user experience. For example, if you’re developing a search algorithm in your photos, if you search for your friend, Joe, and it pulls up a photo of your friend, Josephine, maybe that’s not a big deal, because the cost of an error is not that high. In a different scenario, where you’re trying to detect insurance fraud or something like this, and you’re directly sending someone to court because of some machine learning model output, then the errors make a lot more sense to be careful about, you want to be very thoughtful about how those errors translate to downstream effects.其中一件事是，你构建的任何机器学习系统都有一定数量的错误，而那些错误如何转化为下游用户体验，是很重要的。比如，如果你在开发照片里的搜索算法，你搜索你的朋友Joe，它拉出了你朋友Josephine的照片，也许没什么大不了，因为错误的代价不高。但在另一种情景下，你在试图检测保险欺诈或诸如此类的事情，因为某个机器学习模型的输出直接把某人送上法庭，那么错误就非常值得小心了，你想要非常周全地考虑那些错误如何转化为下游影响。
Bliss ChapmanThe same is true in BCI. So for example, if you’re building a model that’s decoding a velocity output from the brain, versus an output where you’re trying to modulate the left click for example, these have sort of different trade-offs of how precise you need to be before it becomes useful to the end user. For velocity, it’s okay to be on average correct, because the output of the model is integrated through time. So if the user’s trying to click at position A, and they’re currently position B, they’re trying to navigate over time to get between those two points. And as long as the output of the model is on average correct, they can sort of steer it through time, with the user control loop in the mix, they can get to the point they want to get to.在BCI中也是如此。比如，如果你在构建一个从大脑解码速度输出的模型，与一个你试图调制左键点击的输出相比，这些对于精度有多高才能对终端用户有用，有不同的权衡。对于速度，平均正确就够了，因为模型的输出会随时间积分。所以如果用户试图点击位置A，他们目前在位置B，他们正在试图随时间导航到这两点之间。只要模型的输出平均是正确的，他们就可以随时间去引导它，在用户控制循环参与的情况下，他们可以到达想要到的地方。
Bliss ChapmanThe same is not true of a click. For a click, you’re performing it almost instantly, at the scale of neurons firing. And so you want to be very sure that that click is correct, because a false click can be very destructive to the user. They might accidentally close the tab that they’re trying to do something in, and lose all their progress. They might accidentally hit some send button on some text that there’s only half composed and reads funny after. So there’s different sort of cost functions associated with errors in this space, and part of the UX design is understanding how to build a solution that is, when it’s wrong, still useful to the end user.点击就不是这样了。对于点击，你几乎是即时执行的，在神经元放电的尺度上。所以你要非常确定那个点击是正确的，因为一次误点击对用户可能非常具有破坏性。他们可能不小心关掉了他们正在做某件事的标签页，丢失了所有进度。他们可能不小心按了某个发送按钮，发出了一条只完成了一半、读起来很奇怪的消息。所以在这个领域，与错误相关的代价函数是不同的，而UX设计的一部分，就是理解如何构建一个解决方案，使得它在出错时，对终端用户仍然有用。
Lex FridmanIt’s so fascinating, assigning cost to every action when an error occurs. So every action, if an error occurs, has a certain cost, and incorporating that into how you interpret the intention, mapping it to the action is really important. I didn’t quite, until you said it, realize there’s a cost to sending the text early. It’s a very expensive cost.这太迷人了——为每个动作分配代价，在错误发生时。每个动作，如果出错，都有特定的代价，把这个纳入你如何解读意图、将其映射到动作上，真的非常重要。我之前没有完全意识到，直到你说出来——提前发送那条消息，代价非常高。
Bliss ChapmanYeah, it’s super annoying if you accidentally… Imagine if your cursor misclicked every once in a while. That’s super obnoxious. And the worst part of it is, usually when the user’s trying to click, they’re also holding still, because they’re over the target they want to hit, and they’re getting ready to click, which means that in the datasets that we build, on average is the case that sort of low speeds, or desire to hold still, is correlated with when the user’s attempting to click.是的，如果你不小心……想象一下，如果你的光标偶尔误点击，会有多烦人。而最糟糕的部分是，通常用户试图点击的时候，他们也在保持静止，因为他们在目标上方，正在准备点击，这意味着在我们构建的数据集中，平均来说，低速度或想要保持静止的状态，与用户试图点击时是相关的。
Lex FridmanWow, that is really fascinating.哇，这真的太迷人了。
Bliss ChapmanPeople think that, “Oh, a click is a binary signal, this must be super easy to decode.” Well, yes, it is, but the bar is so much higher for it to become a useful thing for the user. And there’s ways to solve this. I mean, you can sort of take the compound approach of, “Well, let’s take five seconds to click. Let’s take a huge window of time, so we can be very confident about the answer.” But again, world’s best mouse. The world’s best mouse doesn’t take a second to click, or 500 milliseconds to click, it takes five milliseconds to click or less. And so if you’re aiming for that kind of high bar, then you really want to solve the underlying problem.人们觉得，"哦，点击是一个二进制信号，解码肯定超级简单。"好吧，是的，但对它的要求要高得多，它才能对用户有用。而且有解决的方法。我的意思是，你可以采取复合方法——"好，让我们花5秒钟来点击，让我们用一个巨大的时间窗口，这样我们就可以对答案非常有信心。"但再说一次，世界上最好的鼠标。世界上最好的鼠标，点击不需要1秒，或者500毫秒，它只需要5毫秒甚至更少。所以如果你以那种高标准为目标，那你真的需要解决底层问题。
Lex FridmanSo maybe this is a good place to ask about how to measure performance, this whole bits per second. Can you explain what you mean by that? Maybe a good place to start is to talk about Webgrid as a game, as a good illustration of the measurement of performance.所以也许这是一个问每秒比特数的好地方，关于如何测量性能这整件事。你能解释一下那是什么意思吗？也许Webgrid作为一个游戏，是一个很好的说明性能测量的例子。
Bliss ChapmanYeah. Maybe I’ll take one zoom out step there, which is just explaining why we care to measure this at all. So again, our goal is to provide the user the ability to control the computer as well as I can, and hopefully better. And that means that they can do it at the same speed as what I can do, it means that they have access to all the same functionality that I have, including all those little details like command tab, command space, all this stuff, they need to be able to do it with their brain, and with the same level of reliability as what I can do with my muscles. And that’s a high bar, and so we intend to measure and quantify every aspect of that to understand how we’re progressing towards that goal.好的。也许我先往外退一步，解释一下为什么我们要首先测量这个。再说一次，我们的目标是让用户能够像我一样好地控制电脑，并且希望更好。这意味着他们可以以和我一样的速度做到，意味着他们能访问我拥有的所有相同功能，包括所有那些小细节——Command+Tab、Command+Space，这些所有东西，他们都需要能用大脑做到，而且达到与我用肌肉做到的同等可靠程度。这是一个很高的标准，所以我们打算测量和量化它的每个方面，以理解我们在朝着那个目标前进。
Bliss ChapmanThere’s many ways to measure BPS by the way, this isn’t the only way, but we present the user a grid of targets, and basically we compute a score which is dependent on how fast and accurate they can select, and then how small are the targets. And the more targets that are on the screen, the smaller they are, the more information you present per click. And so if you think about it from information theory point of view, you can communicate across different information theoretic channels, and one such channel is a typing interface, you can imagine, that’s built out of a grid, just like a software keyboard on the screen.顺便说一下，测量BPS有很多种方式，这不是唯一的方式，但我们向用户呈现一个目标网格，然后基本上计算一个分数，这个分数取决于他们能以多快和多准确地选中，以及目标有多小。屏幕上的目标越多，它们就越小，每次点击传递的信息就越多。如果你从信息论的角度来看，你可以通过不同的信息论信道来通信，其中一个这样的信道就是打字界面——你可以想象，它是由一个网格构建的，就像屏幕上的软键盘一样。
Bliss ChapmanAnd bits per second is a measure that’s computed by taking the log of the number of targets on the screen. You can subtract one if you care to model a keyboard, because you have to subtract one for the delete key on the keyboard. But log of the number of targets on the screen, times the number of correct selections, minus incorrect, divided by some time window, for example, 60 seconds. And that’s sort of the standard way to measure a cursor control task in academia. And all credit in the world goes to this great professor, Dr. Shenoy of Stanford who came up with that task, and he’s also one of my inspirations for being in the field. So all the credit in the world to him for coming up with a standardized metric to facilitate this kind of bragging rights that we have now to say that Noland is the best in the world at this task with this BCI. It’s very important for progress that you have standardized metrics that people can compare across. Different techniques and approaches, how well does this do? So big kudos to him and to all the team at Stanford.每秒比特数是这样计算的：取屏幕上目标数量的对数，如果你想模拟键盘，可以减去1，因为键盘上有删除键要减去。然后取屏幕上目标数量的对数，乘以正确选中数减去错误选中数，再除以某个时间窗口，比如60秒。这大概是学术界测量光标控制任务的标准方法。所有的荣誉都归于这位伟大的教授，斯坦福的Shenoy博士，他提出了这个任务，他也是我进入这个领域的灵感之一。所有荣誉都归于他，他提出了一个标准化的指标，让我们现在能够有这种夸耀权——说Noland在这个用这台BCI的任务上是世界第一。有标准化的指标让人们可以跨不同技术和方法进行比较，这对进步非常重要。大大地向他和斯坦福整个团队致敬。
Bliss ChapmanYeah, so for Noland, and for me playing this task, there’s also different modes that you can configure this task. So the Webgrid task can be presented as just sort of a left click on the screen, or you could have targets that you just dwell over, or you could have targets that you left, right click on, you could have targets that are left, right click, middle click, scrolling, clicking and dragging. You can do all sorts of things within this general framework, but the simplest, purest form is just blue targets show up on the screen, blue means left click. That’s the simplest form of the game.是的，对于Noland和我玩这个任务，还有不同的模式可以配置。Webgrid任务可以呈现为只是在屏幕上左键点击，或者你可以有需要悬停的目标，或者你可以有需要左键、右键点击的目标，可以有需要左键、右键、中键点击、滚动、点击并拖动的目标。在这个总体框架内你可以做各种各样的事情，但最简单、最纯粹的形式就是：蓝色目标出现在屏幕上，蓝色意味着左键点击。这是游戏最简单的形式。
Bliss ChapmanAnd the sort of prior records here in academic work and at Neuralink internally with NHPs have all been matched or beaten by Noland with his Neuralink device. So prior to Neuralink, the world record for a human using device is somewhere between 4.2 to 4.6 BPS, depending on exactly what paper you read and how you interpret it. Noland’s current record is 8.5 BPS. and again, this sort of median Neuralinker performance is 10 BPS. So you can think of it roughly as, he’s 85% the level of control of a median Neuralinker using their cursor to select blue targets on the screen.而这里学术工作和Neuralink内部与NHP的先前记录，全都被Noland用他的Neuralink设备匹配或超越了。在Neuralink之前，人类使用设备的世界纪录大概是4.2到4.6 BPS之间，取决于你读的具体是哪篇论文，以及你怎么解读。Noland目前的纪录是8.5 BPS，而普通Neuralinker的中位表现是10 BPS。所以你可以粗略地认为，他达到了普通Neuralinker用光标在屏幕上选择蓝色目标时的85%控制水平。
Bliss ChapmanI think there’s a very interesting journey ahead to get us to that same level of 10 BPS performance. It’s not the case that the tricks that got us from 4 to 6 BPS, and then 6 to 8 BPS are going to be the ones that get us from 8 to 10. And in my view, the core challenge here is really the labeling problem. It’s how do you understand, at a very, very fine resolution, what the user’s attempting to do? And I highly encourage folks in academia to work on this problem.我认为前方有一段非常有趣的旅程，让我们达到同样的10 BPS表现水平。不是说让我们从4到6 BPS的那些技巧，以及从6到8 BPS的那些技巧，会是让我们从8到10的那些技巧。在我看来，这里核心的挑战真的是标注问题——你如何在非常非常精细的分辨率上理解用户试图做什么。我非常鼓励学术界的人研究这个问题。
Lex FridmanWhat’s the journey with Noland on that quest of increasing the BPS on Webgrid? In March, you said that he selected 89,285 targets in Webgrid. So he loves this game, he’s really serious about improving his performance in this game. So what is that journey of trying to figure out how to improve that performance? How much can that be done on the decoding side? How much can that be done on the calibration side? How much can that be done on the Noland side of figuring out how to convey his intention more cleanly?Noland在追求提高Webgrid BPS这条道路上的旅程是什么样的？3月份你说他在Webgrid里选了89,285个目标。所以他热爱这个游戏，非常认真地提高自己在这个游戏里的表现。那么那段试图提升表现的旅程是什么样的？在解码端能做多少？在校准端能做多少？在Noland这边，弄清楚如何更干净地传达他的意图能做多少？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. No, this is a great question. So in my view, one of the primary reasons why Noland’s performance is so good is because of Noland. Noland is extremely focused and very energetic. He’ll play Webgrid sometimes for four hours in the middle of the night. From 2:00 A.M. To 6:00 A.M. he’ll be playing Webgrid, just because he wants to push it to the limits of what he can do. This is not us asking him to do that, I want to be clear. We’re not saying, ” Hey, you should play Webgrid tonight.” We just gave him the game as part of our research, and he is able to play it independently, and practice whenever he wants, and he really pushes hard to push it, the technology’s absolute limit. And he views that as his job, really, to make us be the bottleneck. And boy, has he done that well.好，这是个好问题。在我看来，Noland表现如此之好的主要原因之一，是因为Noland本人。Noland极为专注，精力非常充沛。他有时会在半夜玩Webgrid玩四个小时。从凌晨2点到早上6点，他会一直在玩Webgrid，就因为他想把它推到他能做到的极限。这不是我们让他这样做的，我想把这说清楚。我们没有说"嘿，你今晚应该玩Webgrid。"我们只是把游戏作为我们研究的一部分给了他，他能够独立地玩，想什么时候练习就什么时候练习，他真的在努力把技术推到极限。他把这视为自己的工作，真的，就是让我们成为瓶颈。而且他做到了，太厉害了。
Bliss ChapmanAnd so the first thing to acknowledge is that he’s extremely motivated to make this work. I’ve also had the privilege to meet other clinical trial participants from BrainGate and other trials, and they very much shared the same attitude of, they viewed this as their life’s work to advance the technology as much as they can. And if that means selecting targets on the screen for four hours from 2:00 A.M. to 6:00 A.M., then so be it. And there’s something extremely admirable about that that’s worth calling out.所以首先要承认的是，他非常有动力让这个东西工作。我也有幸见过来自BrainGate和其他试验的其他临床试验参与者，他们非常共同分享同样的态度——他们把这视为自己一生的工作，尽可能地推进技术。如果这意味着从凌晨2点到早上6点在屏幕上选择目标，那就这样吧。这种精神有一些极为令人钦佩的东西，值得特别指出。
Bliss ChapmanOkay, so then how do you get from where he started, which is no cursor control to eight BPS? I mean, when he started, there’s a huge amount of learning to do on his side and our side to figure out what’s the most intuitive control for him. And the most intuitive control for him is, you have to find the set intersection of, “Do we have the signal to decode?” So we don’t pick up every single neuron in the motor cortex, which means we don’t have representation for every part of the body. So there may be some signals that we have better decode performance on than others. For example, on his left hand, we have a lot of difficulty distinguishing his left ring finger from his left middle finger, but on his right hand, we have a good control and good modulation detected from the neurons that were able to record for his pinky, and his thumb, and his index finger. So you can imagine how these different subspaces of modulated activity intersect with what’s the most intuitive for him.好，那么你怎么从他开始的地方——也就是完全没有光标控制——到8 BPS？我的意思是，当他刚开始的时候，在他那边和我们这边都有大量的学习要做，以找出什么是对他来说最直觉的控制方式。而对他来说最直觉的控制方式，你需要找到这样一个交集：我们是否有信号来解码？所以我们并不能捕获到运动皮层中每一个神经元，这意味着我们没有身体每个部位的表征。所以可能有些信号我们能比其他信号有更好的解码表现。比如，在他的左手上，我们很难区分他的左无名指和左中指，但在他的右手上，我们对从他小指、拇指和食指记录到的神经元有很好的控制和调制检测。所以你可以想象，这些不同的调制活动子空间，如何与对他来说最直觉的东西交叉。
Bliss ChapmanAnd this has evolved over time, so once we gave him the ability to calibrate models on his own, he was able to go and explore various different ways to imagine controlling the cursor. For example, he can imagine controlling the cursor by wiggling his wrist side to side, or by moving his entire arm, by… I think at one point he did his feet. He tried a whole bunch of stuff to explore the space of what is the most natural way for him to control the cursor, that at the same time, it’s easy for us to decode-这随时间演化了，所以一旦我们给了他独立校准模型的能力，他就能去探索各种不同的想象控制光标的方式。比如，他可以想象通过左右摆动手腕来控制光标，或者通过移动整条手臂，通过……我想他有一次用脚试了一下。他尝试了一大堆东西，探索对他来说控制光标最自然的方式，同时对我们来说也容易解码——
Lex FridmanJust to clarify, it’s through the body mapping procedure there, you’re able to figure out which finger he can move?就是为了确认一下，是通过那个身体映射程序，你们才能搞清楚他能动哪根手指的？
Bliss ChapmanYes. Yeah, that’s one way to do it. Maybe one nuance of the… When he’s doing it, he can imagine many more things than we represent in that visual on the screen. So we show him, sort of abstractly, “Here’s a cursor. You figure out what works the best for you.” And we obviously have hints about what will work best from that body mapping procedure, of, “We know that this particular action we can represent well.” But it’s really up to him to go and explore and figure out what works the best.是的。是的，这是方法之一。也许有一个细节要说明一下……他在做的时候，他能想象的东西远比我们在屏幕上展示的那些要多得多。所以我们会很抽象地告诉他，'这里有个光标，你自己去摸索哪种方式最适合你。'我们从身体映射程序里当然也有一些提示，知道'这个特定动作我们能很好地捕捉到。'但最终还是要靠他自己去探索，找到最适合自己的方式。
Lex FridmanBut at which point does he no longer visualize the movement of his body, and is just visualizing the movement of the cursor?但是到了哪个时间点，他就不再去想象身体在运动了，而是直接在想象光标的移动？
Bliss ChapmanYeah.是啊。
Lex FridmanHow quickly does he get there?他多快能到达那个状态？
Bliss ChapmanSo this happened on a Tuesday. I remember this day very clearly, because at some point during the day, it looked like he wasn’t doing super well, it looked like the model wasn’t performing super well, and he was getting distracted, but actually, it wasn’t the case. What actually happened was, he was trying something new, where he was just controlling the cursor, so he wasn’t imagining moving his hand anymore, he was just imagining… I don’t know what it is, some abstract intention to move the cursor on the screen, and I cannot tell you what the difference between those two things are, I truly cannot. He’s tried to explain it to me before, I cannot give a first-person account of what that’s like. But the expletives that he uttered in that moment were enough to suggest that it was a very qualitatively different experience for him to just have direct neural control over a cursor.这件事是在一个周二发生的。我记得那天非常清楚，因为当天某个时刻，看起来他表现得不太好，模型的效果也不太行，他还有点心不在焉——但实际上并不是这回事。真正发生的是，他在尝试一种新的方式，他不再想象自己在动手，而是直接在想象……我也说不清楚那是什么，某种控制屏幕上光标移动的抽象意图。我真的没办法告诉你这两种方式之间的区别是什么，我真的不知道。他以前试着向我解释过，但我给不出那种体验的第一人称描述。不过他在那一刻说出的那些脏话，已经足够说明——直接用神经来控制光标，对他来说是一种截然不同的、极其震撼的体验。
Lex FridmanI wonder if there’s a way through UX to encourage a human being to discover that, because he discovered it… Like you said to me, that he’s a pioneer. So he discovered that on his own through all of this, the process of trying to move the cursor with different kinds of intentions. But that is clearly a really powerful thing to arrive at, which is to let go of trying to control the fingers and the hand, and control the actual digital device with your mind.我在想，有没有什么办法通过 UX 设计来引导人们自己发现这一点，因为他是自己发现的……就像你跟我说的，他是个先行者。他在不断尝试用各种不同的意图来移动光标的过程中，自己摸索出了这一点。但显然，能达到这个状态是非常强大的——放弃对手指和手的控制，直接用意念来操控数字设备。
Bliss ChapmanThat’s right. UX is how it works. And the ideal UX is one that the user doesn’t have to think about what they need to do in order to get it done, it just does it.没错。UX 就是它起作用的方式。而理想的 UX 就是：用户不需要去想'我需要做什么才能完成这件事'，它就自动做到了。
Lex FridmanThat is so fascinating. But I wonder, on the biological side, how long it takes for the brain to adapt. So is it just simply learning high level software, or is there a neuroplasticity component where the brain is adjusting slowly?这真的太迷人了。但我想知道，从生物学的角度来看，大脑适应需要多长时间。这仅仅是在学习高层软件，还是说其中有神经可塑性的成分——大脑在慢慢调整？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. The truth is, I don’t know. I’m very excited to see with sort of the second participant that I implant, what the journey is like for them, because we’ll have learned a lot more, potentially, we can help them understand and explore that direction more quickly. This wasn’t me prompting Noland to go try this, he was just exploring how to use his device and figured it out himself. But now that we know that that’s a possibility, that maybe there’s a way to, for example, hint the user, “Don’t try super hard during calibration, just do something that feels natural.” Or, “Just directly control the cursor. Don’t imagine explicit action.” And from there, we should be able to hopefully understand how this is for somebody who has not experienced that before. Maybe that’s the default mode of operation for them, you don’t have to go through this intermediate phase of explicit motions.是啊。说实话，我不知道。我非常期待看到第二位参与者植入后的历程，因为到那时我们会学到更多，也许能帮助他们更快地理解并探索那个方向。这次并不是我在引导 Noland 去尝试这件事，他只是在自己探索如何使用设备，然后自己发现了这一点。但现在我们知道这是有可能的，也许可以找到某种方式来提示用户，比如：'校准的时候不要太用力，做一些感觉自然的事情就好。'或者，'直接去控制光标，不要去想具体的动作。'从那里出发，我们应该能够更好地了解，对于从来没有经历过这种状态的人来说，这是什么感受。也许那就是他们默认的操作模式，根本不需要经历这个显式动作的中间阶段。
Lex FridmanOr maybe if that naturally happens for people, you can just occasionally encourage them to allow themselves to move the cursor.或者，如果这种情况对人们来说自然而然地会发生，你只需要偶尔鼓励他们放手去移动光标就行了。
Bliss ChapmanRight.对。
Lex FridmanActually, sometimes, just like with a four-minute mile, just the knowledge that that’s possible-其实有时候，就像四分钟跑完一英里那个故事一样，仅仅是知道那是可能的——
Bliss ChapmanYes, pushes you to do it.是的，那就能推动你去做到它。
Lex FridmanYeah.对。
Bliss ChapmanYeah.对。
Lex FridmanEnables you to do it, and then it becomes trivial. And then it also makes you wonder, this is the cool thing about humans, once there’s a lot more human participants, they will discover things that are possible.让你能够做到，然后它就变成了理所当然的事。这也让你不由得想到，这就是人类有意思的地方——一旦有了更多的参与者，他们会发现很多新的可能性。
Bliss ChapmanYes. And share their experiences probably with each other.是的。而且他们大概还会互相分享各自的体验。
Lex FridmanYeah, and share. And that because of them sharing it, they’ll be able to do it. All of a sudden that’s unlocked for everybody, because just the knowledge sometimes is the thing that enables you to do it.对，互相分享。正因为他们的分享，其他人也能做到。突然间，这件事对所有人都开放了，因为有时候，知道它是可能的，本身就是让你做到它的那件事。
Bliss ChapmanYeah. Just to comment on that too, we’ve probably tried 1,000 different ways to do various aspects of decoding, and now we know what the right subspace is to continue exploring further. Again, thanks to Noland and the many hours he’s put into this. And so even just that, help constraints, or the beam search of different approaches that we could explore really helps accelerate for the next person the set of things that we’ll get to try on day one, how fast we hopefully get them to use for control, how fast we can enable them to use it independently, and to get value out of the system. So massive hats off to Noland and all the participants that came before to make this technology a reality.是啊。补充一点，我们大概已经尝试了 1,000 种不同的方式来处理解码的各个环节，现在我们知道了正确的子空间在哪里，可以继续深入探索。这一切都要感谢 Noland 以及他投入的大量时间。就算只是这一点，它也帮我们约束了搜索空间，就像波束搜索一样，缩小了我们可以探索的不同方向的范围，这真的大大加速了下一位参与者的进程——我们在第一天就能尝试的东西、我们希望多快能让他们用上控制功能、多快能让他们独立使用、并从系统中获得价值。所以，向 Noland 和所有在他之前参与的受试者致以最高的敬意，是他们让这项技术成为了现实。
Lex FridmanSo how often are the updates to the decoder? ‘Cause Noland mentioned, “Okay, there’s a new update that we’re working on.” In the stream he said he plays the snake game, because it’s super hard, it’s a good way for him to test how good the update is. And he says sometimes the update is a step backwards, it’s a constant iteration. What does the update entail? Is it mostly on the decoder side?那解码器的更新频率是怎样的？因为 Noland 提到说，'好，我们正在研究一个新的更新。'他在直播里说他会用贪吃蛇游戏来测试，因为那个游戏超难，是他用来测试新版本好不好用的方式。他说有时候更新是退步，整个过程就是不断迭代。更新主要包含什么内容？主要是在解码器这边吗？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. Couple of comments. So, one, it’s probably worth drawing distinction between research sessions where we’re actively trying different things to understand what the best approach is, versus independent use, where we wanted to have ability to just go use the device how anybody would want to use their MacBook. So what he’s referring to is, I think, usually in the context of a research session, where we’re trying many, many different approaches to… Even unsupervised approaches, like we talked about earlier, to try to come up with better ways to estimate his true intention, and more accurately decoded.是的。说几点。首先，可能有必要区分一下：研究性会话——我们在里面主动尝试各种不同的方案，探索最佳方法——和独立使用之间的区别，我们希望独立使用时，他能像任何人使用自己的 MacBook 一样，随时拿起来就用。他说的那个，我认为通常是研究性会话的语境，在那些会话里我们会尝试非常非常多不同的方法……包括我们之前聊过的无监督方法，试图找出更好的方式来估计他真实的意图，并更准确地进行解码。
Bliss ChapmanAnd in those scenarios, we try, in any given session… He’ll sometimes work for eight hours a day, and so that can be hundreds of different models that we would try in that day. A lot of different things. Now, it’s also worth noting that we update the application he uses quite frequently, I think sometimes up to 4 or 5 times a day, we’ll update his application with different features, or bug fixes, or feedback that he’s given us.在那些场景里，在任意一次会话中，我们都会尝试很多东西……他有时候一天工作八个小时，所以那一天我们可能会尝试数百个不同的模型，各种各样的方案。另外还值得一提的是，我们对他使用的应用程序更新得相当频繁，我认为有时候一天会更新 4 到 5 次，包括新功能、Bug 修复，或者根据他给我们的反馈来改进。
Bliss ChapmanHe’s a very articulate person who is part of the solution, he’s not a complaining person, he says, “Hey, here’s this thing that I’ve discovered is not optimal in my flow. Here’s some ideas how to fix it. Let me know what your thoughts are, let’s figure out how to solve it.” And it often happens that those things are addressed within a couple of hours of him giving us his feedback, that’s the kind of iteration cycle we’ll have. And so sometimes at the beginning of the session, he’ll give us feedback, and at the end of the session he’s giving us feedback on the next iteration of that process or that setup.他是一个表达能力很强的人，他是解决方案的一部分，他不是那种爱抱怨的人，他会说：'嘿，我发现了我的操作流程里这个地方不够顺畅，这是我想到的一些解决思路，听听你们的看法，我们一起来想办法搞定它。'而且通常，他给我们反馈后的几个小时内，那些问题就已经被处理掉了——我们就是这样的迭代节奏。所以有时候，一次会话开始时他给我们反馈，到会话结束时，他已经在给那个流程或设置的下一个迭代版本提反馈了。
Lex FridmanThat’s fascinating, ’cause one of the things you mentioned that there was 271 pages of notes taken from the BCI sessions, and this was just in March. So one of the amazing things about human beings that they can provide… Especially ones who are smart, and excited, and all positive and good vibes like Noland, that they can provide feedback, continuous feedback.这太有意思了，因为你提到在 BCI 会话里记录了 271 页笔记，而这仅仅是在三月份。人类能够提供的东西真的令人惊叹……尤其是像 Noland 这样聪明、充满热情、阳光正能量的人，他们能提供持续不断的反馈。
Bliss ChapmanYeah. Just to brag on the team a little bit, I work with a lot of exceptional people, and it requires the team being absolutely laser-focused on the user, and what will be the best for them. And it requires a level of commitment of, “Okay, this is what the user feedback was. I have all these meetings, we’re going to skip that today, and we’re going to do this.” That level of focus and commitment is, I would say, underappreciated in the world. And also, you obviously have to have the talent to be able to execute on these things effectively, and we have that in loads.是啊。稍微夸一下我们的团队，我和很多非常出色的人共事，这需要团队绝对聚焦于用户，聚焦于什么对他们来说是最好的。这需要一种承诺：'好，这是用户的反馈，我今天有一堆会议，但我们今天跳过，先做这件事。'我认为这种专注和投入在这个世界上是被低估的。当然，你还需要有足够的才能来高效地执行这些事情，而我们在这方面人才济济。
Lex FridmanYeah, and this is such an interesting space of UX design, because there’s so many unknowns here. And I can tell UX is difficult because of how many people do it poorly. It’s just not a trivial thing.对，这是一个非常有趣的 UX 设计领域，因为这里面有太多的未知数。而且我能感受到 UX 设计的难度，因为太多人把它做得很糟糕。这并不是一件简单的事。
Bliss ChapmanYeah. UX is not something that you can always solve by just constant iterating on different things. Sometimes you really need to step back and think globally, “Am I even in the right sort of minima to be chasing down for a solution?” There’s a lot of problems in which sort of fast iteration cycle is the predictor of how successful you’ll be. As a good example, like in an RL simulation for example, the more frequently you get reward, the faster you can progress. It’s just an easier learning problem the more frequently you get feedback. But UX is not that way, I mean, users are actually quite often wrong about what the right solution is, and it requires a deep understanding of the technical system, and what’s possible, combined with what the problem is you’re trying to solve. Not just how the user expressed it, but what the true underlying problem is to actually get to the right place.是的。UX 并不是那种只要不停迭代就能解决的问题。有时候你真的需要退一步，从全局来思考：'我追的这个方向，连极小值点都找对了吗？'有很多问题，快速迭代是衡量你能有多成功的预测指标。一个很好的例子是 RL 仿真——你获得奖励的频率越高，你进步的速度就越快。获得反馈越频繁，学习问题就越简单。但 UX 不是这样。用户对于什么是正确的解决方案，其实经常是错的，这需要你对技术系统和什么是可能的有深刻理解，同时结合你真正想解决的问题是什么——不只是用户如何表达了它，而是真正底层的问题是什么，才能真正找到正确的方向。
Lex FridmanYeah, that’s the old stories of Steve Jobs rolling in there, like, “Yeah, the user is a useful signal, but it’s not a perfect signal, and sometimes you have to remove the floppy disc drive.” Or whatever the… I forgot all the crazy stories of Steve Jobs making wild design decisions. But there, some of it is aesthetic, that some of it is about the love you put into the design, which is very much a Steve Jobs, Johnny Ive type thing, but when you have a human being using their brain to interact with it, it also is deeply about function, it’s not just aesthetic. And that, you have to empathize with a human being before you, while not always listening to them directly. You have to deeply empathize. It’s fascinating. It’s really, really fascinating. And at the same time, iterate, but not iterate in small ways, sometimes a complete… Like rebuilding the design. Noland said in the early days the UX sucked, but you improved quickly. What was that journey like?对，这让我想起了关于 Steve Jobs 的那些老故事，他就说：'对，用户是个有用的信号，但不是完美的信号，有时候你必须取消软驱。'或者诸如此类的……我忘了 Steve Jobs 那些疯狂的设计决策的所有故事了。但其中有些是关于美学的，有些是关于你在设计中投入的爱，这是非常 Steve Jobs、Johnny Ive 式的东西，但当你有一个人在用大脑与之交互时，它也深深地关乎功能，而不仅仅是美学。在这种情况下，你需要在不总是直接听从用户的同时，深度共情用户。你需要深度共情。真是迷人。真的非常非常迷人。同时，要迭代，但不只是小改动，有时候是彻底重构……就像重新设计。Noland 说早期的 UX 很糟糕，但你们改进得很快。那段旅程是什么样的？
Bliss ChapmanYeah, I mean, I’ll give you one concrete example. So he really wanted to be able to read manga. This is something that he… I mean, it sounds like a simple thing, but it’s actually a really big deal for him, and he couldn’t do it with his mouse stick. It wasn’t accessible, you can’t scroll with the mouse stick on his iPad on the website that he wanted to be able to use to read the newest manga, and so-是啊，我来给你举一个具体的例子。他非常想能够阅读漫画。这对他来说……听起来好像是件小事，但对他来说实际上是非常重要的大事，而他用嘴棒做不到这一点。它不够无障碍，他无法用嘴棒在他想用来读最新漫画的那个 iPad 网站上滚动页面，所以——
Lex FridmanMight be a good quick pause to say the mouth stick is the thing he’s using. Holding a stick in his mouth to scroll on a tablet.可能值得快速说明一下，嘴棒是他正在使用的东西——把一根棍子含在嘴里，在平板上滑动。
Bliss ChapmanRight. Yeah. You can imagine it’s a stylus that you hold between your teeth. Yeah, it’s basically a very long stylus.对。是的。你可以想象成一支你用牙齿夹住的触控笔。对，基本上就是一根很长的触控笔。
Lex FridmanIt’s exhausting, it hurts, and it’s inefficient.又累又痛，效率还低。
Bliss ChapmanYeah. And maybe it’s also worth calling out, there are other alternative assisted technologies, but the particular situation Noland’s in, and this is not uncommon, and I think it’s also not well-understood by folks, is that he’s relatively spastic, so he’ll have muscle spasms from time to time. And so any assistive technology that requires him to be positioned directly in front of a camera, for example, an eye tracker, or anything that requires him to put something in his mouth just is a no-go, ’cause he’ll either be shifted out of frame when he has a spasm, or if he has something in his mouth, it’ll stab him in the face if he spasms too hard. So these kinds of considerations are important when thinking about what advantages a BCI has in someone’s life. If it fits ergonomically into your life in a way that you can use it independently when your caretakers not there, wherever you want to, either in the bed or in the chair, depending on your comfort level and your desire to have pressure source, all these factors matter a lot in how good the solution is in that user’s life.是的。另外也许值得指出的是，还有其他辅助技术，但 Noland 所处的具体情况——这种情况并不罕见，我认为很多人也不太了解——是他有相对明显的痉挛，会时不时发生肌肉痉挛。所以任何需要他正对着摄像头才能使用的辅助技术，比如眼动仪，或者任何需要他把东西含在嘴里的技术，都是行不通的——因为痉挛时他会从摄像头视野里晃出去，或者如果嘴里有东西，猛地痉挛一下就可能戳到脸。所以在思考 BCI 能给一个人的生活带来什么优势时，这些考量非常重要。如果它能在人体工程学上契合你的生活，让你在没有护理人员的时候也能独立使用，无论你想在哪里——床上还是轮椅上，取决于你的舒适度和你希望承受的压力来源——所有这些因素都极大地影响着这个方案对那个用户的生活有多好。
Bliss ChapmanSo one of these very fun examples is scroll. So, again, manga is something he wanted to be able to read, and there’s many ways to do scroll with a BCI. You can imagine different gestures, for example, the user could do that would move the page. But scroll is a very fascinating control surface, because it’s a huge thing on the screen in front of you. So any sort of jitter in the model output, any sort of air in the model output causes an earthquake on the screen. You really don’t want to have your mango page that you’re trying to read be shifted up and down a few pixels just because your scroll decoder is not completely accurate.其中一个非常有趣的例子就是滚动。如前所述，他想能够读漫画，而用 BCI 实现滚动有很多种方式。你可以想象不同的手势，比如用户可以做某个动作来让页面移动。但滚动是一个非常有趣的控制界面，因为它在你面前的屏幕上占据了很大的区域。所以模型输出中任何一点抖动、任何一点误差，都会导致屏幕像地震一样晃动。你真的不希望你正在努力阅读的漫画页面，因为你的滚动解码器不够精准，就一直上下窜动几个像素。
Bliss ChapmanAnd so this was an example where we had to figure out how to formulate the problem in a way that the errors of the system, whenever they do occur, and we’ll do our best to minimize them, but whenever those errors do occur, that it doesn’t interrupt the qualia, again, of the experience that the user is having. It doesn’t interrupt their flow of reading their book. And so what we ended up building is this really brilliant feature. This is a teammate named Bruce who worked on this really brilliant work called Quick Scroll. And Quick Scroll basically looks at the screen, and it identifies where on the screen are scroll bars. And it does this by deeply integrated with macOS to understand where are the scroll bars actively present on the screen, using the sort of accessibility tree that’s available to macOS apps. And we identified where those scroll bars are, and we provided a BCI scroll bar, and the BCI scroll bar looks similar to a normal scroll bar, but it behaves very differently, in that once you move over to it, your cursor sort of morphs onto it, it sort of attaches or latches onto it. And then once you push up or down, in the same way that you’d use a push to control the normal cursor, it actually moves the screen for you. So it’s basically like remapping the velocity to a scroll action.所以这是一个例子，我们需要弄清楚如何建立问题框架，使得系统的误差——无论什么时候出现，我们会尽力把它最小化，但无论什么时候出现误差——都不会干扰用户的体验感，不会打断他们的心流，不会打断他们读书的节奏。于是我们最终做出了一个非常出色的功能。这是一位叫 Bruce 的队友做出的很出色的成果，叫做 Quick Scroll（快速滚动）。Quick Scroll 基本上就是扫描屏幕，识别出屏幕上哪里有滚动条——它通过与 macOS 深度集成来实现这一点，利用 macOS 应用的无障碍树来了解哪里有活跃的滚动条。我们识别出那些滚动条的位置，然后提供一个 BCI 滚动条，BCI 滚动条看起来和普通滚动条类似，但行为方式非常不同——一旦你移动到它上面，你的光标就会自动附着上去，就好像磁铁一样吸上去了。然后一旦你向上或向下推，就像你用推动的方式控制普通光标一样，它实际上就替你滚动屏幕了。所以基本上就是把速度映射成一个滚动动作。
Bliss ChapmanAnd the reason that feels so natural and intuitive is that when you move over to attach to it feels like magnetic, so you’re sort of stuck onto it, and then it’s one continuous action, you don’t have to switch your imagined movement, you sort of snap onto it, and then you’re good to go. You just immediately can start pulling the page down or pushing it up. And even once you get that right, there’s so many little nuances of how the scroll behavior works to make it natural and intuitive. So one example is momentum. When you scroll a page with your fingers on the screen, you actually have some flow, it doesn’t just stop right when you lift your finger up. The same is true with BCI scroll, so we had to spend some time to figure out, “What are the right nuances when you don’t feel the screen under your fingertip anymore? What is the right sort of dynamic, or what’s the right amount of page give, if you will, when you push it to make it flow the right amount for the user to have a natural experience reading their book?”这让人感觉如此自然、如此直觉的原因在于：移过去附着的那一刻感觉像磁铁一样，你就粘在上面了，然后是一个连续的动作，你不需要切换你想象中的运动，直接一下吸附上去，就可以开始了。立刻就可以开始把页面往下拉或往上推。即便把这些都做对了，还有无数关于滚动行为如何运作的细节需要打磨，才能让它感觉自然流畅。一个例子是惯性。当你用手指在屏幕上滑动翻页时，实际上是有一种流动感的，你抬起手指后它不会立刻停下来。BCI 滚动也是如此，所以我们需要花时间来弄清楚：当你感受不到手指下的屏幕时，正确的动态是什么？当你推动它时，正确的'页面弹性'是多少，才能让它以合适的方式流动，给用户带来自然的阅读体验？
Bliss ChapmanI could tell you there’s so many little minutia of how exactly that scroll works, that we spent probably a month getting right, to make that feel extremely natural and easy for the user to navigate.我可以告诉你，光是那个滚动功能的各种细节，我们大概就花了一个月的时间才打磨好，才让用户在导航时感觉极其自然、轻松。
Lex FridmanI mean, even the scroll on a smartphone with your finger feels extremely natural and pleasant, and it probably takes an extremely long time to get that right. And actually, the same kind of visionary UX design that we were talking about, don’t always listen to the users, but also listen to them, and also have visionary, big, like throw everything out, think from first principles, but also not. Yeah, yeah. By the way, it just makes me think that scroll bars on the desktop probably have stagnated, and never taken that… ‘Cause the snap, same as snap to grid, snap to scroll bar action you’re talking about is something that could potentially be extremely useful in the desktop setting, even just for users to just improve the experience. ‘Cause the current scroll bar experience in the desktop is horrible.我是说，智能手机上用手指滑动的那种滚动感觉已经极其自然流畅了，那要做对那个估计也花了很长时间。而且，同样是那种有远见的 UX 设计——不总是听用户的，但也要听用户的，同时要有宏观的、打破一切从头思考的那种魄力，但又不完全是。对，对。顺带一说，这让我想到桌面端的滚动条大概已经停滞不前很久了，从来没有做到……因为你说的那种吸附，类似于网格对齐、吸附到滚动条的动作，在桌面端其实可能也极其有用，哪怕只是对普通用户来说也能提升体验。因为现在桌面端的滚动条体验真的很糟糕。
Bliss ChapmanYep. Agreed.对。同意。
Lex FridmanIt’s hard to find, hard to control, there’s not a momentum, there’s… And the intention should be clear, when I start moving towards a scroll bar, there should be a snapping to the scroll bar action, but of course… Maybe I’m okay paying that cost, but there’s hundreds of millions of people paying that cost non-stop, but anyway. But in this case, this is necessary, because there’s an extra cost paid by Noland for the jitteriness, so you have to switch between the scrolling and the reading. There has to be a face shift between the two, like when you’re scrolling, you’re scrolling.很难找到，很难控制，没有惯性，而且……意图应该是很清楚的——当我开始往滚动条移动时，应该有一个吸附到滚动条的动作，但当然……也许我个人可以接受这个代价，但有几亿人在持续不断地承受这个代价，不管怎样。但在这个案例里，这是必须的，因为 Noland 要额外承受抖动带来的代价，所以你必须在滚动和阅读之间切换。两者之间必须有一个明显的状态转换，比如当你在滚动时，你就是在专注地滚动。
Bliss ChapmanRight, right. So that is one drawback of the current approach. Maybe one other just sort of case study here. So, again, UX is how it works, and we think about that holistically, from the… Even the feature detection level of what we detect in the brain, to how we design the decoder, what we choose to decode, to then how it works once it’s being used by the user. So another good example in that sort of how it works once they’re actually using the decoder, the output that’s displayed on the screen is not just what the decoder says, it’s also a function of what’s going on on the screen.对对。所以那是目前这种方式的一个缺点。也许再来一个案例研究。如前所述，UX 就是它运作的方式，我们从整体上来思考这件事——从大脑中我们检测什么特征这个层面，到我们如何设计解码器、选择解码什么，再到它在被用户实际使用时如何运作。另一个很好的例子，是在用户实际使用解码器之后，显示在屏幕上的输出并不只是解码器告诉我们的，还取决于屏幕上正在发生什么。
Bliss ChapmanSo we can understand, for example, that when you’re trying to close a tab, that very small, stupid little X that’s extremely tiny, which is hard to get precisely hit, if you’re dealing with a noisy output of the decoder, we can understand that that is a small little X you might be trying to hit, and actually make it a bigger target for you. Similar to how when you’re typing on your phone, if you are used to the iOS keyboard for example, it actually adapts to target size of individual keys based on an underlying language model. So it’ll actually understand if I’m typing, “Hey, I’m going to see L.” It’ll make the E key bigger because it knows Lex is the person I’m going to go see. And so that kind of predictiveness can make the experience much more smooth, even without improvements to the underlying decoder or feature detection part of the stack.举个例子，我们能识别出：当你想关闭一个标签页时，那个极其微小的 X 是非常难精确点中的，尤其是当解码器输出有噪声的时候。我们能识别出那是一个你可能想点击的小 X，并实际上把它变成一个更大的目标。这类似于你在手机上打字时，如果你用过 iOS 键盘，它实际上会根据一个底层语言模型来动态调整每个按键的点击目标大小。比如你在打'Hey, I'm going to see L'，它会把 E 键变大，因为它知道你接下来要打的人是 Lex。这种预测性可以让体验更顺畅，即使没有改进底层解码器或特征检测部分。
Bliss ChapmanSo we do that with a feature called magnetic targets, we actually index the screen, and we understand, “Okay, these are the places that are very small targets that might be difficult to hit. Here’s the kind of cursor dynamics around that location that might be indicative of the user trying to select it. Let’s make it easier. Let’s blow up the size of it in a way that makes it easier for the user to sort of snap onto that target.” So all these little details, they matter a lot in helping the user be independent in their day-to-day living.我们用一个叫做'磁性目标'的功能来做这件事。我们实际上会对屏幕进行索引，分析出：'好，这些地方是非常小的目标，可能很难点中。这是光标在那个位置附近的运动特征，可能表明用户正在试图选择它。那就把它变得更容易一些，把它的尺寸放大，让用户更容易吸附到那个目标上。'所有这些小细节，都极大地帮助了用户在日常生活中保持独立。
Lex FridmanSo how much of the work on the decoder is generalizable to P2, P3, P4, P5 PM? How do you improve the decoder in a way that’s generalizable?那解码器的工作有多少能推广到 P2、P3、P4、P5 这些后续参与者？你们如何在通用化的方向上改进解码器？
Bliss ChapmanYeah, great question. So the underlying signal we’re trying to decode is going to look very different in P2 than in P1. For example, channel number 345 is going to mean something different in user one than it will in user two, just because that electrode that corresponds with channel 345 is going to be next to a different neuron in user one to person user two. But the approach is the methods, the user experience of how do you get the right behavioral pattern from the user to associate with that neural signal. We hope that will translate over multiple generations of users.好问题。底层信号在 P2 身上看起来会和 P1 非常不同。比如，通道编号 345 在用户一身上代表的意义，和在用户二身上代表的意义是不同的，因为对应 345 号通道的那根电极，在用户一身边的神经元和用户二身边的神经元是不同的。但我们使用的方法——如何从用户那里获取正确的行为模式并将其与神经信号关联起来的用户体验——我们希望这能在多代用户之间迁移。
Bliss ChapmanAnd beyond that, it’s very, very possible, in fact, quite likely that we’ve overfit to Noland’s user experience, desires and preferences. And so what I hope to see is that when we get a second, third, fourth participant, that we find what the right wide minimums are that cover all the cases that make it more intuitive for everyone. And hopefully, there’s a crosspollination of things, where, “Oh, we didn’t think about that with this user because they can speak. But with this user who just can fundamentally not speak at all, this user experience is not optimal.” Those improvements that we make there should hopefully translate then to even people who can speak but don’t feel comfortable doing so because we’re in a public setting, like their doctor’s office.除此之外，很有可能，其实很大概率，我们已经过拟合到了 Noland 的用户体验、他的偏好和喜好上。所以我希望看到的是，当我们迎来第二、三、四位参与者时，我们能找到那些覆盖所有情况的、更宽泛的极小值区域，让它对所有人来说都更直觉。希望会有一种交叉授粉的效果，比如：'啊，这个问题我们在这位用户身上没想到，因为他还能说话。但这位完全无法说话的用户，这个体验就不够好了。'我们在那里做出的改进，应该能够反过来惠及那些能说话、但在公共场合（比如医生诊室）不方便开口的人。
Lex FridmanSo the actual mechanism of open-loop labeling, and then closed-loop labeling would be the same, and hopefully can generalize across the different users-所以开环标注和闭环标注的实际机制是相同的，希望能在不同用户之间推广——
Bliss ChapmanCorrect.正确。
Lex Fridman… as they’re doing the calibration step? And the calibration step is pretty cool. I mean, that in itself. The interesting thing about Webgrid, which is closed-loop, it’s fun. I love it when there’s… They used to be kind of idea of human computation, which is using actions a human would want to do anyway to get a lot of signal from. And Webgrid is that, a nice video game that also serves as great calibration.……在他们进行校准步骤的时候？而且校准步骤本身很酷。光是那个本身就很有意思。Webgrid 有意思的地方在于，它是闭环的，而且很好玩。我喜欢这种……以前有个概念叫人类计算——利用人类本来就想做的动作来获取大量信号。Webgrid 就是这个，一个好玩的电子游戏，同时也是绝佳的校准工具。
Bliss ChapmanIt’s so funny, I’ve heard this reaction so many times. Before the first user was implanted, we had an internal perception that the first user would not find this fun. And so we thought really quite a bit actually about, “Should we build other games that are more interesting for the user, so we can get this kind of data and help facilitate research that’s for long duration and stuff like this?” Turns out that people love this game. I always loved it, but I didn’t know that that was a shared perception.很有意思，我听到这个反应太多次了。在第一位用户植入之前，我们内部曾经觉得第一位用户不会觉得这个游戏好玩。所以我们其实认真考虑过：'我们是不是应该做一些对用户来说更有趣的其他游戏，这样才能获取这类数据，并支持长时间的研究。'结果发现人们超喜欢这个游戏。我一直都喜欢，但没想到这是大家共同的感受。
Lex FridmanYeah. And just in case it’s not clear, Webgrid is… There’s a grid of let’s say 35 by 35 cells and one of them lights up blue and you have to move your mouse over that and click on it. And if you miss it, it’s red, and…对。以防不太清楚，Webgrid 是这样的——有一个大概 35 乘 35 的格子，其中一个格子会亮起蓝色，你需要把鼠标移过去点击它。如果你没点中，就变红，然后……
Bliss ChapmanI’ve played this game for so many hours, so many hours.我玩这个游戏玩了好多好多小时，好多好多小时。
Lex FridmanAnd what’s your record you said?你说你的记录是多少？
Bliss ChapmanI think I have the highest at Neuralink right now. My record’s 17 BPS.我觉得我目前在 Neuralink 内部是最高的。我的记录是 17 BPS。
Lex Fridman17 BPS?17 BPS？
Bliss ChapmanIf you imagine that 35 by 35 grid, you’re hitting about 100 trials per minute. So 100 correct selections in that one minute window. So you’re averaging about between 500, 600 milliseconds per selection.如果你想象那个 35 乘 35 的格子，你大概是每分钟命中 100 个目标。也就是在一分钟的窗口内，100 次正确选中。平均每次选中大概是 500 到 600 毫秒。
Lex FridmanSo one of the reasons I think I struggle with that game is I’m such a keyboard person, so everything is done with via keyboard. If I can avoid touching the mouse, it’s great. So how can you explain your high performance?我想我在那个游戏里表现不太好的一个原因是，我是一个重度键盘用户，所有事情都用键盘来做。只要能不碰鼠标就不碰。你怎么解释你的高分？
Bliss ChapmanI have a whole ritual I go through when I play Webgrid. There’s actually like a diet plan associated with this. It’s a whole thing.我玩 Webgrid 有一套完整的仪式。这里面还有个饮食计划，是个完整的体系。
Lex FridmanThat’s great.太好了。
Bliss ChapmanThe first thing is-第一件事是——
Lex Fridman“I have to fast for five days, I have to go up to the mountains.”'我必须先斋戒五天，然后进山……'
Bliss ChapmanI mean, the fasting thing is important. So this is like-我的意思是，斋戒这件事是重要的。这就像——
Lex FridmanFocuses the mind, yeah. It’s true, it’s true.让心神专注，对，确实，确实。
Bliss ChapmanSo what I do is, I… Actually, I don’t eat for a little bit beforehand, and then I’ll actually eat a ton of peanut butter right before I play, and I get-我的做法是，在玩之前一段时间不吃东西，然后在玩之前吃一大堆花生酱，然后——
Lex FridmanThis is a real thing?这是真的吗？
Bliss ChapmanThis is a real thing, yeah. And then it has to be really late at night, this is, again, a night owl thing I think we share, but it has to be midnight, 2:00 A.M. kind of time window. And I have a very specific physical position I’ll sit in, which is… I was homeschooled growing up, and so I did most of my work on the floor, just in my bedroom or whatever. And so I have a very specific situation-这是真的，对。而且必须是在很晚的时候，我觉得这是我们共同的夜猫子属性，但必须是午夜、凌晨两点那个时间窗口。而且我有一个非常特定的身体姿势——我是在家里自学长大的，所以我大部分学习都是在地板上完成的，就在我的卧室里或者随便什么地方。所以我有一种非常特定的状态——
Lex FridmanOn the floor?在地板上？
Bliss Chapman… on the floor, that I sit and play. And then you have to make sure there’s not a lot of weight on your elbow when you’re playing so you can move quickly. And then I turn the gain of the cursor, so the speed of the cursor way, way up, so it’s small motions that actually move the cursor.……在地板上坐着玩。然后你必须确保玩的时候肘部不要压太多重量，这样你才能快速移动。然后我会把光标的增益——也就是光标的速度——调得非常非常高，这样只需要很小的动作就能让光标移动起来。
Lex FridmanAre you moving with your wrist, or you’re… You’re never-你是用手腕在动，还是……你从不——
Bliss ChapmanI move with my fingers. So my wrist is almost completely still, I’m just moving my fingers.我用手指动。我的手腕几乎完全不动，就是手指在动。
Lex FridmanYou know those… Just on a small tangent-你知道那些……就一个小小的题外话——
Bliss ChapmanYeah.嗯。
Lex Fridman… the… which I’ve been meaning to go down this rabbit hole of people that set the world record in Tetris. Those folks, they’re playing… There’s a way to… Did you see this?……那些，我一直想深入研究一下，就是那些在俄罗斯方块里创造世界记录的人。那些人在玩……有一种方式可以……你看过这个吗？
Bliss ChapmanI’ve seen it. All the fingers are moving?看过。所有手指都在动？
Lex FridmanYeah, you could find a way to do it where it’s using a loophole, like a bug that you can do some incredibly fast stuff. So it’s along that line, but not quite. But you do realize there’ll be a few programmers right now listening to this who’ll fast and eat peanut butter, and be like-对，你可以找到一种利用漏洞来做到不可思议速度的方式。就是类似那种思路，但又不完全一样。不过你确实意识到，现在可能有几个程序员在听这个，他们会去斋戒、吃花生酱，然后说——
Bliss ChapmanYeah, please track my record. I mean, the reason I did this literally was just because I wanted the bar to be high for the team. The number that we aim for should not be the median performance, it should be able to beat all of us at least, that should be the minimum bar.对，请来打破我的记录。我做这件事的原因真的就是：我希望团队的门槛足够高。我们追求的目标不应该是中位数水平，至少应该能打败我们所有人，这才是最低的门槛。
Lex FridmanWhat do you think is possible, like 20?你觉得极限在哪里，比如 20？
Bliss ChapmanYeah, I don’t know what the limits… I mean, the limits, you can calculate just in terms of screen refresh rate and cursor immediately jumping to the next target. I mean, I’m sure there’s limits before that with just sort of reaction time, and visual perception, and things like this. I would guess it’s below 40, but above 20, somewhere in there is probably the right… That I’d never to be thinking about. It also matters how difficult the task is. You can imagine some people might be able to do 10,000 targets on the screen, and maybe they can do better that way. So there’s some task optimizations you could do to try to boost your performance as well.我不知道极限在哪里……我是说，极限你可以从屏幕刷新率和光标立刻跳到下一个目标的角度来计算。我觉得在那之前肯定还有反应时间、视觉感知之类的限制。我猜应该是在 40 以下、20 以上的某个地方，这大概是合理的估计……我从来没想过要去追那个数字。另外目标的难度也有关系，你可以想象，有些人也许能在屏幕上摆上 10,000 个目标，然后也许他们那样反而能表现得更好。所以你也可以做一些任务层面的优化来提升表现。
Lex FridmanWhat do you think it takes for Noland to be able to do above 8.5, to keep increasing that number? You said every increase in the number…你认为 Noland 要超过 8.5，继续提升这个数字，需要什么？你说每次数字提升……
Lex Fridman… to keep increasing that number. You said every increase in the number might require different improvements in the system.……要继续提升这个数字。你说每次数字的提升可能都需要系统层面的不同改进。
Bliss ChapmanYeah. The first answer that’s important to say is, I don’t know. This is edge of the research so, again, nobody’s gotten to that number before, so what’s next is going to be a heuristic guess from my part. What we’ve seen historically is that different parts of the stack can compile next to different time points. So when I first joined Neuralink, three years ago or so, one of the major problems was just the latency of the Bluetooth connection. The radio in the device wasn’t super good, it was an early revision of the implant. And it just, no matter how good your decoder was, if your thing is updating every 30 milliseconds or 50 milliseconds, it’s just going to be choppy. And no matter how good you are, that’s going to be frustrating and lead to challenges. So at that point, it was very clear that the main challenge is just get the data off the device in a very reliable way such that you can enable the next challenge to be tackled.是的。首先我必须说：我不知道。这是研究的前沿，没有人之前达到过这个数字，所以我接下来说的只是我的启发式猜测。从历史上看，我们观察到的是，技术栈的不同部分会在不同的时间点成为瓶颈。我刚加入 Neuralink 大约三年前，当时一个主要问题就是蓝牙连接的延迟。设备里的无线电模块不太好，是植入体的早期版本。不管你的解码器多好，如果你的设备每 30 毫秒或 50 毫秒才更新一次，它就会很卡顿。不管你多厉害，那都会让人沮丧，并导致各种问题。所以在那个阶段，很明显，主要挑战就是把数据从设备里可靠地传出来，这样才能让下一个挑战浮现出来。
Bliss ChapmanAnd then at some point it was actually the modeling challenge of how do you just build a good mapping, like the supervised learning problem of, you have a bunch of data and you have a label you’re trying to predict, just what is the right neural decoder architecture and hyperparameters to optimize that? And that was the problem for a bit, and once you solve that, it became a different bottleneck. I think the next bottleneck after that was actually just software stability and reliability. If you have widely varying inference latency in your system or your app just lags out every once in a while, it decreases your ability to maintain and get in a state of flow, and it basically just disrupts your control experience. And so there’s a variety of different software bugs and improvements we made that basically increased the performance of the system, made it much more reliable, much more stable and led to a state where we could reliably collect data to build better models with.然后在某个时间点，真正的挑战变成了建模问题——你怎么建立一个好的映射？就是那个监督学习问题：你有一堆数据和你要预测的标签，正确的神经解码器架构和超参数是什么来优化它？那个问题持续了一段时间，解决之后，瓶颈变成了另一个地方。我认为那之后的下一个瓶颈其实是软件稳定性和可靠性。如果你的系统推理延迟变化很大，或者应用程序偶尔会卡死，这会降低你保持、并进入心流状态的能力，基本上就打断了控制体验。所以我们做了一系列软件层面的 Bug 修复和改进，基本上提升了系统的整体性能，让它更可靠、更稳定，从而能够可靠地收集数据来构建更好的模型。
Bliss ChapmanSo that was a bottleneck for a while, it was just the software stack itself. If I were to guess right now, there’s two major directions you could think about for improving VPS further. The first major direction is labeling. So labeling is, again, this fundamental challenge of given a window of time where the user is expressing some behavioral intent, what are they really trying to do at the granularity of every millisecond? And that again, is a task design problem, it’s a UX problem, it’s a machine learning problem, it’s a software problem. It touches all those different domains. The second thing you can think about to improve BPS further is either completely changing the thing you’re decoding or just extending the number of things that you’re decoding. So this is serving the direction of functionality, basically, you can imagine giving more clicks.所以那个问题持续了一段时间，就是软件栈本身。如果让我猜现在进一步提升 BPS 的两个主要方向，第一个主要方向是标注。标注，也就是我们一直在说的这个根本挑战：给定一段时间窗口，用户在这段时间里表达了某种行为意图，他们在每一毫秒到底真正想做什么？这既是任务设计问题，也是 UX 问题，还是机器学习问题，也是软件问题，它涉及所有这些不同的领域。进一步提升 BPS 的第二个方向，是要么彻底改变你正在解码的东西，要么扩展你正在解码的东西的数量。这基本上是在功能性方向上做文章，比如你可以想象给用户提供更多点击方式。
Bliss ChapmanFor example, a left click, a right click, a middle click, different actions like click-and-drag for example, and that can improve the effective bit rate of your communication processes. If you’re trying to allow the user to express themselves through any given communication channel, you can measure that with bits per second. But what actually is measured at the end of the day is how effective are they at navigating their computer? So from the perspective of the downstream tasks that you care about, functionality and extending functionality is something we’re very interested in, because not only can it improve the number of BPS, but it can also improve the downstream independence that the user has and the skill and efficiency with which they can operate their computer.比如，左键点击、右键点击、中键点击，以及不同的操作比如点击并拖拽，这些都能提升你通信过程的有效比特率。如果你希望用户能通过任意一个给定的通信通道来表达自己，你可以用每秒比特数来衡量它。但最终真正衡量的是：他们操作电脑的效率有多高？所以从你真正关心的下游任务的角度来看，功能性和扩展功能性是我们非常感兴趣的方向，因为它不仅能提升 BPS 的数字，还能提升用户的下游独立性，以及他们操作电脑的技能和效率。
Lex FridmanWould the number of threads increasing also potentially help?增加线程数量也可能会有帮助吗？
Bliss ChapmanYes. Short answer is yes. It’s a bit nuanced how that manifests in the numbers. So what you’ll see is that if you plot a curve of number of channels that you’re using for decode versus either the offline metric of how good you are at decoding or the online metric of in practice how good is the user at using this device, you see roughly a log curve. So as you move further out in number of channels, you get a corresponding logarithmic improvement in control quality and offline validation metrics. The important nuance here is that each channel corresponds with a specific represented intention in the brain. So for example, if you have a channel 254, it might correspond with moving to the right. Channel 256, might mean move to the left. If you want to expand the number of functions you want to control, you really want to have a broader set of channels that covers a broader set of imagined movements. You can think of it like Mr. Potato Man actually, if you had a bunch of different imagined movements you could do, how would you map those imagined movements to input to a computer? You could imagine handwriting to output characters on the screen. You could imagine just typing with your fingers and have that output text on the screen. You could imagine different finger modulations for different clicks. You can imagine wiggling your big nose for opening some menu or wiggling your big toe to have command tab occur or something like this. So it’s really the amount of different actions you can take in the world depends on how many channels you have on the information content that they carry.是的。简短的回答是肯定的。这在数字上的体现方式稍微有些微妙。你会看到的是，如果你画出解码所用的通道数量，对比离线指标（你的解码有多好）或者在线指标（实际上用户在使用这个设备时表现有多好），你会看到大致是一条对数曲线。随着通道数量增加，控制质量和离线验证指标会有相应的对数提升。这里一个重要的细节是，每个通道对应着大脑中一个特定的被表征的意图。比如，254 号通道可能对应向右移动，256 号通道可能对应向左移动。如果你想扩展你要控制的功能数量，你真的需要一个更宽泛的通道集，覆盖更广泛的想象运动。你可以把它想象成土豆先生——如果你有一堆不同的想象运动可以做，你会怎么把这些想象运动映射到电脑的输入？你可以想象通过书写笔迹来在屏幕上输出字符，你可以想象用手指打字，把击键输出为屏幕上的文字，你可以想象用不同的手指调制来实现不同的点击，你可以想象扭动鼻子来打开某个菜单，或者扭动大脚趾来触发 Command+Tab 之类的东西。所以你在世界上能做的不同动作的数量，真的取决于你拥有多少通道以及它们承载的信息量。
Lex FridmanRight, so that’s more about the number of actions. So actually as you increase the number of threads, that’s more about increasing the number of actions you’re able to perform.对，所以这更多是关于动作的数量。那实际上随着线程数量增加，更多是在增加你能执行的动作数量。
Bliss ChapmanBut one other nuance there that is worth mentioning. So again, our goal is really to enable a user with paralyzes to control the computer as fast as I can, so that’s BPS, with all the same functionality I have, which is what we just talked about, but then also as reliably as I can. And that last point is very related to channel account discussion. So as you scale out number of channels, the relative importance of any particular feature of your model input to the output control of the user diminishes, which means that if the neural non-stationarity effect is per channel, or if the noise is independent such that more channels means on average less output effect, then your reliability of your system will improve. So one core thesis that at least I have is that scaling channel account should improve the reliability system without any work on the decoder itself.但这里还有一个值得提的细节。我们的目标真的是让瘫痪用户能够以我能做到的速度——也就是 BPS——来控制电脑，拥有和我一样的全部功能——我们刚才聊过的那些——同时还要和我一样可靠。最后这一点和通道数量的讨论非常相关。随着通道数量的扩展，模型输入中任何特定特征对用户输出控制的相对重要性都会降低，这意味着：如果神经非稳态效应是按通道计算的，或者噪声是独立的——以至于更多通道意味着平均来看每个通道对输出的影响更小——那么系统的可靠性就会提升。所以我至少持有的一个核心论点是：扩展通道数量，在不做任何解码器改进的情况下，应该就能提升系统的可靠性。
Lex FridmanCan you linger on the reliability here? So first of all, when you say non-stationarity of the signal, which aspect are you referring to?能在这个可靠性上多停留一下吗？首先，你说的信号的非稳态性，你指的是哪个方面？
Bliss ChapmanYeah, so maybe let’s talk briefly what the actual underlying signal looks like. So again, I spoke very briefly at the beginning about how when you imagine moving to the right or imagine moving to the left, neurons might fire more or less, and the frequency content that signal, at least in the motor cortex, it’s very correlated with the output intention, the behavioral task that the user is doing. You can imagine actually this is not obvious that rate coding, which is the name of that phenomenon, is the only way the brain could represent information. You can imagine many different ways in which the brain could encode intention, and there’s actually evidence in bats for example, that there’s temporal codes. So timing codes of exactly when particular neurons fire is the mechanism of information representation. But at least in the motor cortex, there’s substantial evidence that it’s rate coding or at least first order of effect is that it’s rate coding.好的，也许我们先简单聊聊底层信号实际上长什么样。如前所述，我一开始简单提过，当你想象向右移动或者向左移动时，神经元可能会更多或更少地放电，而那个信号的频率内容，至少在运动皮层里，和用户的输出意图、行为任务高度相关。你可以想象，实际上，速率编码——这种现象的名称——并不是大脑表征信息的唯一方式。你可以想象大脑编码意图的很多种不同方式，比如有证据显示在蝙蝠身上存在时序编码，也就是特定神经元放电的精确时机是信息表征的机制。但至少在运动皮层里，有大量证据表明是速率编码，或者至少第一阶效应是速率编码。
Bliss ChapmanSo then if the brain is representing information by changing the frequency of a neuron firing, what really matters is the delta between the baseline state of the neuron and what it looks like when it’s modulated. And what we’ve observed and what has also been observed in academic work is that that baseline rate, if you’re to target the scale, if you imagine that analogy for measuring flour or something when you’re baking, that baseline state of how much the pot weighs is actually different day to day. So if what you’re trying to measure is how much rice is in the pot, you’re going to get a different measurement different days because you’re measuring with different pots. So that baseline rate shifting is really the thing that at least from a first order description of the problem is what’s causing this downstream bias. There can be other effects, not linear effects on top of that, but at least at a very first order description of the problem. That’s what we observed day to day is that the baseline firing rate of any particular neuron or observed on a particular channel is changing.那么如果大脑是通过改变神经元的放电频率来表征信息的，真正重要的就是神经元的基线状态和它被调制时的状态之间的差值。我们观察到的——学术研究中也有观察到——是那个基线速率，如果你去想象一个用来测量的秤，就像你在烘焙时测量面粉一样，那个锅本身的重量——基线状态——实际上每天都是不同的。所以如果你试图测量的是锅里有多少米，你每天测出来的结果会不同，因为你是用不同的锅来测量的。所以基线速率的漂移，至少从对这个问题的第一阶描述来看，就是导致下游偏差的原因。当然可以有其他效应、非线性效应叠加在上面，但至少从非常初阶的描述来看。我们每天观察到的，就是任何特定神经元或者在特定通道上观察到的放电基线速率在不断变化。
Lex FridmanSo can you just adjust to the baseline to make it relative to the baseline nonstop?那你能不能持续地对基线进行校正，让一切都相对于基线来计算？
Bliss ChapmanYeah, this is a great question. So with monkeys, we have found various ways to do this. One example way to do this is you ask them to do some behavioral tasks like play the game with a joystick, you measure what’s going on in the brain. You compute some mean of what’s going on across all the input features, and you subtract that on the input when you’re doing your BCI session, works super well. For whatever reason, that doesn’t work super well with Noland. I actually don’t know the full reason why, but I can imagine several explanations.好问题。在猴子身上，我们已经找到了各种方法来做这件事。一个方法是让它们做一些行为任务，比如用操纵杆玩游戏，同时记录大脑里发生的事情。然后计算所有输入特征的某种均值，在进行 BCI 会话时把这个均值从输入中减掉——效果非常好。但出于某些原因，这对 Noland 不太有效。我其实不完全知道为什么，但我能想到几种解释。
Bliss ChapmanOne such explanation could be that the context effect difference between some open-loop task and some closed-loop task is much more significant with Noland than it is with the monkey. Maybe in this open-loop task, he’s watching the Lex Fridman Podcast while he’s doing the task or he’s whistling and listening to music and talking with his friend and ask his mom what’s for dinner while he’s doing this task. So the exact difference in context between those two states may be much larger and thus lead to a bigger generalization gap between the features that you’re normalizing at open-loop time and what you’re trying to use at closed-loop time.其中一种解释可能是：对 Noland 来说，开环任务和闭环任务之间的情境差异，比猴子要大得多。也许在开环任务里，他在做任务的同时在看 Lex Fridman 播客，或者在吹口哨、听音乐、和朋友聊天、问他妈今天吃什么。所以这两种状态之间情境上的确切差异可能要大得多，从而导致你在开环时用来归一化的特征，和你在闭环时试图使用的特征之间，有更大的泛化差距。
Lex FridmanThat’s interesting. Just on that point, it’s incredible to watch Noland be able to multitask, to do multiple tasks at the same time, to be able to move the mouse cursor effectively while talking and while being nervous because he’s talking in front of [inaudible 06:33:45]这很有趣。就这一点来说，看到 Noland 能够多任务处理，同时做几件事——能够有效移动鼠标光标，同时说话，同时因为在[听不清 06:33:45]面前直播而有些紧张，真是令人惊叹。
Bliss ChapmanKicking my ass and chest too, yeah.还在踢我的屁股和胸口，对，没错。
Lex FridmanKicking your ass and talk trash while doing it-踢你的屁股，还一边嘴上不饶人——
Bliss ChapmanYes.是的。
Lex Fridman… so all at the same time. And yes, if you are trying to normalize to the baseline, that might throw everything off. Boy, is that interesting?……同时进行。对，如果你试图向基线归一化，这可能会把一切都搞乱。这还真挺有意思的？
Bliss ChapmanMaybe one comment on that too. For folks that aren’t familiar with assistive technology, I think there’s a common belief that, well, why can’t you just use an eye tracker or something like this for helping somebody move a mouse on the screen? It’s really a fair question and one that I actually was not confident before Sir Noland that this was going to be a profoundly transformative technology for people like him. And I’m very confident now that it will be, but the reasons are subtle. It really has to do with ergonomically how it fits into their life, even if you can just offer the same level of control as what they would have with an eye tracker or with a mouse stick, but you don’t need to have that thing in your face. You don’t need to be positioned a certain way.也许还有一点补充。对于不熟悉辅助技术的朋友来说，我觉得有一种普遍的认知是：'为什么不用眼动仪之类的东西来帮人控制屏幕上的鼠标呢？'这是个公平的问题，说实话，在 Sir Noland 之前，我对于这是否会成为一项深刻改变像他这样的人生活的技术，并不是很有把握。但现在我非常确信它会，不过原因是微妙的。这真的和它在人体工程学上如何融入他们生活有关，即使你提供的控制水平和眼动仪或嘴棒一样，但你不需要把那个东西架在脸上，不需要保持特定的姿势。
Bliss ChapmanYou don’t need your caretaker to be around to set it up for you. You can activate it when you want, how you want, wherever you want. That level of independence is so game-changing for people. It means that they can text a friend at night privately without their mom needing to be in the loop. It means that they can open up and browse the internet at 2:00 AM when nobody’s around to set their iPad up for them. This is a profoundly game-changing thing for folks in that situation, and this is even before we start talking about folks that may not be able to communicate at all or ask for help when they want to. This can be potentially the only link that they have to the outside world. And yeah, that one doesn’t, I think, need explanation of why that’s so impactful.你不需要护理人员在场来帮你设置好。你可以在任何你想要的时候、以任何你想要的方式、在任何你想要的地方激活它。这种独立性的程度，是改变游戏规则的。它意味着他们可以在晚上私下给朋友发消息，不需要让妈妈知道。意味着他们可以在凌晨两点、没有任何人在旁边帮他们设置 iPad 的时候，打开浏览器上网。对于这种处境的人来说，这是一件深刻改变游戏规则的事情，而这还是在我们还没开始讨论那些完全无法开口说话、或者无法请求帮助的人之前。这可能是他们和外部世界唯一的连接。是的，那个，我觉得不需要解释为什么它如此重要。
Lex FridmanYou mentioned NeuroDecodeR. How much machine learning is in the decoder, how much magic, how much science, how much art? How difficult is it to come up with a decoder that figures out what these sequence of spikes mean?你提到了 NeuroDecodeR。解码器里有多少机器学习的成分，有多少魔法，有多少科学，有多少艺术？搞清楚这些神经元脉冲序列的含义，难度有多大？
Bliss ChapmanYeah, good question. There’s a couple of different ways to answer this, so maybe I’ll zoom out briefly first and then I’ll go down one of the rabbit holes. So the zoomed out view is that building the decoder is really the process of building the dataset plus compiling it into the weights, and each of those steps is important. The direction I think of further improvement is primarily going to be in the dataset side of how do you construct the optimal labels for the model. But there’s an entirely separate challenge of then how do you compile the best model? And so I’ll go briefly down the second rabbit hole. One of the main challenges with designing the optimal model for BCI is that offline metrics don’t necessarily correspond to online metrics. It’s fundamentally a control problem. The user is trying to control something on the screen and the exact user experience of how you output the intention impacts their ability to control. So for example, if you just look at validation loss as predicted by your model, there can be multiple ways to achieve the same validation loss.好问题。有几种不同的回答方式，也许我先从宏观视角说，然后再深入某个方向。宏观视角是：构建解码器这件事，实际上就是构建数据集的过程，加上把它编译成权重的过程，两步都很重要。我认为进一步提升的方向，主要会在数据集这边——如何为模型构建最优标签。但完全独立地，还有一个挑战：如何把最佳的模型编译出来。所以我简单聊聊第二个方向。为 BCI 设计最优模型的主要挑战之一是：离线指标不一定对应在线指标。这从根本上是一个控制问题。用户试图控制屏幕上的某个东西，你如何输出意图，直接影响他们的控制能力。比如，如果你只看模型预测的验证损失，达到相同验证损失的方式可以有很多种。
Bliss ChapmanNot all of them are equally controllable by the end user. And so it might be as simple as saying, oh, you could just add auxiliary loss terms that help you capture the thing that actually matters. But this is a very complex nuanced process. So how you turn the labels into the model is more of a nuanced process than just a standard supervised learning problem. One very fascinating anecdote here, we’ve tried many different neural network architectures that translate brain data to velocity outputs, for example. And one example that’s stuck in my brain from a couple of years ago now is at one point, we were using just fully-connected networks to decode the brain activity. We tried A-B test where we were measuring the relative performance in online control sessions of one deconvolution over the input signal. So if you imagine per channel you have a sliding window that’s producing some convolved feature, for each of those input sequences for every single channel simultaneously, you can actually get better validation metrics, meaning you’re fitting the data better and it’s generalizing better in offline data if you use this convolutional architecture. You’re reducing parameters. It’s a standard procedure when you’re dealing with time series data. Now it turns out that when using that model online, the controllability was worse, was far worse, even though the offline metrics were better, and there can be many ways to interpret that. But what that taught me at least was that, hey, it’s at least the case right now that if you were to just throw a bunch of compute at this problem and you were trying to hyperparameter optimize or let some GPT model hard code or come up with or invent many different solutions, if you were just optimizing for loss, it would not be sufficient, which means that there’s still some inherent modeling gap here. There’s still some artistry left to be uncovered here of how to get your model to scale with more compute, and that may be fundamentally a labeling problem, but there may be other components to this as well.但这些方式对终端用户来说，可控性并不是相同的。也许最简单的解决方案就是加入辅助损失项来捕捉真正重要的东西。但这是一个非常复杂微妙的过程。所以如何把标签转化成模型，比一个标准的监督学习问题要微妙得多。这里有一个非常有趣的轶事：我们尝试过很多不同的神经网络架构来把大脑数据转化为速度输出。我脑子里有一个来自几年前的例子：在某个时间点，我们用的是全连接网络来解码脑活动。我们做了 A/B 测试，在在线控制会话中衡量相对性能——一种是对输入信号进行一次反卷积。如果你想象每个通道有一个滑动窗口在产生某种卷积特征，对每个通道的每一个输入序列同时进行处理，用这种卷积架构你实际上能得到更好的验证指标，也就是更好地拟合数据，并在离线数据上更好地泛化。你在减少参数，这是处理时序数据时的标准做法。但结果是，在线使用这个模型时，可控性更差了，差了很多，尽管离线指标更好。对此可以有很多种解读。但它至少教会了我一件事：至少在现阶段，如果你只是往这个问题里砸计算量，试图超参数优化或者让某个 GPT 模型来生成或发明各种各样的解决方案，如果你只是在优化损失，那是不够的——这意味着这里仍然存在某种内在的建模缺口，如何让你的模型随着更多计算量而扩展，仍然有一些有待发现的艺术性，而这也许从根本上是一个标注问题，但也可能还有其他因素。
Lex FridmanIs it data constraint at this time, which is what it sounds like? How do you get a lot of good labels?现在是数据瓶颈吗？听起来是这样的——你如何获取大量高质量的标签？
Bliss ChapmanYeah, I think it’s data quality constrained, not necessarily data quantity constrained.是的，我认为是数据质量的瓶颈，不一定是数据数量的瓶颈。
Lex FridmanBut even just the quantity ’cause it has to be trained on the interactions. I guess there’s not that many interactions.但即使是数量问题，因为它必须在交互数据上训练——我猜这类交互数据并不多。
Bliss ChapmanYeah, so it depends what version of this you’re talking about. So if you’re talking about, let’s say, the simplest example of just 2D velocity, then I think, yeah, data quality is the main thing. If you’re talking about how to build a multi-function output that lets you do all the inputs the computer that you and I can do, then it’s actually a much more sophisticated nuanced modeling challenge because now you need to think about not just when the users are left clicking, but when you’re building the left click model, you also need to be thinking about how to make sure it doesn’t fire when they’re trying to right click or when they’re trying to move the mouse.是的，这取决于你说的是哪个版本。如果你说的是最简单的例子，比如只解码二维速度，那我认为是数据质量为主。如果你说的是如何构建一个多功能输出，让你能做所有你和我能做的电脑输入，那实际上是一个更复杂微妙的建模挑战，因为现在你不只是要想'用户在左键点击的时候怎么样'，你在构建左键点击模型的同时，还需要考虑如何确保它在用户试图右键点击或者试图移动鼠标时不会误触发。
Bliss ChapmanSo one example of an interesting bug from week one of BCI with Noland was when he moved the mouse, the click signal dropped off a cliff and when he stopped, the click signal went up. So again, there’s a contamination between the two inputs. Another good example was at one point he was trying to do a left click and drag, and the minute he started moving, the left click signal dropped off a cliff. So again, ’cause some contamination between the two signals, you need to come up with some way to either in the dataset or in the model build robustness against this kind of, you think of it like overfitting, but really it’s just that the model has not seen this kind of variability before. So you need to find some way to help the model with that.一个有趣的 Bug 例子，来自 Noland 进行 BCI 的第一周：当他移动鼠标时，点击信号就急剧下降；当他停下来时，点击信号又回来了。所以这两种输入之间存在交叉污染。另一个很好的例子是，有一次他试图左键点击并拖拽，但他一开始移动，左键点击信号就急剧下降了。同样，两个信号之间有交叉污染，你需要想出某种方式，要么在数据集层面、要么在模型层面，来构建对这种情况的鲁棒性。你可以把它理解为过拟合，但其实只是模型之前没见过这种变化。所以你需要找到某种方法来帮助模型处理这种情况。
Lex FridmanThis is super cool ’cause it feels like all of this is very solvable, but it’s hard.这太酷了，因为感觉这一切都是可以解决的，但就是很难。
Bliss ChapmanYes, it is fundamentally an engineering challenge. This is important to emphasize, and it’s also important to emphasize that it may need fundamentally new techniques, which means that people who work on let’s say unsupervised speech classification using CTC loss for example, with internal to Siri, they could potentially have very applicable skills to this.是的，这从根本上是一个工程挑战。这一点很重要，同时也要强调，它可能需要全新的技术——这意味着，比如在 Siri 内部用 CTC 损失做无监督语音分类的人，他们的技能可能会非常适用。
Lex FridmanSo what things are you excited about in the future development of the software stack on Neuralink? So everything we’ve been talking about, the decoding, the UX?那 Neuralink 的软件栈在未来的发展上，你最期待什么？就我们一直在聊的这些——解码、UX？
Bliss ChapmanI think there’s something I’m excited about from the technology side and some I’m excited about for understanding how this technology is going to be best situated for entering the world, so I’ll work backwards. On the technology entering the world side of things, I’m really excited to understand how this device works for folks that cannot speak at all, that have no ability to bootstrap themselves into useful control by voice command, for example, and are extremely limited in their current capabilities. I think that will be an incredibly useful signal for us to understand really, what is an existential threat for all startups, which is product market fit. Does this device have the capacity and potential to transform people’s lives in the current state? And if not, what are the gaps? And if there are gaps, how do we solve them most efficiently?我觉得从技术层面我有很期待的事情，从这项技术如何进入世界的角度我也有很期待的事情，我从后者开始说。在技术进入世界这个层面，我非常期待了解这个设备对完全无法开口说话、完全无法通过语音指令来引导自己进入有效控制状态的人来说效果如何——而且他们在现有能力上极为受限。我认为这对我们来说将是一个极其有价值的信号，帮助我们理解每家创业公司都面临的生死问题：产品市场契合度。这个设备在当前状态下，是否有能力和潜力去改变人们的生活？如果没有，差距在哪里？如果有差距，我们怎样最高效地弥补它？
Bliss ChapmanSo that’s what I’m very excited about for the next year or so of clinical trial operations. On the technology side, I’m quite excited about basically everything we’re doing. I think it’s going to be awesome. The most prominent one I would say is scaling channel account. So right now we have a 1,000-channel device. The next version we’ll have between 3 and 6,000 channels, and I would expect that curve to continue in the future. And it’s unclear what set of problems will just disappear completely at that scale and what set of problems will remain and require for their focus. And so I’m excited about the clarity of gradient that gives us in terms of the user experiences we choose to focus our time and resources on. And then also in terms of even things as simple as non-stationarity, does that problem just completely go away at that scale? Or do we need to come up with new creative UXes still even at that point?所以在未来一年左右的临床试验运营中，我非常期待这件事。在技术层面，我对我们正在做的几乎一切都很兴奋，我认为都会很精彩。最突出的一个，我会说是扩展通道数量。现在我们有一个 1,000 通道的设备，下一个版本会有 3,000 到 6,000 个通道，而且我预计这条曲线在未来会继续下去。目前还不清楚在那个规模上哪些问题会直接消失，哪些问题会继续存在并需要集中解决。所以我很期待这能给我们在时间和资源分配上提供的梯度清晰度——我们选择专注的用户体验是哪些。另外，哪怕是非稳态这样简单的问题，在那个规模上会不会直接消失？还是说即使到了那时，我们仍然需要想出新的有创意的 UX 方案？
Bliss ChapmanAnd also when we get to that time point, when we start expanding out dramatically the set of functions that you can output from one brain how to deal with all the nuances of both the user experience of not being able to feel the different keys under your fingertips, but still needing to be able to modulate all of them in synchrony to achieve the thing you want. And again, you don’t have that appropriate set of feedback loop, so how can you make that intuitive for a user to control a high dimensional control surface without feeling the thing physically? I think that’s going to be a super interesting problem. I’m also quite excited to understand do these scaling laws continue? As you scale channel count, how much further out do you go before that saturation point is truly hit?而且当我们到达那个时间点，开始大幅扩展一个大脑能输出的功能数量时，如何处理各种各样的细节——包括感受不到手指下按键的用户体验，但仍然需要能够协调调制所有这些按键来实现你想要的操作。而且你没有那套完整的反馈回路，那么如何在用户感受不到物理触感的情况下，让他们直觉地控制一个高维控制面？我认为这将是一个超级有趣的问题。我也很期待了解这些扩展规律是否会持续——随着通道数量的扩展，在真正达到饱和点之前还能走多远？
Bliss ChapmanAnd it’s not obvious today. I think we only know what’s in the interpolation space. We only know what’s between 0 and 1,024, but we don’t know what’s beyond that. And then there’s a whole range of interesting neuroscience and brain questions, which is, when you stick more stuff in the brain in more places, you get to learn much more quickly about what those brain regions represent. And so I’m excited about that fundamental neuroscience learning, which is also important for figuring out how to most efficiently insert electrodes in the future. So yeah, I think all those dimensions I’m really, really excited about. And that doesn’t even get close to touching the software stack that we work on every single day and what we’re working on right now.这一点今天还不明朗。我认为我们只知道插值空间里的情况，只知道 0 到 1,024 之间的情况，但我们不知道超出这个范围会怎样。然后还有一整套有趣的神经科学和大脑问题：当你把更多的东西放进大脑的更多地方时，你会更快地了解那些大脑区域代表什么。所以我对那些基础神经科学方面的发现也很期待，这对于弄清楚未来如何最高效地插入电极也很重要。总的来说，我对这些所有维度都真的非常非常期待。这还甚至还没碰到我们每天在做、现在还在做的软件栈工作。
Lex FridmanYeah, it seems virtually impossible to me that 1,000 electrodes is where it saturates. It feels like this would be one of those silly notions in the future where obviously you should have millions of electrodes and this is where the true breakthroughs happen. You tweeted, “Some thoughts are most precisely described in poetry.” Why do you think that is?对，在我看来，1,000 根电极就是饱和点这个想法简直不可能是真的。感觉这在未来会是个可笑的说法——显然你应该有几百万根电极，这才是真正突破发生的地方。你发过推文：'有些想法用诗歌表达最为精准。'你为什么这么认为？
Bliss ChapmanI think it’s because the information bottleneck of language is pretty steep, and yet you’re able to reconstruct on the other person’s brain more effectively without being literal. If you can express a sentiment such that in their brain they can reconstruct the actual true underlying meaning and beauty of the thing that you’re trying to get across, the generator function in their brain is more powerful than what language can express. And so the mechanism of poetry is really just to feed or seed that generator function.我认为是因为语言的信息瓶颈非常陡峭，但你却能在不使用字面表达的情况下，更有效地在另一个人的大脑中重建出你想传达的东西。如果你能表达一种情感，使得对方的大脑能够重建出你试图传达的东西的真正含义和美感，那么对方大脑中的那个生成函数比语言所能表达的要强大得多。所以诗歌的机制，其实就是去喂养或播种那个生成函数。
Lex FridmanSo being literal sometimes is a suboptimal compression for the thing you’re trying to convey.所以字面表达有时候是你想要传达之物的一种次优压缩方式。
Bliss ChapmanThat right. And it’s actually in the process of the user going through that generation that they understand what you mean. That’s the beautiful part. It’s also like when you look at a beautiful painting, it’s not the pixels of the painting that are beautiful, it’s the thought process that occurs when you see that, the experience of that, that actually is the thing that matters.正是如此。而且实际上，正是在用户经历那个生成过程中，他们才理解了你的意思。这是最美妙的部分。这也像是当你看一幅美丽的画时，让它美丽的不是画里的像素，而是你看到它时发生在心里的思维过程、那种体验，才是真正重要的东西。
Lex FridmanYeah, it’s resonating with some deep thing within you that the artist also experienced and was able to convey that through the pixels.对，它在你内心深处的某种东西上引起了共鸣，而那也是艺术家曾经体验过的，他们通过那些像素把它传递了出来。
Bliss ChapmanRight. Right.对。对。
Lex FridmanAnd that’s actually going to be relevant for full-on telepathy. It’s like if you just read the poetry literally, that doesn’t say much of anything interesting. It requires a human to interpret it. So it’s the combination of the human mind and all the experiences that a human being has within the context of the collective intelligence of the human species that makes that poem make sense and they load that in. So in that same way, the signal that carries from human to human meaning may seem trivial, but may actually carry a lot of power because of the complexity of the human mind and the receiving end. Yeah, that’s interesting. Who was it? I think Joscha Bach [inaudible 06:45:24] said something about all the people that think we’ve achieved AGI explain why humans like music.而这和完全意义上的心灵感应实际上是相关的。如果你只是字面地读那首诗，它可能说不出什么有趣的东西。它需要人去解读。所以是人类心智与人类物种集体智识背景的结合，让那首诗有了意义——他们把这些全装进去了。同样，从人到人传递意义的那个信号，看起来可能微不足道，但可能实际上承载着巨大的力量，因为接收端的人类心智有着巨大的复杂性。对，这很有意思。好像是 Joscha Bach [听不清 06:45:24] 说过类似这样的话：所有认为我们实现了 AGI 的人，解释一下为什么人类喜欢音乐。
Bliss ChapmanOh, yeah.哦，对。
Lex FridmanAnd until the AGI likes music, you haven’t achieved AGI or something like this.直到 AGI 喜欢音乐，你才算实现了 AGI，或者诸如此类的说法。
Bliss ChapmanDo you not think that’s some next token entropy surprise kind of thing going on there?你不觉得那可能就是某种下一个词的熵惊喜之类的东西在起作用吗？
Lex FridmanI don’t know.我不知道。
Bliss ChapmanI don’t know either. I listen to a lot of classical music and also read a lot of poetry and yeah, I do wonder if there is some element of the next token surprise factor going on there.我也不知道。我听很多古典音乐，也读很多诗，是的，我确实想知道，那里面是不是有某种下一个词的惊喜因子在发挥作用。
Lex FridmanYeah, maybe.对，也许吧。
Bliss ChapmanCause a lot of the tricks in both poetry and music are basically you have some repeated structure and then you do a twist. It’s like, okay, clause 1, 2, 3 is one thing and then clause four is like, “Okay, now we’re onto the next theme,” and they play with exactly when the surprise happens and the expectation of the user. And that’s even true through history as musicians evolve in music, they take some known structure that people are familiar with and they just tweak it a little bit. They tweak it and add a surprising element. This is especially true in classical music heritage, but that’s what I’m wondering. Is it all just entropy?因为诗歌和音乐中的很多技巧，基本上就是你有某种重复的结构，然后在某个地方来个转折。就是：第一句、第二句、第三句是一回事，然后第四句是：'好，现在我们进入下一个主题了'——他们在玩弄惊喜出现的时机，以及听众的预期。甚至纵观音乐史，随着音乐家的演变，他们取一些人们熟悉的已知结构，然后稍微调整一下，加入一个令人惊喜的元素。这在古典音乐传统中尤其如此，但这就是我想知道的——这是不是都只是熵？
Lex FridmanSo breaking structure or breaking symmetry is something that humans seem to like. Maybe it’s as simple as that.所以打破结构或者打破对称，是人类似乎喜欢的事情。也许就是这么简单。
Bliss ChapmanYeah, and great artists copy and knowing which rules to break is the important part, and fundamentally, it must be about the listener of the piece. Which rule is the right one to break? It’s about the audience member perceiving that as interesting.是的，而且好的艺术家懂得借鉴，知道该打破哪条规则才是最重要的，而这从根本上必须是关于作品的听众——哪条规则是那个观众会觉得有趣的那一条去打破？
Lex FridmanWhat do you think is the meaning of human existence?你认为人类存在的意义是什么？
Bliss ChapmanThere’s a TV show I really like called The West Wing, and in The West Wing there’s a character, he’s the President of the United States who’s having a discussion about the Bible with one of their colleagues. And the colleague says something about the Bible says X, Y, and Z, and the President says, “Yeah, but it also says A, B, C.” The person says, “Well, do you believe the Bible to be literally true?” And the President says, “Yes, but I also think that neither of us are smart enough to understand it.” I think the analogy here for the meaning of life is that largely we don’t know the right question to ask.有一部我很喜欢的电视剧叫《白宫风云》，里面有一个角色——美国总统——正在和一位同事讨论《圣经》。那位同事说了一些'《圣经》说了 X、Y、Z'之类的话，总统说：'是的，但它也说了 A、B、C。'那人说：'那你相信《圣经》是字面意义上的真实吗？'总统说：'是的，但我也认为我们两个人都没聪明到能读懂它。'我觉得这个类比在关于生命意义的问题上同样适用——在很大程度上，我们不知道该问什么问题。
Bliss ChapmanSo I think I’m very aligned with the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy version of this question, which is basically, if we can ask the right questions, it’s much more likely we find the meaning of human existence. So in the short term as a heuristic in the search policy space, we should try to increase the diversity of people asking such questions or generally of consciousness and conscious beings asking such questions. So again, I think I will take the I don’t know card here, but say I do think there are meaningful things we can do that improve the likelihood of answering that question.所以我觉得我和《银河系漫游指南》对这个问题的版本非常契合——基本上，如果我们能问出正确的问题，找到人类存在意义的可能性就会大得多。所以，作为搜索策略空间中的短期启发式方法，我们应该尽力增加提出这类问题的人的多样性，或者更广泛地说，增加各种有意识的生命提出这类问题的多样性。所以，我还是说一句'我不知道'，但我确实认为，有一些有意义的事情我们可以做，来提升回答那个问题的可能性。
Lex FridmanIt’s interesting how much value you assign to the task of asking the right questions. That’s the main thing, it’s not the answers, it’s the questions.有意思，你把这么大的价值赋予了'问出正确问题'这件事。关键不是答案，是问题。
Bliss ChapmanThis point, by the way, is driven home in a very painful way when you try to communicate with someone who cannot speak, because a lot of the time, the last thing to go is they have the ability to somehow wiggle a lip or move something that allows them to say yes or no. And in that situation, it’s very obvious that what matters is, are you asking them the right question to be able to say yes or no to?顺便说一句，当你试图和无法说话的人交流时，这一点会以一种非常痛苦的方式被深刻呈现出来。因为很多时候，最后还保留的能力是：他们能以某种方式动一下嘴唇，或者做出某个动作，来回答'是'或者'不是'。在那种情况下，显而易见的是：重要的是，你问他们的问题是不是他们能够回答'是'或'不是'的正确问题。
Lex FridmanWow, that’s powerful. Well, Bliss, thank you for everything you do, and thank you for being you, and thank you for talking today.哇，这太有力量了。好的，Bliss，感谢你所做的一切，感谢你成为你这样的人，感谢你今天来聊。
Bliss ChapmanThank you.谢谢你。
Lex FridmanThanks for listening to this conversation with Bliss Chapman. And now, dear friends, here’s Noland Arbaugh, the first human being to have a Neuralink device implanted in his brain. You had a diving accident in 2016 that left you paralyzed with no feeling from the shoulders down. How did that accident change your life?感谢收听这段与 Bliss Chapman 的对话。现在，亲爱的朋友们，这里是 Noland Arbaugh，第一位在大脑中植入 Neuralink 设备的人类。你在 2016 年发生了一次潜水事故，导致你从肩膀以下瘫痪，完全失去感觉。那次事故是如何改变你的生活的？
Noland ArbaughIt was a freak thing that happened. Imagine you’re running into the ocean, although this is a lake, but you’re running into the ocean and you get to about waist high, and then you dive in, take the rest of the plunge under the wave or something. That’s what I did, and then I just never came back up. Not sure what happened. I did it running into the water with a couple of guys, and so my idea of what happened is really just that I took a stray fist, elbow, knee, foot, something to the side of my head. The left side of my head was sore for about a month afterwards, so I must’ve taken a pretty big knock, and then they both came up and I didn’t. And so I was face down in the water for a while. I was conscious, and then eventually just realized I couldn’t hold my breath any longer and I keep saying took a big drink.那是一件偶然发生的事情。想象一下你正奔跑着冲进海里，虽然那其实是个湖，但你冲进去，到了大概齐腰深的地方，然后往下扎，继续冲进浪里或者什么的。我就是这么做的，然后我就再也没有浮上来。不太确定发生了什么。我当时是跟另外两个人一起跑着进水的，所以我对发生了什么的理解就是：我可能挨了一拳、一肘、一膝、一脚或者什么东西，打到了我脑袋的侧面。我的头左边在那之后酸痛了大约一个月，所以我肯定是挨了很重的一击，然后他们俩都浮上来了，而我没有。所以我面朝下趴在水里趴了好一会儿。我当时是清醒的，但最终意识到我已经憋不住了，我一直说'喝了一大口水'。
Noland ArbaughPeople, I don’t know if they like that I say that. It seems like I’m making light of it all, but it’s just how I am, and I don’t know. I am a very relaxed stress-free person. I rolled with the punches for a lot of this. I took it in stride. It’s like, “All right, well, what can I do next? How can I improve my life even a little bit on a day-to-day basis?” At first, just trying to find some way to heal as much of my body as possible to try to get healed, to try to get off a ventilator, learn as much as I could so I could somehow survive once I left the hospital. And then thank God I had my family around me. If I didn’t have my parents, my siblings, then I would’ve never made it this far.人们……我不知道他们是不是不喜欢我这么说。好像我在轻描淡写这一切，但这就是我的方式，我也不知道。我是一个非常平静、不怎么有压力的人。这一切我都随遇而安了。我接受了这些打击。就是：'好吧，那接下来我能做什么？我的日常生活怎么能哪怕再好一点点？'最开始，就是想方设法尽可能地让身体恢复，试图脱离呼吸机，尽量学习更多东西，这样在离开医院之后才能以某种方式活下去。然后感谢上帝，我有家人陪伴着我。如果没有我的父母和兄弟姐妹，我绝对走不到今天这一步。
Noland ArbaughThey’ve done so much for me, more than I can ever thank them for, honestly, and a lot of people don’t have that. A lot of people in my situation, their families either aren’t capable of providing for them or honestly just don’t want to, and so they get placed somewhere in some sort of home. So thankfully, I had my family. I have a great group of friends, a great group of buddies from college who have all rallied around me, and we’re all still incredibly close. People always say if you’re lucky, you’ll end up with one or two friends from high school that you keep throughout your life. I have about 10 or 12 from high school that have all stuck around, and we still get together, all of us twice a year. We call it the spring series and the fall series. This last one we all did, we dressed up X-Men, so I did a-他们为我付出了太多，真的超出了我所能感谢的，而很多人并没有这样的条件。很多和我处境相同的人，家人要么没有能力照顾他们，要么坦白说不愿意，所以他们就被安置到某个养护机构里了。所幸，我有我的家人。我还有一群很好的朋友，一群大学时代的好兄弟，他们都聚在我身边，我们到现在还保持着非常亲密的联系。人们常说，如果你幸运的话，你会从高中留下一两个终身好友。我从高中留下了大概 10 到 12 个，他们都坚持下来了，我们现在每年还聚两次，所有人。我们叫它春季系列和秋季系列。上一次我们所有人都扮成了 X 战警，我扮的是——
Lex FridmanNice.真棒。
Noland Arbaugh… Professor Xavier, and it was freaking awesome. It was so good. So yeah, I have such a great support system around me, and so being a quadriplegic isn’t that bad. I get waited on all the time. People bring me food and drinks, and I get to sit around and watch as much TV and movies and anime as I want. I get to read as much as I want. It’s great.……Xavier 教授，那真的超级酷，太好玩了。所以是的，我有这么棒的支持系统围绕着我，所以做一个四肢瘫痪的人其实也没那么糟糕。所有人一直在侍候我。人们给我端来食物和饮料，我可以坐在那里看各种各样我想看的电视节目、电影和动漫。我可以随心所欲地读书。挺好的。
Lex FridmanIt’s beautiful to see that you see the silver lining in all of this. Just going back, do you remember the moment when you first realized you were paralyzed from the neck down?很高兴看到你能从中看到阳光的一面。回到当时，你还记得第一次意识到自己颈部以下瘫痪的那一刻吗？
Noland ArbaughYep. I was face down in the water when I… whatever, something hit my head. I tried to get up and I realized I couldn’t move, and it just clicked. I’m like, “All right, I’m paralyzed, can’t move. What do I do? If I can’t get up? I can’t flip over, can’t do anything, then I’m going to drown eventually.” And I knew I couldn’t hold my breath forever, so I just held my breath and thought about it for maybe 10, 15 seconds. I’ve heard from other people that on lookers, I guess the two girls that pulled me out of the water were two of my best friends. They were lifeguards, and one of them said that it looked like my body was shaking in the water like I was trying to flip over and stuff, but I knew. I knew immediately, and I realized that that’s what my situation was from here on out.记得。我当时面朝下趴在水里，那个……不管什么东西打到了我的头之后，我试图站起来，发现自己动不了了，然后就明白了。我想，'好，我瘫了，动不了了。我该怎么办？如果我站不起来呢？我翻不了身，什么都做不了，那我最终会溺死的。'我知道我不能永远憋着气，所以我就憋着气，大概想了十、十五秒。我后来听说，旁观者——把我从水里拉出来的两个女孩是我最好的两个朋友，她们都是救生员——其中一个说，我的身体看起来在水里抖动，好像在努力翻身，但我当时是清楚的，我立刻就明白了，我意识到从那时起这就是我的处境了。
Noland ArbaughMaybe if I got to the hospital, they’d be able to do something.When I was in the hospital right before surgery, I was trying to calm one of my friends down. I had brought her with me from college to camp, and she was just bawling over me, and I was like, “Hey, it’s going to be fine. Don’t worry.” I was cracking some jokes to try to lighten the mood. The nurse had called my mom, and I was like, “Don’t tell my mom. She’s just going to be stressed out. Call her after I’m out of surgery ’cause at least she’ll have some answers then, whether I live or not, really.” And I didn’t want her to be stressed through the whole thing, but I knew.也许到了医院，他们能做点什么。在医院里，手术前的那一刻，我正试着让我的一个朋友冷静下来，她是我从大学带去露营的，她就趴在我身上哭泣，我说：'嘿，没事的，别担心。'我还开了几个玩笑来活跃气氛。护士打电话给我妈，我说：'别告诉我妈，她只会非常焦虑。等我手术完再打给她，那样她至少能知道个结果，不管是活着还是死了。'我不想让她在整个手术过程中一直焦虑，但我知道。
Noland ArbaughAnd then when I first woke up after surgery, I was super drugged up. They had me on fentanyl three ways, which was awesome. I don’t recommend it, but I saw some crazy stuff on that fentanyl, and it was still the best I’ve ever felt on drugs, medication, sorry, on medication. I remember the first time I saw my mom in the hospital, I was just bawling. I had ventilator in. I couldn’t talk or anything, and I just started crying because it was more like seeing her… The whole situation obviously was pretty rough, but it was just seeing her face for the first time was pretty hard. But yeah, I never had a moment of, “Man, I’m paralyzed. This sucks. I don’t want to be around anymore.” It was always just, “I hate that I have to do this, but sitting here and wallowing isn’t going to help.”然后我手术后第一次醒来，我还有点迷糊。他们给我用了三路芬太尼，感觉很棒。我不推荐，但我在那个芬太尼里看到了一些疯狂的东西，那仍然是我这辈子用……药物……用药物时感觉最好的一次。我记得第一次在医院里看到我妈的时候，我就哭了。我当时插着呼吸机，不能说话，就这样开始哭了，因为……整件事显然相当糟糕，但就是第一次看到她的脸，真的很难受。但是，我从来没有过那种'天哪，我瘫了，这太糟糕了，我不想继续了'的念头。一直都是：'我恨不得必须经历这些，但坐在这里沉浸在悲伤里是没有用的。'
Lex FridmanSo immediate acceptance.所以是立即接受。
Noland ArbaughYeah. Yeah.对。对。
Lex FridmanHas there been low points along the way?沿途有过低谷吗？
Noland ArbaughYeah, yeah, sure. There are days when I don’t really feel like doing anything. Not so much anymore. Not for the last couple of years I don’t really feel that way. I’ve more so just wanted to try to do anything possible to make my life better at this point. But at the beginning, there were some ups and downs. There were some really hard things to adjust to. First off, just the first couple months, the amount of pain I was in was really, really hard. I remember screaming at the top of my lungs in the hospital because I thought my legs were on fire, and obviously I can’t feel anything, but it’s all nerve pain. And so that was a really hard night. I asked them to give me as much pain meds as possible, but they’re like, “You’ve had as much as you can have, so just deal with it. Go to a happy place,” sort of thing. So that was a pretty low point.有，有，当然有。有些日子我不太想做任何事情。但最近这种感觉不太多了，最近几年都不太有这种感觉了。我现在更多的是想去尝试一切可能的事情来改善我的生活。但是在最初的时候，确实有一些起伏，有一些很难适应的事情。首先，最开始的几个月，我承受的疼痛是真的、真的很难熬。我记得在医院里因为觉得我的腿在燃烧而大声尖叫，虽然我显然什么都感觉不到，但那都是神经痛。那是一个非常难熬的夜晚，我请求他们给我尽可能多的止痛药，但他们说：'你能用的已经都用了，只能忍着了，去找个快乐的地方之类的吧。'所以那是一段相当低的时期。
Noland ArbaughAnd then every now and again, it’s hard realizing things that I wanted to do in my life that I won’t be able to do anymore. I always wanted to be a husband and father, and I just don’t think that I could do it now as a quadriplegic. Maybe it’s possible, but I’m not sure I would ever put someone I love through that, having to take care of me and stuff. Not being able to go out and play sports, I was a huge athlete growing up, so that was pretty hard. Little things too, when I realized I can’t do them anymore. There’s something really special about being able to hold a book and smell a book, the feel, the texture, the smell as you turn the pages, I just love it and I can’t do it anymore, and it’s little things like that.然后时不时地，意识到某些我曾经想做的事情再也做不了了，这也很难受。我一直想成为一个丈夫和父亲，但我不认为作为一个四肢瘫痪的人，我现在能做到这一点了。也许有可能，但我不确定我会让我爱的人去承受那些，要照顾我什么的。不能出去运动了——我从小就是个体育狂，所以这也相当难熬。还有一些小事，当意识到再也做不了的时候。捧着一本书、闻着书香是一件很特别的事情——手感、质感、翻书时的气味，我就是喜欢那些，但我再也做不到了，就是这些小事。
Noland ArbaughThe two-year mark was pretty rough. Two years is when they say you will get back basically as much as you’re ever going to get back as far as movement and sensation goes. And so for the first two years, that was the only thing on my mind was try as much as I can to move my fingers, my hands, my feet, everything possible to try to get sensation and movement back. And then when the two-year mark hit, so June 30, 2018, I was really sad that that’s where I was, and then just randomly here and there, but I was never depressed for long periods of time. Just it never seemed worthwhile to me.两年的节点相当难熬。他们说，两年是你基本上能恢复的极限，就运动和感觉的恢复而言。所以头两年，我满脑子想的就是尽一切努力去动我的手指、手、脚，一切可能的东西，试图让感觉和运动恢复。然后两年节点到来时——也就是 2018 年 6 月 30 日——我对自己的状况真的很难过，然后就是随机地偶尔有低落，但我从来没有长时间陷入抑郁，就是感觉对我来说那样做毫无意义。
Lex FridmanWhat gave you strength?是什么给了你力量？
Noland ArbaughMy faith. My faith in God was a big one. My understanding that it was all for purpose, and even if that purpose wasn’t anything involving Neuralink, even if that purpose was… There’s a story in the Bible about Job, and I think it’s a really, really popular story about how Job has all of these terrible things happen to him, and he praises God throughout the whole situation. I thought, and I think a lot of people think for most of their lives that they are Job, that they’re the ones going through something terrible, and they just need to praise God through the whole thing and everything will work out.我的信仰。我对上帝的信仰是一个重大的力量来源。我理解一切都有其目的，即使那个目的和 Neuralink 没有任何关系，即使那个目的就是……《圣经》里有一个关于约伯的故事，这是一个非常、非常著名的故事，讲的是约伯遭遇了所有这些可怕的事情，却在整个过程中赞美上帝。我曾经认为——我想大多数人一生中的大部分时间都这么认为——他们自己才是约伯，他们是正在经历可怕事情的人，他们只需要在整个过程中赞美上帝，一切都会好起来。
Noland ArbaughAt some point after my accident, I realized that I might not be Job, that I might be one of his children that gets killed or kidnapped or taken from him. And so it’s about terrible things that happen to those around you who you love. So maybe in this case, my mom would be Job and she has to get through something extraordinarily hard, and I just need to try and make it as best as possible for her because she’s the one that’s really going through this massive trial.在我出事之后的某个时刻，我意识到我也许不是约伯，也许我是他的孩子，那些被杀害或绑架、被从他身边夺走的人。所以讲的是那些你爱的人身上发生的可怕的事情。所以也许在这个例子里，我妈妈才是约伯，她要经历这场异常艰难的考验，而我需要做的就是尽力让这一切对她来说尽可能地好过，因为她才是真正在经历这场巨大考验的人。
Noland Arbaugh… she’s the one that’s really going through this massive trial and that gave me a lot of strength, and obviously my family. My family and my friends, they give me all the strength that I need on a day-to-day basis. So it makes things a lot easier having that great support system around me.……她才是真正在经历这场巨大考验的人，这给了我很多力量，当然还有我的家人。我的家人和朋友，他们每天都给我所需要的全部力量。所以有这么棒的支持系统围绕着我，让一切都容易了很多。
Lex FridmanFrom everything I’ve seen of you online, your streams and the way you are today, I really admire, let’s say your unwavering positive outlook on life. Has that always been this way?从我在网上看到的关于你的一切——你的直播，以及你今天的样子——我真的很钦佩，可以说是你对生活坚定不移的积极态度。你一直都是这样的吗？
Noland ArbaughYeah, yeah. I mean, I’ve just always thought I could do anything I ever wanted to do. There was never anything too big. Whatever I set my mind to, I felt like I could do it. I didn’t want to do a lot. I wanted to travel around and be sort of like a gypsy and go work odd jobs. I had this dream of traveling around Europe and being like, I don’t know, a shepherd in Wales or Ireland, and then going and being a fisherman in Italy, doing all of these things for a year. It’s such cliche things, but I just thought it would be so much fun to go and travel and do different things.是的，是的。我是说，我一直觉得我能做我想做的任何事情。从来没有什么事情大到做不到。只要我下定决心，我就觉得我能做到。我不是什么事情都想做。我想到处旅行，过一种像流浪者一样的生活，干各种零散的工作。我有一个梦想，就是去欧洲旅行，比如在威尔士或爱尔兰当一段时间牧羊人，然后去意大利当渔夫，就这样花一年时间做各种不同的事情。这些都是很老套的事情，但我就觉得出去旅行、做各种不同的事情会非常有趣。
Noland ArbaughAnd so I’ve always just seen the best in people around me too, and I’ve always tried to be good to people. And growing up with my mom too, she’s like the most positive energetic person in the world, and we’re all just people people. I just get along great with people. I really enjoy meeting new people, and so I just wanted to do everything. This is kind of just how I’ve been.所以我一直都只看到周围人最好的一面，我一直努力对人好。还有，跟我妈一起长大，她是世界上最积极、最有活力的人，我们都是那种热爱社交的人。我就是很能跟各种人相处，真的很享受认识新朋友，所以我只是想做所有的事情。我这个人一直就是这样。
Lex FridmanIt’s just great to see that cynicism didn’t take over given everything you’ve been through.看到你经历了这一切之后，愤世嫉俗没有占据你，真的很美好。
Noland ArbaughYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanWas that a deliberate choice you made, that you’re not going to let this keep you down?那是你主动做出的选择——你告诉自己不会让这件事把你击垮？
Noland ArbaughYeah, a bit. Also, it’s just kind of how I am. I just, like I said, I roll with the punches with everything. I always used to tell people I don’t stress about things much, and whenever I’d see people getting stressed, I would just say, “It’s not hard just don’t stress about it and that’s all you need to do. And they’re like, “That’s not how that works.” I’m like, “It works for me. Just don’t stress and everything will be fine. Everything will work out.” Obviously not everything always goes well, and it’s not like it all works out for the best all the time, but I just don’t think stress has had any place in my life since I was a kid.是的，有一点。但也只是我本来就这样。我就是，就像我说的，我对什么事情都随遇而安。我以前总是跟别人说我不怎么有压力，每次看到别人焦虑，我就说：'不难的，就别焦虑，这就是你需要做的全部。'他们说：'事情不是这样运作的。'我说：'这对我有效。就别焦虑，一切都会好起来的，一切都会顺利的。'当然，事情并不是每次都会顺利，也不是说一切都会往最好的方向发展，但我就是从小到大都觉得压力在我的生活里没有位置。
Lex FridmanWhat was the experience like of you being selected to be the first human being to have a Neuralink device implanted in your brain? Were you scared? Excited?被选中成为第一个在大脑中植入 Neuralink 设备的人类，那是什么体验？你害怕吗？还是兴奋？
Noland ArbaughNo, no. It was cool. I was never afraid of it. I had to think through a lot. Should I do this? Be the first person? I could wait until number two or three and get a better version of the Neuralink. The first one might not work. Maybe it’s actually going to kind of suck. It’s going to be the worst version ever in a person, so why would I do the first one? I’ve already kind of been selected? I could just tell them, “Okay, find someone else, and then I’ll do number two or three.” I’m sure they would let me, they’re looking for a few people anyways, but ultimately I was like, I don’t know? There’s something about being the first one to do something. It’s pretty cool. I always thought that if I had the chance that I would like to do something for the first time, this seemed like a pretty good opportunity. And I was never scared.不，不。感觉很酷。我从来不害怕。我需要考虑很多事情。我该做这件事吗？做第一个？我可以等到第二个或第三个，然后得到一个更好的 Neuralink 版本。第一个可能不太好用，也许实际上会有点糟糕，会是史上在人身上用过的最差版本，那我为什么要做第一个？我已经差不多被选上了，我可以告诉他们：'好，去找别人，然后我来做第二个或第三个。'我相信他们会同意的，反正他们也在找几个人，但最终我就是……我不知道？做某件事上的第一个，有某种特别的东西，这挺酷的。我一直觉得，如果有机会，我会想做某件事的第一个，这看起来是个相当好的机会。我从来没有害怕过。
Noland ArbaughI think my faith had a huge part in that. I always felt like God was preparing me for something. I almost wish it wasn’t this, because I had many conversations with God about not wanting to do any of this as a quadriplegic. I told Him, “I’ll go out and talk to people. I’ll go out and travel the world and talk to stadiums, thousands of people, give my testimony. I’ll do all of it, but heal me first. Don’t make me do all of this in a chair. That sucks.” And I guess He won that argument. I didn’t really have much of a choice. I always felt like there was something going on. And to see how, I guess easily I made it through the interview process and how quickly everything happened, how the stars sort of aligned with all of this. It just told me as the surgery was getting closer, it just told me that it was all meant to happen.我认为我的信仰在那里起了很大的作用。我一直觉得上帝在为我准备某件事。我几乎希望不是这件事，因为我和上帝有过很多次对话，说我不想以一个四肢瘫痪者的身份做这一切。我告诉他：'我会出去，我会和人们交谈，我会游历世界，在体育场里对着数千人演讲，分享我的见证，我什么都愿意做，但先让我痊愈。别让我坐着轮椅做这一切，那太糟糕了。'我猜他赢得了那个争论。我其实没有多少选择的余地。我一直觉得有什么事情正在发生。看到我是如何顺利地通过了面试流程，一切发生得多么快，那些星星是如何对齐的……随着手术日期临近，这一切都在告诉我，这一切本就该发生。
Noland ArbaughIt was all meant to be, and so I shouldn’t be afraid of anything that’s to come. And so I wasn’t. I kept telling myself like, “You say that now, but as soon as the surgery comes, you’re probably going to be freaking out. You’re about to have brain surgery.” And brain surgery is a big deal for a lot of people, but it’s an even bigger deal for me. It’s all I have left. The amount of times I’ve been like, “Thank You, God, that you didn’t take my brain and my personality and my ability to think, my love of learning, my character, everything. Thank You so much. As long as You left me that, then I think I can get by.” And I was about to let people go root around in there like, “Hey, we’re going to go put some stuff in your brain. Hopefully it works out.” And so it was something that gave me pause, but like I said, how smoothly everything went.这一切都是命中注定的，所以我不应该对即将到来的任何事情感到害怕。所以我没有。我一直告诉自己，'你现在是这么说，但等手术临近，你可能会开始慌乱，你要做的可是脑部手术。'脑部手术对很多人来说都是很大的事，但对我来说甚至更大。这是我仅剩的全部了。我不知道多少次感谢上帝，说'谢谢你没有带走我的大脑、我的个性、我的思考能力、我对学习的热爱、我的性格，这一切。非常感谢。只要你留下了这些，我觉得我就能过下去。'而我即将让人进去在里面捣鼓：'嘿，我们要往你大脑里放点东西，希望一切顺利。'所以那确实让我有所迟疑，但就像我说的，一切进行得多么顺利。
Noland ArbaughI never expected for a second that anything would go wrong. Plus the more people I met on the Barrow side and on the Neuralink side, they’re just the most impressive people in the world. I can’t speak enough to how much I trust these people with my life and how impressed I am with all of them. And to see the excitement on their faces, to walk into a room and, roll into a room and see all of these people looking at me like, “We’re so excited. We’ve been working so hard on this and it’s finally happening.” It’s super infectious and it just makes me want to do it even more. And to help them achieve their dreams, I don’t know, it’s so rewarding and I’m so happy for all of them, honestly.我从来没有哪怕一秒钟觉得会有什么差错。而且我认识的 Barrow 那边和 Neuralink 那边的人，都是世界上最令人印象深刻的人。我用任何语言都说不完我有多信任这些人，把我的生命交托给他们，以及他们让我有多钦佩。看到他们脸上的兴奋，走进——推着轮椅进入——一个房间，看到所有这些人看着我，说：'我们太兴奋了，我们为此努力了这么久，它终于要发生了。'这种情绪太有感染力了，让我更想去做这件事。能帮助他们实现他们的梦想，不知道为什么，这感觉如此值得，我真的为他们所有人感到由衷的高兴。
Lex FridmanWhat was the day of surgery like? When did you wake up? What’d you feel? Minute-by-minute. Were you freaking out?手术那天是什么感觉？你什么时候醒来的？你有什么感受？分钟一分钟地描述。你有慌乱吗？
Noland ArbaughNo, no. I thought I was going to, but as surgery approached the night before, the morning of, I was just excited. I was like, “Let’s make this happen.” I think I said that, something like that to Elon on the phone. Beforehand we were FaceTiming, and I was like, “Let’s rock and roll.” And he’s like, “Let’s do it.” I don’t know. I wasn’t scared. So we woke up. I think we had to be at the hospital at 5:30 AM. I think surgery was at 7:00 AM So we woke up pretty early. I’m not sure much of us slept that night. Got to the hospital 5:30, went through all the pre-op stuff. Everyone was super nice. Elon was supposed to be there in the morning, but something went wrong with his plane, so we ended up FaceTiming. That was cool. I had one of the greatest one-liners of my life after that phone call. Hung up with him. There were 20 people around me and I was like, “I just hope he wasn’t too starstruck talking to me.”没有，没有。我以为我会慌的，但随着手术临近，前一晚、当天早上，我就是很兴奋。我说：'让我们来搞定这件事。'我想我当时大概就是那么说的，在电话里跟 Elon 这么说的。之前我们在 FaceTime，我说：'开干吧。'他说：'搞起来。'我不知道，我不害怕。所以我们醒来，我想我们必须在 5:30 AM 到医院，手术大概在 7:00 AM。所以我们起得很早，我不确定那晚我们中有多少人睡着了。5:30 到了医院，做了所有术前准备，每个人都超级友好。Elon 本来应该早上到现场的，但他的飞机出了问题，所以我们最终是 FaceTime 连线的，挺酷的。那次通话挂断之后，我说出了我这辈子最好的一句话。挂断电话，周围有 20 个人，我说：'我就希望他和我说话的时候没有太崇拜我。'
Lex FridmanNice.不错。
Noland ArbaughAnd yeah, it was good.然后，是的，感觉很好。
Lex FridmanWell done. Well done. Did you write that ahead of time it just came to you?干得漂亮。干得漂亮。那句话是你提前想好的，还是当场就来了？
Noland ArbaughNo. No, it just came to me. I was like, “This seems right.” Went into surgery. I asked if I could pray right beforehand, so I prayed over the room. I asked God if He would be with my mom in case anything happened to me and just to calm her nerves out there. Woke up, played a bit of a prank on my mom. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it?没有，就是当场来的。我想：'这感觉说对了。'然后进了手术室，我在手术前请求做了祷告，所以我在整个手术室里祷告。我请求上帝，万一我出了什么事，保佑我妈妈，让她在外面平静下来。醒来后，我恶作剧了我妈一下。不知道你有没有听说过这件事？
Lex FridmanYeah, I read about it.是的，我读到过。
Noland ArbaughYeah, she was not happy.是的，她很不高兴。
Lex FridmanCan you take me through the prank?能带我过一遍这个恶作剧吗？
Noland ArbaughYeah. This is something-好的。这件事——
Lex FridmanDo you regret doing that now?你现在后悔做那件事了吗？
Noland Arbaugh… No, no, not one bit. It was something I had talked about ahead of time with my buddy Bane. I was like, “I would really like to play a prank on my mom.” Very specifically, my mom. She’s very gullible. I think she had knee surgery once even, and after she came out of knee surgery, she was super groggy. She’s like, “I can’t feel my legs.” And my dad looked at her. He was like, “You don’t have any legs. They had to amputate both your legs.” And we just do very mean things to her all the time. I’m so surprised that she still loves us.……不，不，一点都不后悔。这是我提前跟我的好哥们 Bane 商量好的，我说：'我真的很想整我妈一下。'非常针对我妈。她特别好骗。我想她有一次做膝盖手术，手术后醒来，迷迷糊糊的，说：'我感觉不到我的腿。'我爸看着她，说：'你没有腿了，两条腿都截肢了。'我们总是对她做很过分的事情，我很惊讶她到现在还爱着我们。
Noland ArbaughBut right after surgery, I was really worried that I was going to be too groggy, not all there. I had had anesthesia once before and it messed me up. I could not function for a while afterwards. And I said a lot of things that… I was really worried that I was going to start, I don’t know, dropping some bombs and I wouldn’t even know. I wouldn’t remember. So I was like, “Please God, don’t let that happen, and please let me be there enough to do this to my mom.”手术后，我非常担心自己会太迷糊、不够清醒。我曾经有过一次麻醉，把我整得够呛，很长时间都没法正常运转，而且我说了很多……我非常担心自己会开始说一些我不知道自己在说的话，也不记得。所以我祈祷：'上帝啊，别让那发生，然后请让我清醒到足以对我妈做这件事。'
Noland ArbaughAnd so she walked in after surgery. It was the first time they had been able to see me after surgery, and she just looked at me. She said, “Hi, how are you? How are you doing? How do you feel?” And I looked at her and this very, I think the anesthesia helped, very groggy, sort of confused look on my face. It’s like, “Who are you?” And she just started looking around the room at the surgeons, at the doctors like, “What did you do to my son? You need to fix this right now.” Tears started streaming. I saw how much she was freaking out. I was like, “I can’t let this go on.” And so I was like, “Mom, mom, I’m fine. It’s all right.” And still, she was not happy about it. She still says she’s going to get me back someday, but I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know what that’s going to look like.然后她手术后走进来，那是手术后他们第一次能来看我，她看着我，说：'嗨，你怎么样？感觉怎么样？'我看着她，一副我想麻醉还没退、迷迷糊糊、有点茫然的表情，说：'你是谁？'然后她就开始环顾房间里的外科医生和医生，说：'你们对我儿子做了什么？你们现在就给我把这搞好。'眼泪开始流下来，我看到她有多慌，我想：'我不能让这继续下去了。'于是我说：'妈，妈，我没事，都好。'但她还是很不高兴。她现在还说有一天要报复我，但我不知道，我不知道那会是什么样子。
Lex FridmanIt’s a lifelong battle, man.这是一场一辈子的较量，兄弟。
Noland ArbaughYeah, but it was good.是的，但那很好。
Lex FridmanIn some sense it was a demonstration that you still got… Still had a sense of humor.从某种意义上说，那是在证明你还是你……你还有幽默感。
Noland ArbaughThat’s all I wanted it to be. That’s all I wanted it to be. And I knew that doing something super mean to her like that would show her.那就是我想要的全部。那就是我想要的全部。我知道对她做这么坏的事情，会让她明白的。
Lex FridmanTo show that you’re still there, that you love her.证明你还在，证明你爱她。
Noland ArbaughYeah, exactly. Exactly.对，正是。正是。
Lex FridmanIt’s a dark way to do it, but I love it.方式是有点黑暗，但我喜欢。
Noland ArbaughYeah.是的。
Lex FridmanWhat was the first time you were able to feel that you can use the Neuralink device to affect the world around you?第一次感受到你能用 Neuralink 设备来影响周围的世界，是什么时候？
Noland ArbaughThe first little taste I got of it was actually not too long after surgery. Some of the Neuralink team had brought in a little iPad, a little tablet screen, and they had put up eight different channels that were recording some of my neuron spikes and they put it in front of me. They’re like, “This is real time your brain firing.” I was like, “That’s super cool.” My first thought was, “I mean, if they’re firing now, let’s see if I can affect them in some way.”我第一次体验到一点点它的味道，其实是手术后不久。Neuralink 团队的一些人带来了一个小 iPad，一个小平板屏幕，他们在上面显示了 8 个不同的通道，实时记录着我的一些神经元脉冲，然后把它放在我面前。他们说：'这是你大脑实时放电的画面。'我说：'超酷的。'我的第一个想法是：'如果它们现在在放电，看看我能不能以某种方式影响它们。'
Noland ArbaughSo I started trying to wiggle my fingers and I just started scanning through the channels, and one of the things I was doing was moving my index finger up and down, and I just saw this yellow spike on top row, third box over or something. I saw this yellow spike every time I did it, and I was like, “Oh, that’s cool.” And everyone around me was just like, “What are you seeing?” I was like, “Look at this one. Look at this top row, third box over this yellow spike. That’s me right there, there, there.” And everyone was freaking out. They started clapping. I was like, “That’s super unnecessary.” This is what’s supposed to happen, right?于是我开始试着动我的手指，然后扫描这些通道，我做的事情之一是上下移动我的食指，然后我就看到一个通道——第一排，第三个格子还是什么——出现了一个黄色的峰值，每次我这样做它就出现一次，我就说：'哦，好酷。'周围的人都在说：'你看到什么了？'我说：'看这个，看第一排第三个格子，这个黄色的峰值，那就是我，那，那，那。'大家都开始鼓掌，我说：'这完全没必要。'这不就是应该发生的吗？
Lex FridmanSo you’re imagining yourself moving each individual finger one at a time, and then seeing that you can notice something. And then when you did the index finger, you’re like, “Oh, cool.”所以你在想象自己逐一移动每根手指，然后看到你能看出一些东西。然后当你动食指时，你说：'哦，好酷。'
Noland ArbaughYeah, I was wiggling all of my fingers to see if anything would happen. There was a lot of other things going on, but that big yellow spike was the one that stood out to me. I’m sure that if I would’ve stared at it long enough, I could have mapped out maybe a hundred different things. But the big yellow spike was the one that I noticed.是的，我试着动我所有的手指，看看会不会有什么反应。当然还有很多别的事情在发生，但那个大的黄色峰值是最引人注目的那个。我相信如果我当时盯着它足够长的时间，我可能能够映射出几百种不同的东西。但那个大的黄色峰值是我注意到的那个。
Lex FridmanMaybe you could speak to what it’s like to wiggle your fingers, to imagine the cognitive effort required to wiggle your index finger, for example. How easy is that to do?也许你能聊聊，动手指——想象动手指——是什么感觉，需要多大的认知努力，比如想象动食指。这件事做起来容易吗？
Noland ArbaughPretty easy for me. It’s something that at the very beginning, after my accident, they told me to try and move my body as much as possible. Even if you can’t, just keep trying because that’s going to create new neural pathways or pathways in my spinal cord to reconnect these things to hopefully regain some movement someday.对我来说挺容易的。事故刚发生那阵子，医生就告诉我，要尽可能地尝试活动身体。就算动不了，也要一直试，因为这样能在脊髓里开辟新的神经通路，把断掉的连接重新接上，说不定哪天能恢复一些运动能力。
Lex FridmanThat’s fascinating.这太神奇了。
Noland ArbaughYeah, I know. It’s bizarre.对，确实挺离奇的。
Lex FridmanThat’s part of the recovery process is to keep trying to move your body.所以康复训练的一部分就是持续尝试活动身体。
Noland ArbaughYep. Every day as much as you can.对，每天都要尽量多练。
Lex FridmanAnd the nervous system does its thing. It starts reconnecting.神经系统就会自己运转，开始重新建立连接。
Noland ArbaughIt’ll start reconnecting for some people, some people it never works. Some people they’ll do it. For me, I got some bicep control back, and that’s about it. If I try enough, I can wiggle some of my fingers, not on command. It’s more like if I try to move, say my right pinky, and I just keep trying to move it, after a few seconds it’ll wiggle. So I know there’s stuff there. I know, and that happens with a few different of my fingers and stuff. But yeah, that’s what they tell you to do. One of the people at the time when I was in the hospital came in and told me for one guy who had recovered most of his control, what he thought about every day was actually walking, like the act of walking just over and over again. So I tried that for years. I tried just imagining walking, which is, it’s hard. It’s hard to imagine all of the steps that go into, well, taking a step. All of the things that have to move, all of the activations that have to happen along your leg in order for one step to occur.它会开始重连的，有些人会成功，有些人就是没效果。有些人能做到。我自己呢，恢复了一点肱二头肌的控制，大概就这样。如果我足够努力，我能让几根手指稍微抖一下，但不是随意控制的，更像是——比如我想动右手小拇指，就一直试，试了几秒钟它就会轻微抖动。所以我知道那里还有点东西在。而且好几根手指都有这种感觉。不过这就是他们告诉你要做的事。我住院那时候，有人来告诉我，说有个人恢复了大部分运动能力，他每天脑子里想的其实就是走路这个动作——就是一遍又一遍地想象迈步。所以我也那样试了好几年，每天就想象自己在走路。那挺难的，很难把迈出一步所涉及的所有步骤都想清楚——腿上有多少东西需要运动，需要哪些肌肉依次激活，才能走出一步。
Lex FridmanBut you’re not just imagining, you’re doing it, right?但你不只是在想象，你是在实际尝试，对吧？
Noland ArbaughI’m trying. Yeah. So it’s imagining over again what I had to do to take a step, because it’s not something any of us think about. We just, you want to walk and you take a step. You don’t think about all of the different things that are going on in your body. So I had to recreate that in my head as much as I could, and then I practice it over, and over, and over again.我在努力。对。我得在脑海里重新构建迈步需要做什么，因为这不是我们平时会去想的事情。想走就走，根本不会去想身体里发生了什么。所以我得在脑子里尽量把这一切还原出来，然后一遍又一遍地练习。
Lex FridmanSo it’s not like a third person perspective, it’s a first person perspective. It’s not like you’re imagining yourself walking. You’re literally doing everything, all the same stuff as if you’re walking.所以不是第三人称视角，是第一人称视角。不是说你在想象自己走路，而是你在做和真正走路时完全一样的事情。
Noland ArbaughYeah, which was hard. It was hard at the beginning.对，这挺难的。一开始真的很难。
Lex FridmanFrustrating hard, or actually cognitively hard, which way?是那种令人沮丧的难，还是认知层面上的难？是哪种？
Noland ArbaughIt was both. There’s a scene in one of the Kill Bill movies, actually, oddly enough, where she is paralyzed, I don’t know, from a drug that was in her system. And then she finds some way to get into the back of a truck or something, and she stares at her toe and she says, “Move,” like move your big toe. And after a few seconds on screen, she does it. And she did that with every one of her body parts until she can move again. I did that for years, just stared at my body and said, “Move your index finger, move your big toe.” Sometimes vocalizing it out loud, sometimes just thinking it. I tried every different way to do this to try to get some movement back. And it’s hard because it actually is taxing, physically taxing on my body, which is something I would’ve never expected.两种都有。《杀死比尔》里有一场戏，挺奇怪的，主角被瘫痪了——好像是因为体内有某种药物。然后她想办法爬进一辆卡车的车厢，盯着自己的大脚趾说："动。"在屏幕上过了几秒钟，她真的做到了。然后她把全身的每个部位都那样做了一遍，直到能动为止。我那样练了好几年，就盯着自己的身体说："动你的食指，动你的大脚趾。"有时候大声说出来，有时候只在心里想。我试遍了各种方式，就想着能不能把运动能力找回来一些。而且那很累——不只是心累，身体上也是真的很耗力气，这是我完全没想到的。
Noland ArbaughIt’s not like I’m moving, but it feels like there’s a buildup of, the only way I can describe it is there are signals that aren’t getting through from my brain down, because there’s that gap in my spinal cord, so brain down, and then from my hand back up to the brain. And so it feels like those signals get stuck in whatever body part that I’m trying to move, and they just build up, and build up, and build up until they burst. And then once they burst, I get this really weird sensation of everything dissipating back out to level, and then I do it again.我并没有真的在动，但感觉就像有什么东西在积累——我只能这么形容：从大脑往下发出的信号，因为脊髓里有个断口，所以没法传下去，也没法从手那边再传回大脑。感觉那些信号就堵在我想要活动的那个部位，越积越多，越积越多，直到"砰"地一下爆开。爆开之后，我会感到一种奇异的感觉，像是所有的东西都消散回到了正常水平，然后我再来一遍。
Noland ArbaughIt’s also just a fatigue thing, like a muscle fatigue, but without actually moving your muscles. It’s very, very bizarre. And then if you try to stare at a body part or think about a body part and move for two, three, four, sometimes eight hours, it’s very taxing on your mind. It takes a lot of focus. It was a lot easier at the beginning because I wasn’t able to control a TV in my room or anything. I wasn’t able to control any of my environment. So for the first few years, a lot of what I was doing was staring at walls. And so, obviously I did a lot of thinking and I tried to move a lot just over, and over, and over again.这也是一种疲劳感，类似于肌肉疲劳，但肌肉其实根本没动。非常、非常奇怪。如果你一直盯着某个身体部位，或者一直想着它、想让它动，两三四个小时，有时候甚至八个小时，这对大脑的消耗极大，需要极度集中注意力。一开始反而容易一些，因为那时候我没办法控制房间里的电视，也没法控制周围任何东西。所以头几年里，我大量时间就是在盯墙看。自然而然地，我想了很多，也一遍又一遍地不停尝试活动。
Lex FridmanSo you never gave up hope there?那你从来没有放弃过希望？
Noland ArbaughNo.没有。
Lex FridmanJust training hard [inaudible 07:18:38].就是一直在刻苦训练……
Noland ArbaughYeah. And I still do it. I do it subconsciously, and I think that that helped a lot with things with Neuralink, honestly. It’s something that I talked about the other day at the All Hands that I did at Neuralink’s Austin facility.对。而且我现在还在做。我已经是下意识地在做了，我觉得这对 Neuralink 的体验也有很大帮助，说真的。这是我前几天在 Neuralink Austin 办公室做全员大会时聊到的事情。
Lex FridmanWelcome to Austin, by the way.顺便说一声，欢迎来到 Austin。
Noland ArbaughYeah. Hey, thanks man. I went to school-嗯，谢了兄弟。我以前在这里上学——
Lex FridmanNice hat.帽子不错。
Noland Arbaugh… Hey, thanks. Thanks, man. The Gigafactory was super cool. I went to school at [inaudible 07:19:01], so I’ve been around before.……嘿，谢谢，谢谢。Gigafactory 超酷的。我以前在……（听不清）上学，所以之前来过这里。
Lex FridmanSo you should be saying welcome to me. Welcome to Texas, Lex.所以应该是你跟我说"欢迎"才对。欢迎来德克萨斯，Lex。
Noland ArbaughYeah.哈哈，对。
Lex FridmanI get you.我懂你意思。
Noland ArbaughBut yeah, I was talking about how a lot of what they’ve had me do, especially at the beginning, well, I still do it now, is body mapping. So there will be a visualization of a hand or an arm on the screen, and I have to do that motion, and that’s how they train the algorithm to understand what I’m trying to do. And so it made things very seamless for me I think.不过说到这个，他们让我做的很多事情，尤其是一开始——现在也还在做——就是"身体映射"。屏幕上会出现一只手或者一条手臂的可视化图像，我得做出那个动作，他们就用这个来训练算法，让它理解我想做什么。所以这让我觉得整个过程对我来说很顺畅。
Lex FridmanThat’s really, really cool. So it’s amazing to know. I’ve learned a lot about the body mapping procedure with the interface and everything like that. It’s cool to know that you’ve been essentially training to be world-class at that task.这真的太酷了。了解了很多关于这个接口的身体映射流程之类的东西。知道你其实一直在为这类任务做着世界级水平的训练，这感觉太有意思了。
Noland ArbaughYeah. Yeah. I don’t know if other quadriplegics, other paralyzed people give up. I hope they don’t. I hope they keep trying, because I’ve heard other paralyzed people say, “Don’t ever stop.” They tell you two years, but you just never know. The human body’s capable of amazing things. So I’ve heard other people say, “Don’t give up.” I think one girl had spoken to me through some family members and said that she had been paralyzed for 18 years, and she’d been trying to wiggle her index finger for all that time, and she finally got it back 18 years later. So I know that it’s possible, and I’ll never give up doing it. I do it when I’m lying down watching TV. I’ll find myself doing it just almost on its own. It’s just something I’ve gotten so used to doing that I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll ever stop.对。我不知道其他四肢瘫痪的人、其他行动不便的人有没有放弃。我希望他们没有。我希望他们继续尝试，因为我听过其他残障人士说"永远不要停止"。他们说医生给你两年的时间窗口，但你永远不知道会怎样。人体能做到的事情令人叹为观止。我听过别人说"不要放弃"。我记得有个女孩，通过一些家人联系到我，说她已经瘫痪了 18 年，这 18 年里一直在尝试让食指轻微动一下，终于在 18 年后成功了。所以我知道这是可能的，我永远不会放弃。我躺着看电视的时候也在做这件事。我发现自己几乎是自动在做，这已经成了习惯，我不觉得自己会停下来。
Lex FridmanThat’s really awesome to hear. I think it’s one of those things that can really pay off in the long term. It is training. You’re not visibly seeing the results of that training at the moment, but there’s that Olympic level nervous system getting ready for something.听到这些真的很让人振奋。我觉得这是那种长远来看真的会有回报的事情。这就是训练。你现在看不到训练的成果，但奥运会级别的神经系统正在为某件大事做准备。
Noland ArbaughWhich honestly was something that I think Neuralink gave me that I can’t thank them enough for. I can’t show my appreciation for it enough, was being able to visually see that what I’m doing is actually having some effect. It’s a huge part of the reason why I know now that I’m going to keep doing it forever. Because before Neuralink, I was doing it every day and I was just assuming that things were happening. It’s not like I knew. I wasn’t getting back any mobility or sensation or anything. So I could have been running up against a brick wall for all I knew. And with Neuralink, I get to see all the signals happening real time, and I get to see that what I’m doing can actually be mapped. When we started doing click calibrations and stuff, when I go to click my index finger for a left click, that it actually recognizes that. It changed how I think about what’s possible with retraining my body to move. And so yeah, I’ll never give up now.这正是我觉得 Neuralink 给了我、让我无比感激的东西——我没有办法用语言表达对他们的谢意——就是能直观地看到我所做的一切其实在产生效果。这很大程度上是为什么我现在知道自己会一直坚持下去。因为在 Neuralink 之前，我每天都在做这件事，只是假设事情在发生。我并不知道真相，我既没有恢复任何活动能力，也没有恢复任何感觉。所以我有可能一直在对着一堵砖墙使劲，完全没有效果。有了 Neuralink，我可以实时看到所有的信号，我能看到我在做的事情是真的可以被映射出来的。当我们开始进行点击校准之类的训练，当我想用食指做一个左键点击，它真的能识别出来。这改变了我对重新训练身体动作的可能性的认知。所以没错，我永远不会放弃了。
Lex FridmanAnd also just the signal that there’s still a powerhouse of a brain there that’s like, and as the technology develops, that brain is, I mean, that’s the most important thing about the human body is the brain, and it can do a lot of the control. So what did it feel like when you first could wiggle the index finger and saw the environment respond? That little thing, whatever [inaudible 07:22:49] just being way too dramatic according to you?而且也说明，那里有一台运转强劲的大脑，而随着技术的发展，那个大脑……我的意思是，大脑才是人体最重要的东西，它能完成很多控制。那么，你第一次能轻微动动食指，看到外部环境因此做出响应，那是什么感觉？就那么一件小事，不管……这是不是你说的我在过分渲染？
Noland ArbaughYeah, it was very cool. I mean, it was cool, but I keep telling this to people. It made sense to me. It made sense that there are signals still happening in my brain, and that as long as you had something near it that could measure those, that could record those, then you should be able to visualize it in some way. See it happen. And so that was not very surprising to me. I was just like, “Oh, cool. We found one, we found something that works.”挺酷的，确实挺酷。但我一直跟大家说，这对我来说是合乎逻辑的。我脑子里信号还在，我就知道。只要有什么东西放在旁边能检测到、能记录到，那就应该能以某种方式把它可视化出来。所以这对我来说并不太意外，我只是觉得："哦，不错，找到了，有个能用的东西了。"
Noland ArbaughIt was cool to see that their technology worked and that everything that they had worked so hard for was going to pay off. But I hadn’t moved a cursor or anything at that point. I hadn’t interacted with a computer or anything at that point. So it just made sense. It was cool. I didn’t really know much about BCI at that point either, so I didn’t know what sort of step this was actually making. I didn’t know if this was a huge deal, or if this was just like, “Okay, this is, it’s cool that we got this far, but we’re actually hoping for something much better down the road.” It’s like, “Okay.” I just thought that they knew that it turned on. So I was like, “Cool, this is cool.”看到他们的技术真的奏效、他们那么努力的付出即将得到回报，这确实很棒。但那时候我还没有移动过光标，还没有和电脑交互过。所以只是觉得合情合理，挺酷的。那时候我对 BCI 也了解不多，不知道这一步到底意味着什么，不知道这是不是一个了不起的突破，还是只是"好，我们走到了这一步，但其实我们期待的是以后更好的东西"——就这感觉。我只是觉得他们知道设备开机了，所以我说："好，这挺酷的。"
Lex FridmanWell, did you read up on the specs of the hardware you get installed, the number of threads, all this kind of stuff.那你有没有去研究过你被植入的硬件的参数，比如线程数，这些东西？
Noland ArbaughYeah, I knew all of that, but it’s all Greek to me. I was like, “Okay, 64 threads, 16 electrodes, 1,024 channels. Okay, that math checks out.”研究过，我都知道，但对我来说全是天书。我就是："好，64 根线程，16 个电极，1,024 个通道。好，数学没问题。"
Lex FridmanSounds right.听起来没毛病。
Noland ArbaughYeah.对。
Lex FridmanWhen was the first time you were able to move a mouse cursor?你第一次能移动鼠标光标是什么时候？
Noland ArbaughI know it must have been within the first maybe week, a week or two weeks that I was able to first move the cursor. And again, it kind of made sense to me. It didn’t seem like that big of a deal. It was like, okay, well, how do I explain this? When everyone around you starts clapping for something that you’ve done, it’s easy to say, “Okay, I did something cool.”我记得大概是在最初的第一周，或者一两周内，我就能第一次移动光标了。而且说实话，对我来说也是理所当然的，感觉没什么大不了。就好像……怎么解释呢，当周围所有人都为你做的事鼓掌，你就会觉得："好，我做了一件很酷的事。"
Noland ArbaughThat was impressive in some way. What exactly that meant, what it was hadn’t really set in for me. So again, I knew that me trying to move a body part and then that being mapped in some sort of machine learning algorithm to be able to identify my brain signals and then take that and give me cursor control, that all kind of made sense to me. I don’t know all the ins and outs of it, but I was like, “There are still signals in my brain firing. They just can’t get through because there’s a gap in my spinal cord, and so they can’t get all the way down and back up, but they’re still there.” So when I moved the cursor for the first time, I was like, “That’s cool, but I expected that that should happen.” It made sense to me. When I moved the cursor for the first time with just my mind, without physically trying to move. So I guess I can get into that just a little bit. The difference between attempted movement, and imagine movement.这件事在某种程度上确实令人印象深刻。但这究竟意味着什么，对我来说还没真正消化。我知道我在尝试活动身体，然后这个动作被映射进了某种机器学习算法，识别我的脑部信号，再转化成光标控制——这整个流程我觉得都合情合理。我不了解所有细节，但我知道：我脑子里的信号还在放电，只是过不去，因为脊髓有断口，信号没法走完全程，但它们就在那里。所以我第一次移动光标时，我想的是："挺酷，但我本来就觉得应该会发生。"第一次用纯粹的意念移动光标，没有主动尝试肢体动作，那才是真正不同的感觉。我想稍微聊一下这个——"尝试运动"和"想象运动"之间的区别。
Lex FridmanYeah, that’s a fascinating difference [inaudible 07:26:18] from one to the other.对，这个区别挺有意思的……从一个切换到另一个。
Noland ArbaughYeah, yeah, yeah. So attempted movement is me physically trying to attempt to move, say my hand. I try to attempt to move my hand to the right, to the left, forward and back. And that’s all attempted. Attempt to lift my finger up and down, attempt to kick or something. I’m physically trying to do all of those things, even if you can’t see it. This would be me attempting to shrug my shoulders or something. That’s all attempted movement. That’s what I was doing for the first couple of weeks when they were going to give me cursor control. When I was doing body mapping, it was attempt to do this, attempt to do that. When Nir was telling me to imagine doing it, it kind of made sense to me, but it’s not something that people practice. If you started school as a child and they said, “Okay, write your name with this pencil,” and so you do that. Like, “Okay, now imagine writing your name with that pencil.”对对对。所以"尝试运动"就是我在身体上努力尝试去动，比如我的手。我尝试把手向右、向左、向前、向后移动。这些都是"尝试"。我尝试抬起手指，尝试踢腿之类的。我在身体上真的在努力做这些动作，就算你看不出来。就好比我在尝试耸肩什么的，这些都是"尝试运动"。最初几周他们让我用来建立光标控制的就是这种方式。做身体映射的时候，就是"尝试做这个、尝试做那个"。当 Nir 让我改成"想象"，我觉得概念上说得通，但这不是人们平时练习过的事情。你想想，如果你小时候上学，老师说："好，用这支铅笔写你的名字。"你就写了。"好，现在想象用那支铅笔写你的名字。"
Noland ArbaughKids would think, “Uh, I guess that kind of makes sense,” and they would do it. But that’s not something we’re taught, it’s all how to do things physically. We think about thought experiments and things, but that’s not a physical action of doing things. It’s more what you would do in certain situations. So imagine movement, it never really connected with me. I guess you could maybe describe it as a professional athlete swinging a baseball bat or swinging a golf club. Imagine what you’re supposed to do. But then you go right to that and physically do it. Then you get a bat in your hand, and then you do what you’ve been imagining.孩子会想："呃，好像说得通吧"，然后就去做了。但这不是我们被教导的方式，我们学的都是怎么在身体上做事情。我们确实会做思维实验，但那不是做某件事的身体动作，更多是在某种情况下你会怎么做。所以"想象运动"这件事对我来说一直没有真正建立起来。我想，也许可以把它类比为职业运动员挥棒或者打高尔夫球——先在脑子里想象应该怎么做，然后马上拿起球棒就实际去做。
Noland ArbaughAnd so I don’t have that connection. So telling me to imagine something versus attempting it, there wasn’t a lot that I could do there mentally. I just kind of had to accept what was going on and try. But the attempted moving thing, it all made sense to me. If I try to move, then there’s a signal being sent in my brain, and as long as they can pick that up, then they should be able to map it to what I’m trying to do. And so when I first moved the cursor like that, it was just like, “Yes, this should happen. I’m not surprised by that.”但我没有那种连接。所以让我去"想象"某个动作，和真的去"尝试"，之间的差别，在我脑子里真的没太多可操作的空间。我只能接受现实然后努力尝试。但"尝试运动"那个逻辑对我来说完全通，如果我去尝试动，那大脑就会发出信号，只要能捕捉到那个信号，就应该能映射到我想做的事情上。所以当我第一次那样移动光标时，我就想："对，就应该这样，我不意外。"
Lex FridmanBut can you clarify, is there supposed to be a difference between imagine movement and attempted movement?但你能不能解释一下，"想象运动"和"尝试运动"之间理论上应该有区别吗？
Noland ArbaughYeah, just that in imagine movement, you’re not attempting to move at all. So it’s-对，区别就在于，想象运动时你根本没有在尝试移动。所以它是——
Lex FridmanYou’re visualizing what you’re doing.你在可视化你的动作。
Noland Arbaugh… Visualizing.……可视化。
Lex Fridman… And then theoretically, is that supposed to be a different part of the brain that lights up in those two different situations?……那从理论上说，这两种情况下大脑激活的区域应该不同吗？
Bliss ChapmanYeah, not necessarily. I think all these signals can still be represented in motor cortex, but the difference I think, has to do with the naturalness of imagining something versus-不一定。我觉得这两种信号都可以在运动皮层里被表征，但区别我认为在于，想象某件事与尝试去做，在自然程度上不一样——
Lex FridmanGot it.明白了。
Bliss Chapman… attempting it. The fatigue of that over time.……以及长时间下来的疲劳程度不同。
Lex FridmanAnd by the way, on the mic is Bliss. So this is just different ways to prompt you to kind of get to the thing that you arrived at.顺便说一下，现在在麦克风旁边的是 Bliss。这只是引导你聊到你最终发现的那个结论的不同方式。
Noland ArbaughYeah, yeah.对，没错。
Lex FridmanAttempted movement does sound like the right thing. Try."尝试运动"听起来确实是正确的方向。试试看。
Noland ArbaughYeah. I mean, it makes sense to me.对，对我来说说得通。
Lex FridmanBecause imagine, for me, I would start visualizing, in my mind, visualizing. Attempted I would actually start trying to… I did combat sports my whole life, like wrestling. When I’m imagining a move, see, I’m moving my muscle.因为对我来说，"想象"的话，我脑子里会开始去可视化一个画面。"尝试"的话，我就会真的开始……我练了一辈子搏击运动，比如摔跤。当我在想象一个动作时——你看，我的肌肉在动。
Noland ArbaughExactly.就是这样。
Lex FridmanThere is a bit of an activation almost versus visualizing yourself, like a picture doing it.和把自己想象成一张照片在做动作相比，这多少有一种"激活感"。
Noland ArbaughYeah. It’s something that I feel like naturally anyone would do. If you try to tell someone to imagine doing something, they might close their eyes and then start physically doing it, but it just-对，我觉得这是任何人都会自然而然去做的。如果你让人去"想象"做某件事，他们可能会闭上眼睛，然后就开始在身体上去做了，只不过——
Lex FridmanJust didn’t click.就是没有那种感觉。
Noland Arbaugh… Yeah, it’s hard. It was very hard at the beginning.……对，很难。一开始真的很难。
Lex FridmanBut attempted worked.但"尝试"管用了。
Noland ArbaughAttempted worked. It worked just like it should. Worked like a charm."尝试"管用了。就跟应该的一样，效果好极了。
Bliss ChapmanRemember there was one Tuesday we were messing around and I think, I forget what swear word you used, but there’s a swear word that came out of your mouth when you figured out you could just do the direct cursor control.我记得有一个周二我们在乱折腾，我忘了你用了哪个脏话，但当你发现可以直接用直接光标控制的时候，你嘴里蹦出了一句脏话。
Noland ArbaughYeah, it blew my mind, no pun intended. Blew my mind when I first moved the cursor just with my thoughts and not attempting to move. It’s something that I found over the couple of weeks building up to that, that as I get better cursor controls, the model gets better, then it gets easier for me to… I don’t have to attempt as much to move it. And part of that is something that I’d even talked with them about when I was watching the signals of my brain one day. I was watching when I attempted to move to the right and I watched the screen as I saw the spikes. I was seeing the spike, the signal was being sent before I was actually attempting to move. I imagine just because when you go to say, move your hand or any body part, that signal gets sent before you’re actually moving, has to make it all the way down and back up before you actually do any sort of movement.对，我完全惊呆了，不是双关的那种。我第一次用纯粹的思维移动光标，不靠尝试运动，把我彻底震住了。这是在那之前两三周里慢慢积累的发现——随着光标控制越来越好，模型越来越准，我需要"尝试"的程度也越来越低。这也是我有一天在看自己脑部信号时注意到的一件事：我在尝试向右移动，然后我看着屏幕，看到波峰出现——我注意到信号发出的时间，是在我实际开始尝试移动之前就发出的了。我想这是因为当你想要活动手或其他部位时，信号在你实际动之前就发出了，它还要走完整个传导路径才会产生动作。
Noland ArbaughSo there’s a delay there. And I noticed that there was something going on in my brain before I was actually attempting to move that my brain was anticipating what I wanted to do, and that all started sort of, I don’t know, percolating in my brain. It was just there always in the back like, “That’s so weird that it could do that. It kind of makes sense, but I wonder what that means as far as using the Neuralink.”所以中间有一段延迟。我注意到在我实际去尝试运动之前，大脑里已经有东西在准备了——我的大脑在预判我想做什么。这件事就开始在我脑子里转啊转，一直在后台飘着，"好奇怪，它竟然能做到这个，某种程度上说得通，但这对 Neuralink 的使用意味着什么？"
Noland ArbaughAnd then as I was playing around with the attempted movement and playing around with the cursor, and I saw that as the cursor control got better, that it was anticipating my movements and what I wanted it to do, like cursor movements, what I wanted it to do a bit better and a bit better. And then one day I just randomly, as I was playing Webgrid, I looked at a target before I had started attempting to move, I was just trying to get over, train my eyes to start looking ahead, like, “Okay, this is the target I’m on, but if I look over here to this target, I know I can maybe be a bit quicker getting there.”然后我一边继续折腾尝试运动、摆弄光标，一边发现随着光标控制越来越精准，它对我的意图的预判也越来越好——比如光标移动的方向，对我想做什么的判断越来越准。然后有一天，我在玩 Webgrid 时完全随机地——在我还没开始尝试移动之前，我就把眼睛先看向了目标，就像在训练自己的眼睛提前看前面，"好，这是我现在盯着的目标，但如果我先看向下一个目标，我也许能更快到那里去。"
Noland ArbaughAnd I looked over and the cursor just shot over. It was wild. I had to take a step back. I was like, “This should not be happening.” All day I was just smiling. I was so giddy. I was like, “Guys, do you know that this works? I can just think it and it happens.” Which they’d all been saying this entire time like, “I can’t believe you’re doing all this with your mind.” I’m like, “Yeah, but is it really with my mind. I’m attempting to move and it’s just picking that up so it doesn’t feel like it’s with my mind.” But when I moved it for the first time like that, it was, oh man. It made me think that this technology, that what I’m doing is actually way, way more impressive than I ever thought. It was way cooler than I ever thought, and it just opened up a whole new world of possibilities of what could possibly happen with this technology and what I might be able to be capable of with it.我就这么一看，光标直接飞了过去。太疯了。我愣了一下，"这不应该发生的啊。"然后那整天我一直在傻笑，高兴得不得了，"你们知道这个能用吗？我想一下就能过去了。"而他们一直以来都在说，"真不敢相信你是用意念在控制这些。"我就说，"对，但真的是用意念吗？我一直在用尝试运动，所以感觉不像是用意念。"但当我第一次那样移动光标时……天哪。它让我意识到，这项技术，我正在做的事情，其实远比我想象的要厉害得多。比我以为的酷多了，而且打开了一整个新世界，关于这项技术的可能性，以及我将来用它能做到什么。
Lex FridmanBecause you had felt for the first time like this was digital telepathy. You’re controlling a digital device with your mind.因为你第一次感受到了数字心灵感应——你在用意念控制一个数字设备。
Noland ArbaughYep.对。
Lex FridmanI mean, that’s a real moment of discovery. That’s really cool. You’ve discovered something. I’ve seen scientists talk about a big aha moment, like Nobel Prize winning. They’ll have this like, “Holy crap.” Like, “Whoa.”这真的是一个真实的发现时刻，太酷了。你发现了什么东西。我看过科学家谈论那种大顿悟的时刻，诺贝尔奖得主，他们会有那种"我去，靠。""哇。"的感觉。
Noland ArbaughThat’s what it felt like. I felt like I had discovered something, but for me, maybe not necessarily for the world-at-large or this field-at-large, it just felt like an aha moment for me. Like, “Oh, this works.” Obviously it works. And so that’s what I do all the time now. I kind of intermix the attempted movement and imagine movement. I do it all together because I’ve found that…就是那种感觉。我感觉自己发现了什么，但对我来说，也许不一定对整个世界、对整个领域来说是发现，对我个人就是一次"啊哈"的时刻——"哦，这有用。"当然了，它有用。所以这就是我现在一直在做的。我把尝试运动和想象运动混着用……
Noland ArbaughI do it all together because I’ve found that there is some interplay with it that maximizes efficiency with the cursor. So it’s not all one or the other. It’s not all just, I only use attempted or I only use imagined movements. It’s more I use them in parallel and I can do one or the other. I can just completely think about whatever I’m doing, but I don’t know, I like to play around with it. I also like to just experiment with these things. Every now and again, I’ll get this idea in my head, I wonder if this works and I’ll just start doing it, and then afterwards I’ll tell them, “By the way, I wasn’t doing that like you guys wanted me to. I thought of something and I wanted to try it and so I did. It seems like it works, so maybe we should explore that a little bit.”我把两者混着用，因为我发现它们之间有某种协同，能最大化光标效率。所以不是非此即彼，不是我只用尝试运动或只用想象运动，而是并行使用，可以随时切换。我可以完全靠念头来控制，但我不知道，我喜欢折腾。我也喜欢拿这些东西做实验。时不时地，我脑子里会冒出一个想法："不知道这样行不行"，然后就开始试，事后我会告诉他们："对了，那段时间我没有按你们说的方式做。我想到了什么，就去试了，感觉能用，也许我们可以多研究一下这个方向。"
Lex FridmanSo I think that discovery’s not just for you, at least from my perspective. That’s a discovery for everyone else who ever uses a Neuralink that this is possible. I don’t think that’s an obvious thing that this is even possible. It’s like I was saying to Bliss earlier, it’s like the four-minute mile. People thought it was impossible to run a mile in four minutes and once the first person did it, then everyone just started doing it. So just to show that it’s possible, that paves the way to anyone can now do it. That’s the thing that’s actually possible. You don’t need to do the attempted movement, you can just go direct.我觉得这个发现不只是属于你的，至少从我的角度来看，这是对所有未来 Neuralink 用户的发现——证明这是可能的。我不认为"直接意念控制"是一件显而易见的事。就像我跟 Bliss 说的，这就像四分钟一英里——人们曾经认为这不可能，然后第一个人做到了，之后所有人都开始做到了。只是证明这是可能的，就为所有人铺平了道路。你不需要用尝试运动，可以直接跳到意念控制。
Noland ArbaughYeah. Yeah.对，没错。
Lex FridmanThat’s crazy.太疯狂了。
Noland ArbaughIt is crazy. It is crazy, yeah.确实疯，确实疯。
Lex FridmanFor people who don’t know, can you explain how the Link app works? You have an amazing stream on the topic. Your first stream, I think, on X describing, the app. Can you just describe how it works?对于不了解的人，你能解释一下 Link app 是怎么运作的吗？你有一个很棒的关于这个话题的直播，我记得你第一次在 X 上做直播，介绍那个 app。你能说说它是怎么工作的吗？
Noland ArbaughYeah, so it’s just an app that Neuralink created to help me interact with the computer. So on the Link app there are a few different settings, and different modes, and things I can do on it. So there’s the body mapping, which we kind of touched on. There’s a calibration. Calibration is how I actually get cursor control, so calibrating what’s going on in my brain to translate that into cursor control. So it will pop out models. What they use, I think, is time. So it would be five minutes and calibration will give me so good of a model, and then if I’m in it for 10 minutes and 15 minutes, the models will progressively get better. And so the longer I’m in it, generally, the better the models will get.当然。就是 Neuralink 做的一个 app，帮助我和电脑交互。Link app 里有几种不同的设置、模式和功能。有身体映射，我们稍微提到过了。还有校准——校准是我获得光标控制的方式，把大脑里发生的事情映射成光标控制。它会弹出模型，我想他们用时间来衡量，比如五分钟校准会给我一个不错的模型，在里面待 10 分钟、15 分钟，模型会越来越好。所以通常来说，待的时间越长，模型质量就越高。
Lex FridmanThat’s really cool because you often refer to the models. So the model’s the thing that’s constructed once you go through the calibration step.这真的很酷，因为你经常提到"模型"。所以模型就是你完成校准步骤之后构建出来的那个东西。
Noland ArbaughYeah.对。
Lex FridmanAnd then you also talked about sometimes you’ll play a really difficult game like Snake just to see how good the model is.你还提到说有时候你会玩 Snake 这种高难度游戏，就是为了测试模型有多好。
Noland ArbaughYeah. Yeah, so Snake is kind of like my litmus test for models. If I can control a snake decently well then I know I have a pretty good model. So yeah, the Link app has all of those. It has Webgrid in it now. It’s also how I connect to the computer just in general. So they’ve given me a lot of voice controls with it at this point. So I can say, “Connect,” or, “Implant disconnect,” and as long as I have that charger handy, then I can connect to it. So the charger is also how I connect to the Link app to connect to the computer. I have to have the implant charger over my head when I want to connect, to have it wake up, because the implant’s in hibernation mode always when I’m not using it. I think there’s a setting to wake it up every so long, so we could set it to half an hour, or five hours, or something, if I just want it to wake up periodically.对，所以 Snake 对我来说算是测试模型的试金石。如果我能把蛇控制得还不错，那说明模型挺好的。Link app 里这些功能都有。现在里面也加了 Webgrid。它也是我连接电脑的方式。他们现在给了我很多语音控制功能，我可以说"连接"或者"植入体断开"，只要充电器在手边，我就能连上。充电器也是我连接 Link app 再连接电脑的桥梁。想要连接的时候，充电器必须在我头上，让植入体唤醒，因为不用的时候植入体一直处于休眠模式。我想有一个设置可以让它定时唤醒，可以设成每半小时或每五小时之类的，如果我只是想让它定期醒来检查一下。
Noland ArbaughSo yeah, I’ll connect to the Link app and then go through all sorts of things, calibration for the day, maybe body mapping. I made them give me a little homework tab because I am very forgetful and I forget to do things a lot. So I have a lot of data collection things that they want me to do.所以我会连上 Link app，然后做一堆事情，每天的校准，也许还有身体映射。我让他们给我加了一个小"作业"标签，因为我很健忘，很多事容易忘。他们有很多数据收集任务想让我做。
Lex FridmanIs the body mapping part of the data collection or is that also part of the calibration?身体映射是数据收集的一部分，还是也算校准？
Noland ArbaughYeah, it is. It’s something that they want me to do daily, which I’ve been slacking on because I’ve been doing so much media and traveling so much. So I’ve been [inaudible 07:39:30]-对，算数据收集。他们希望我每天做，但我一直在偷懒，因为最近媒体活动太多了，到处跑……
Lex FridmanYou’ve gotten super famous.你现在超出名的。
Noland ArbaughYeah, I’ve been a terrible first candidate for how much I’ve been slacking on my homework. But yeah, it’s just something that they want me to do every day to track how well the Neuralink is performing over time and to have something to give, I imagine, to give to the FDA to create all sorts of fancy charts and stuff, and show like, hey, this is what the Neuralink… This is how it’s performing day one, versus day 90, versus day 180, and things like that.对，我这个第一位受试者，在完成"作业"这件事上表现糟透了。不过这就是他们想让我每天做的——跟踪 Neuralink 随时间推移的表现，以及我猜是给 FDA 提供数据，做各种精美的图表，展示 Neuralink 在第 1 天、第 90 天、第 180 天的表现对比之类的。
Lex FridmanWhat’s the calibration step like? Is it move left, move right?校准步骤是什么样的？是向左、向右这样？
Noland ArbaughIt’s a bubble game. So there will be yellow bubbles that pop up on the screen. At first, it is open loop. So open loop, this is something that I still don’t fully understand, the open loop and closed loop thing.是一个泡泡游戏。屏幕上会弹出黄色泡泡。一开始是开环。开环——这是我现在还没完全搞懂的，开环和闭环的区别。
Lex FridmanThe me and Bliss talked for a long time about the difference between the two on the technical side.我和 Bliss 聊了很长时间关于这两者在技术层面的区别。
Noland ArbaughOkay, yeah.好，嗯。
Lex FridmanSo it’d be great to hear your-所以听听你的——
Noland ArbaughOkay, so open-好，那开——
Lex Fridman… your side of the story.……你这边的理解。
Noland ArbaughOpen loop is basically I have no control over the cursor. The cursor will be moving on its own across the screen and I am following, by intention, the cursor to different bubbles. And then the algorithm is training off of what the signals it’s getting are as I’m doing this. There are a couple of different ways that they’ve done it. They call it center-out targets. So there will be a bubble in the middle and then eight bubbles around that, and the cursor will go from the middle to one side. So say, middle to left, back to middle, to up, to middle, up, right, and they’ll do that all the way around the circle. And I will follow that cursor the whole time, and then it will train off of my intentions, what it is expecting my intentions to be throughout the whole process.开环基本上就是我对光标没有控制权。光标自己在屏幕上移动，而我在用意图跟随光标到不同的泡泡位置。算法在整个过程中，根据我的意图所产生的信号进行训练。他们用了几种不同的方式。他们叫"中心扩散靶"。中间有一个泡泡，然后周围有八个泡泡，光标从中间移到一侧——比如从中间到左边，再回到中间，到上面，再到中间，到右上，一路绕完整圈。我全程跟着那个光标，算法就在这整个过程中，根据它预期我的意图是什么来进行训练。
Lex FridmanCan you actually speak to, when you say follow-你说的"跟随"——
Noland ArbaughYes.对。
Lex Fridman… you don’t mean with your eyes, you mean with your intentions?……你不是指用眼睛跟，你是指用意图跟，对吗？
Noland ArbaughYeah, so generally for calibration, I’m doing attempted movements because I think it works better. I think the better models, as I progress through calibration, make it easier to use imagined movements.对。一般校准时我用的是尝试运动，因为我觉得效果更好。我认为，模型越好——当我在校准中越往后推进——用想象运动就越来越容易。
Lex FridmanWait. Wait, wait, wait. So calibrated on attempted movement will create a model that makes it really effective for you to then use the force.等等，等等等等。所以用尝试运动校准出来的模型，反而能让你之后更有效地去"用原力"？
Noland ArbaughYes. I’ve tried doing calibration with imagined movement and it just doesn’t work as well for some reason. So that was the center-out targets. There’s also one where a random target will pop up on the screen and it’s the same. I just move, I follow along wherever the cursor is, to that target all across the screen. I’ve tried those with imagined movement and for some reason the models just don’t, they don’t give as high level as quality when we get into closed loop. I haven’t played around with it a ton, so maybe the different ways that we’re doing calibration now might make it a bit better. But what I’ve found is there will be a point in calibration where I can use imagined movement. Before that point, it doesn’t really work.对。我试过用想象运动来做校准，出于某种原因效果不一样好。那是中心扩散靶的方式。还有另一种是随机靶点在屏幕上随机弹出，也是一样的，光标去哪儿我就跟到哪儿，横跨整个屏幕。我用想象运动试过这些，但出于某种原因，等进入闭环的时候，那些模型质量就是不如用尝试运动高。我没有大量尝试过，也许现在做校准的不同方式会稍微改善这一点。但我发现在校准的某个时间点之后，我才可以用想象运动。在那个时间点之前，想象运动就是不起作用。
Noland ArbaughSo if I do calibration for 45 minutes, the first 15 minutes, I can’t use imagined movement. It just doesn’t work for some reason. And after a certain point, I can just feel it, I can tell. It moves different. That’s the best way I can describe it. It’s almost as if it is anticipating what I am going to do again, before I go to do it. And so using attempted movement for 15 minutes, at some point, I can tell when I move my eyes to the next target that the cursor is starting to pick up. It’s starting to understand, it’s learning what I’m going to do.比如说我做了 45 分钟校准，前 15 分钟，想象运动就是没用，不知道为什么就是不行。过了某个临界点，我能感觉到，我能看出来，感觉动起来不一样了。最好的描述是，感觉它在预判我下一步要做什么，在我做之前就开始了。所以用了 15 分钟的尝试运动之后，到某个时刻，我能发现当我把眼睛移向下一个靶点时，光标开始跟上来了，它开始理解，它在学习我的意图。
Lex FridmanSo first of all, it’s really cool that, you are a true pioneer in all of this. You’re exploring how to do every aspect of this most effectively and there’s just, I imagine, so many lessons learned from this. So thank you for being a pioneer in all these kinds of different super technical ways. And it’s also cool to hear that there’s a different feeling to the experience when it’s calibrated in different ways because I imagine your brain is doing something different and that’s why there’s a different feeling to it. And then trying to find the words and the measurements to those feelings would be also interesting. But at the end of the day, you can also measure your actual performance, on whether it’s Snake or Webgrid, you could see what actually works well. And you’re saying, for the open loop calibration, the attempted movement works best for now.首先，你真的是这一切的真正开拓者。你在探索如何把每个方面都做到最有效，我想这过程中积累的经验教训多得数不清。感谢你以这种方式，在这么多极其技术性的层面上做先行者。而且听到这些也很有意思——当以不同方式校准时，体验的感觉是不一样的，我想那是因为大脑在做不同的事情，所以感受才不同。试图为这些感受找到语言和量化指标，本身也会很有意思。但最终，你可以用 Snake 或 Webgrid 的实际表现来衡量，看什么方法真正好用。你的结论是，对于开环校准，目前用尝试运动效果最好。
Noland ArbaughYep. Yep.对，没错。
Lex FridmanSo the open loop, you don’t get the feedback that you did something.开环阶段你不会得到"你做了什么"的反馈。
Noland ArbaughYeah. I just-对，我只是——
Lex FridmanIs that frustrating? [inaudible 07:44:43]-这会令人沮丧吗？……
Noland ArbaughNo, no, it makes sense to me. We’ve done it with a cursor and without a cursor in open loop. So sometimes it’s just, say for the center out, you’ll start calibration with a bubble lighting up and I push towards that bubble, and then when it’s pushed towards that bubble for, say, three seconds, a bubble will pop and then I come back to the middle. So I’m doing it all just by my intentions. That’s what it’s learning anyway. So it makes sense that as long as I follow what they want me to do, follow the yellow brick road, that it’ll all work out.不，不，对我来说说得通。我们试过有光标和没光标两种开环方式。有时候就是——比如中心扩散，校准开始时一个泡泡亮起来，我就朝那个泡泡"推"，当我朝那个泡泡持续推了大约三秒，泡泡就爆掉，然后我回到中间。整个过程都靠意图完成。算法本来学的就是这个。所以对我来说合情合理——只要我跟着他们要我做的来，跟着黄砖路走，一切就会走上轨道。
Lex FridmanYou’re full of great references. Is the bubble game fun?你引用这些真是太妙了。泡泡游戏好玩吗？
Noland ArbaughYeah, they always feel so bad making me do calibration like, oh, we’re about to do a 40-minute calibration. I’m like, “All right, do you guys want to do two of them?” I’m always asking to… Whatever they need, I’m more than happy to do. And it’s not bad. I get to lie there or sit in my chair and do these things with some great people. I get to have great conversations. I can give them feedback. I can talk about all sorts of things. I could throw something on, on my TV in the background, and split my attention between them. It’s not bad at all. I don’t mind it.对，他们每次要让我做校准都会觉得很过意不去，"我们接下来要做 40 分钟的校准。"我就说："好，你们想做两轮吗？"我总是主动提，随便他们需要什么，我都乐意。也不难受。我可以躺着或者坐在椅子上，和一群很棒的人一起做这些。我们可以聊天，我可以给他们反馈，什么话题都能聊。我可以在背景开着电视，一边分心做别的。完全不难受，我不介意。
Lex FridmanIs there a score that you get?有没有得分？
Noland ArbaughNo.没有。
Lex FridmanCan you do better on a bubble game?泡泡游戏能不能做得更好？
Noland ArbaughNo, I would love that.没法，但我超想要。
Lex FridmanYeah.哈。
Noland ArbaughYeah, I would love a-对，我多希望能有一个——
Lex FridmanWriting down suggestions from Noland.记下来，Noland 的建议。
Noland ArbaughThat-那个——
Lex FridmanMake it more fun, gamified.做得更好玩，游戏化。
Noland ArbaughYeah, that’s one thing that I really, really enjoy about Webgrid is because I’m so competitive. The higher the BPS, the higher the score, I know the better I’m doing, and so if I… I think I’ve asked at one point, one of the guys, if he could give me some sort of numerical feedback for calibration. I would like to know what they’re looking at. Like, oh, we see this number while you’re doing calibration, and that means, at least on our end, that we think calibration is going well. And I would love that because I would like to know if what I’m doing is going well or not. But then they’ve also told me, yeah, not necessarily one to one. It doesn’t actually mean that calibration is going well in some ways. So it’s not like a hundred percent and they don’t want to skew what I’m experiencing or want me to change things based on that, if that number isn’t always accurate to how the model will turn out or the end result,. That’s at least what I got from it.对，Webgrid 有一点是我真的非常、非常喜欢的，因为我这人特别好胜。BPS 越高，分数越高，我就知道自己做得越好。我想我有一次问过其中一个同事，能不能给我某种数字反馈作为校准参考。我想知道他们在看什么数字——比如在校准过程中他们看到某个数值，那说明至少在他们那端，校准进展顺利。我很想要这个，因为我想知道自己做的对不对。但他们也告诉我，这个数值和最终模型好坏并不是完全一一对应的。并不是百分之百准确，而且他们不想因为一个不总是准确的数字，就影响我的感受或者让我改变做法。至少这是我理解的意思。
Noland ArbaughOne thing I have asked them, and something that I really enjoy striving for, is towards the end of calibration, there is a time between targets. And so I like to keep, at the end, that number as low as possible. So at the beginning it can be four or five, six seconds between me popping bubbles, but towards the end I like to keep it below 1.5 or if I could get it to one second between bubbles. Because in my mind, that translates really nicely to something like Webgrid, where I know if I can hit a target, one every second, that I’m doing real, real well.我向他们提出过的一个要求，也是我很享受的追求目标，是在校准接近尾声时，两个目标之间的间隔时间。我喜欢在最后阶段把这个时间压得尽可能低。开始时可能是四五六秒弹一个泡泡，但到最后我希望能保持在 1.5 秒以下，如果能做到每秒一个就更好了。因为在我的逻辑里，这和 Webgrid 上的感觉对得上——如果我能每秒击中一个目标，那说明我的状态真的很好。
Lex FridmanThere you go. That’s a way to get a score on the calibrations, like the speed. How quickly can you get from bubble to bubble?有了，这就是给校准打分的方式——看速度，从一个泡泡到下一个泡泡能多快。
Noland ArbaughYeah.对。
Lex FridmanSo there’s the open loop and then it goes to the closed loop.所以有开环，然后进入闭环。
Noland ArbaughClosed loop.闭环。
Lex FridmanAnd the closed loop can already start giving you a sense because you’re getting feedback of how good the model is.闭环让你已经能开始感受模型的好坏，因为你在得到反馈。
Noland ArbaughYeah. Yeah. So closed loop is when I first get cursor control, and how they’ve described it to me, someone who does not understand this stuff, I am the dumbest person in the room every time I’m with any of those guys.对，没错。闭环就是我第一次拿到光标控制的时刻，他们跟我解释过，按照对我这个完全外行来说能理解的方式——在那些同事面前，我每次都是房间里最笨的人。
Lex FridmanI love the humility. I appreciate it.我喜欢这种谦逊，很欣赏。
Noland ArbaughYeah, is that I am closing the loop. So I am actually now the one that is finishing the loop of whatever this loop is. I don’t even know what the loop is. They’ve never told me. They just say there is a loop and at one point it’s open and I can’t control, and then I get control and it’s closed. So I’m finishing the loop.对，就是说——我在"闭合"这个环路。所以我实际上是在把这个环路的另一端接上，完成整个回路。不过我也不知道那个"环"到底是什么。他们从来没告诉过我。就是说存在一个环，有时候它是开的，我控制不了，有时候我能控制了，就是闭合了。所以是我把这个环闭合的。
Lex FridmanSo how long the calibration usually take? You said 10, 15 minutes, [inaudible 07:48:52]-那校准通常要花多长时间？你说了 10 分钟、15 分钟……
Noland ArbaughWell, yeah, they’re trying to get that number down pretty low. That’s what we’ve been working on a lot recently, is getting that down is low as possible. So that way, if this is something that people need to do on a daily basis or if some people need to do on a every-other-day basis or once a week, they don’t want people to be sitting in calibration for long periods of time. I think they’ve wanted to get it down seven minutes or below, at least where we’re at right now. It’d be nice if you never had to do calibration. So we’ll get there at some point, I’m sure, the more we learn about the brain, and I think that’s the dream. I think right now, for me to get really, really good models, I’m in calibration 40 or 45 minutes. And I don’t mind, like I said, they always feel really bad, but if it’s going to get me a model that can break these records on Webgrid, I’ll stay in it for flipping two hours.是啊，他们也在努力把这个时间压下来，这是我们最近一直在做的——尽量压低。这样的话，如果这是人们需要每天做的事，或者有些人每隔一天做、或者一周做一次，他们不希望人们在校准上花太多时间。我想他们希望至少在我们现在的阶段，能压到 7 分钟或者更短。如果完全不需要做校准就更理想了，我相信我们总有一天会到那一步，随着对大脑了解得越来越深。我想那才是终极目标。目前对我来说，要拿到真的非常好的模型，我要在里面待 40 到 45 分钟。我不介意，就像我说的，他们总觉得很不好意思，但如果这能给我一个能在 Webgrid 上打破纪录的模型，我愿意待上整整两个小时。
Lex FridmanLet’s talk business. So Webgrid, I saw a presentation where Bliss said by March you selected 89,000 targets in Webgrid. Can you explain this game? What is Webgrid and what does it take to be a world-class performer in Webgrid, as you continue to break world records?说说正事吧。Webgrid，我看过一个演示，Bliss 说你到 3 月时已经在 Webgrid 里选中了 89,000 个目标。你能解释一下这个游戏吗？Webgrid 是什么？你在持续打破世界纪录的过程中，什么条件才算 Webgrid 的世界级水平？
Noland ArbaughYeah.嗯。
Lex FridmanIt’s like a gold medalist talk. Well, where do I begin?听起来像奥运金牌得主的采访。那我从哪儿说起呢？
Noland ArbaughYeah, I’d like thank-我想感谢——
Lex FridmanYeah, exactly.对，就是这样。
Noland Arbaugh… everyone who’s helped me get here, my coaches, my parents, for driving me to practice every day at 5:00 in the morning. I like to thank God and just overall my dedication to my craft. [inaudible 07:50:29].……所有帮助过我走到今天的人，我的教练、我的父母，每天早上五点开车送我去训练。感谢上帝，以及我对这项事业的整体奉献精神。（听不清）。
Lex FridmanYeah, the interviews with athletes, they’re always like that exact-对，运动员采访永远是那套模板——
Noland ArbaughYeah.哈哈。
Lex FridmanIt’s that template.就是那个格式。
Noland ArbaughYeah, so-哈哈，所以——
Lex FridmanSo Webgrid, is a-所以 Webgrid 是一个——
Noland ArbaughWebgrid is a-Webgrid 是一个——
Lex Fridman… grid of cells.……格子组成的网格。
Noland ArbaughYeah, it’s literally just a grid. They can make it as big or small as you can make a grid. A single box on that grid will light up and you go and click it. And it is a way for them to benchmark how good a BCI is. So it’s pretty straightforward. You just click targets.对，它就是一个格子网格，可以做成任意大小。网格里的某一个格子会亮起来，然后你去点击它。这是他们用来衡量 BCI 好坏的基准测试工具。很直白，就是点击目标。
Lex FridmanOnly one blue cell appears and you’re supposed to move the mouse to there and click on it.只有一个蓝色格子出现，你要把鼠标移过去点击它。
Noland ArbaughYep. So I like playing on bigger grids because the bigger the grid, the more BPS, it’s bits per second, that you get every time you click one. So I’ll say I’ll play on a 35 by 35 grid, and then one of those little squares, a cell, you can call it, target, whatever, will light up. And you move the cursor there, and you click it, and then you do that forever.对。我喜欢在更大的网格上玩，因为格子越大，每次点击获得的 BPS——bits per second（比特每秒）——就越高。比如我会在 35 × 35 的网格上玩，那些小格子，也可以叫"单元格""目标"，随便，会亮起来，你把光标移过去点击，然后一直这样做下去。
Lex FridmanAnd you’ve been able to achieve, at first, eight bits per second, then you’ve recently broke that.你一开始能做到每秒 8 比特，最近又打破了记录。
Noland ArbaughYeah. Yeah, I’m at 8.5 right now. I would’ve beaten that literally the day before I came to Austin. But I had a, I don’t know, a five-second lag right at the end, and I just had to wait until the latency calmed down, and then I kept clicking. But I was at 8.01, and then five seconds of lag, and then the next three targets I clicked all stayed at 8.01. So if I would’ve been able to click during that time of lag, I probably would’ve hit, I don’t know, I might’ve hit nine. So I’m there. I’m really close, and then this whole Austin trip has really gotten in the way of my Webgrid playing ability.对，我现在是 8.5。来 Austin 的前一天本来要突破那个记录的，但偏偏在最后出现了大概五秒的延迟，我只能等延迟消散，然后继续点击。但我那时候是 8.01，然后五秒延迟，接下来点的三个目标都停在了 8.01。如果那段延迟期间能点击的话，我可能会到 9，不敢说准，大概会到 9。所以我就差那一点，然后这趟 Austin 之行严重影响了我的 Webgrid 发挥。
Lex FridmanIt’s frustrating.真令人沮丧。
Noland ArbaughYeah, it’s-对——
Lex FridmanSo that’s all-所以——
Noland ArbaughI’ve been itching.我手痒得要命。
Lex Fridman… you’ve thinking about right now?……你现在满脑子在想这个？
Noland ArbaughYeah, I know. I just want to do better.对，我就想打得更好。
Lex FridmanAt nine.冲 9。
Noland ArbaughI want to do better. I want to hit nine, I think, well, I know nine is very, very achievable. I’m right there. I think 10 I could hit, maybe in the next month. I could do it probably in the next few weeks if I really push.我想打得更好。我想冲到 9，我觉得——我知道 9 完全能到达，我已经就在那里了。我觉得 10 我也能打，也许再过一个月就能到。如果真的拼一下，可能几周内就能做到。
Lex FridmanI think you and Elon are basically the same person because last time I did a podcast with him, he came in extremely frustrated that he can’t beat Uber Lilith as a Druid.我觉得你和 Elon 本质上是同一类人，上次我和他做播客，他进来时极度沮丧，因为他在 Diablo 里用德鲁伊打不过 Uber Lilith。
Noland Arbaugh[inaudible 07:52:51].（听不清）。
Lex FridmanThat was a year ago, I think, I forget, solo. And I could just tell there’s some percentage of his brain, the entire time was thinking, “I wish I was right now attempting.” [inaudible 07:53:01]-那是大概一年前，solo 通关，我记不太清了。我就能感觉出来，他大脑里有一定比例的注意力，整个采访过程中都在想："我现在多希望能去……"（听不清）——
Noland ArbaughYeah. I think he did it that night.嗯，我听说他那天晚上就去做了。
Lex FridmanHe did it that night. He stayed up and did it that night, which is crazy to me. In a fundamental way, it’s really inspiring and what you’re doing is inspiring in that way because it’s not just about the game. Everything you’re doing there has impact. By striving to do well on Webgrid, you’re helping everybody figure out how to create the system all along the decoding, the software, the hardware, the calibration, all of it. How to make all of that work so you can do everything else really well.他那天晚上就搞定了，熬夜把它完成了，这对我来说真的很离谱。从根本上来说，这很励志，你做的事情也在这个意义上很励志——因为这不只是关于游戏本身。你在 Webgrid 上做的一切都有深远影响。通过努力在 Webgrid 上做好，你在帮助所有人弄清楚，从解码、软件、硬件、校准，整个链路上，怎么让一切都运转良好，进而让你在其他所有事情上也能做好。
Noland ArbaughYeah, it’s just really fun.是，这只是真的很好玩。
Lex FridmanWell, that’s also, that’s part of the thing, is that making it fun.这也是关键所在，让它好玩。
Noland ArbaughYeah, it’s a addicting. I’ve joked about what they actually did when they went in and put this thing in my brain. They must’ve flipped a switch to make me more susceptible to these kinds of games, to make me addicted to Webgrid or something.对，会上瘾的。我开玩笑说，他们当时钻进我脑子里放东西的时候，一定顺手拨了个开关，让我对这类游戏更容易上瘾，让我沉迷 Webgrid 什么的。
Lex FridmanYeah.哈。
Noland ArbaughDo you know Bliss’s high score?你知道 Bliss 的最高纪录是多少吗？
Lex FridmanYeah, he said like 14 or something.他说大概 14 还是什么来着。
Noland Arbaugh17.17。
Lex FridmanOh, boy.哇哦。
Noland Arbaugh17.1 or something. 17.01?17.1 还是 17.01 来着？
Bliss Chapman17 on the dot.整整 17。
Noland Arbaugh17-17——
Bliss Chapman17.01.17.01。
Noland ArbaughYeah.嗯。
Lex FridmanHe told me he does it on the floor with peanut butter and he fasts. It’s weird. That sounds like cheating. Sounds like performance enhancing-他跟我说他在地板上涂着花生酱，还要禁食。太奇怪了。听起来像作弊，像使用了增强剂——
Bliss ChapmanNoland, the first time Noland played this game, he asked how good are we at this game? And I think you told me right then, you’re going to try to beat me [inaudible 07:54:24]-Noland，第一次玩这个游戏时，你问我们玩得有多好。我想你当时就告诉我了，你要超过我……（听不清）——
Noland ArbaughI’m going to get there someday.我总有一天会到那里的。
Bliss ChapmanYeah, I fully believe you.我完全相信你。
Noland ArbaughI think I can. I think I can. I think-我觉得我能。我觉得我能——
Bliss ChapmanI’m excited for that.我非常期待那一天。
Noland ArbaughYeah. So I’ve been playing, first off, with the dwell cursor, which really hampers my Webgrid playing ability. Basically I have to wait 0.3 seconds for every click.对。所以我一直用的是"停留点击"（dwell cursor），这个真的拖累了我的 Webgrid 成绩。基本上每次点击都要等 0.3 秒。
Lex FridmanOh, so you can’t do the click. So you click by dwelling, you said 0.3.哦，所以你没法直接点击，你靠停留来点击，你说的是 0.3 秒。
Noland Arbaugh0.3 seconds, which sucks. It really slows down how high I’m able to get. I still hit 50, I think I hit 50-something net trials per minute in that, which was pretty good because I’m able to… One of the settings is also how slow you need to be moving in order to initiate a click, to start a click. So I can tell, sort of, when I’m on that threshold, to start initiating a click just a bit early. So I’m not fully stopped over the target when I go to click, I’m doing it on my way to the targets a little, to try to time it just right.0.3 秒，很烦。这真的拉低了我的上限。但我还是打到了 50 多——我想我在那个模式下打到了 50 多次有效点击/分钟，已经挺不错的了，因为我可以……有一个设置是，你的移动速度需要低于多少才能触发点击。我能感觉到什么时候接近那个阈值了，所以我会稍微提前一点开始启动点击，不需要完全停在目标上才去点，而是在移动过去的途中就提前做动作，争取把时机掐得刚刚好。
Lex FridmanOh, wow.哇，厉害。
Noland ArbaughYeah.对。
Lex FridmanSo you’re slowing down.所以你在减速。
Noland ArbaughYeah, just a hair, right before the targets.对，就稍微减一丢丢，在目标之前。
Lex FridmanThis is like elite performance. Okay, but that’s still, it sucks that there’s a ceiling of the 0.3.这就是精英水平的发挥了。好，但 0.3 秒的上限确实是个瓶颈。
Noland ArbaughWell, I can get down to 0.2 and 0.1. 0.1’s what I’ve-其实我可以调到 0.2 和 0.1。0.1 是我试过——
Lex Fridman[inaudible 07:55:45].（听不清）。
Noland ArbaughYeah, and I’ve played with that a little bit too. I have to adjust a ton of different parameters in order to play with 0.1, and I don’t have control over all of that on my end yet. It also changes how the models are trained. If I train a model, like in Webgrid, I bootstrap on a model, which basically is them training models as I’m playing Webgrid based off of the Webgrid data that I’m… So if I play Webgrid for 10 minutes, they can train off that data specifically in order to get me a better model. If I do that with 0.3 versus 0.1, the models come out different. The way that they interact, it’s just much, much different. So I have to be really careful. I found that doing it with 0.3 is actually better in some ways. Unless I can do it with 0.1 and change all of the different parameters, then that’s more ideal, because obviously 0.3 is faster than 0.1. So I could get there. I can get there.对，我也稍微折腾过这个。用 0.1 需要调整一大堆参数，而这些参数我现在还没法在我自己这端全部控制。而且这也会影响模型的训练方式。如果我在 Webgrid 里做"bootstrap"——就是他们在我玩 Webgrid 的同时，直接用 Webgrid 的数据来训练模型——如果我玩了 10 分钟 Webgrid，他们就能专门用这批数据来训练，给我拿到更好的模型。如果用 0.3 和 0.1 分别做这个，训练出来的模型是不一样的，它们之间的交互方式差异很大。所以我必须非常谨慎。我发现在某些情况下用 0.3 其实更好，除非我能用 0.1 同时调整好所有参数，那才是更理想的，因为显然 0.3 秒比 0.1 秒慢。所以是可以到的，我能到。
Lex FridmanCan you click using your brain?你能用大脑直接点击吗？
Noland ArbaughFor right now, it’s the hover clicking with the dwell cursor. Before all the thread retraction stuff happened, we were calibrating clicks, left click, right click. That was my previous ceiling, before I broke the record again with the dwell cursor, was I think on a 35 by 35 grid with left and right click. And you get more BPS, more bits per second, using multiple clicks because it’s more difficult.目前是用停留光标来点击。在线程回缩那件事发生之前，我们在校准点击，左键点击和右键点击。那是我上次打破记录之前的上限——我想是在 35 × 35 的网格上，用左键和右键点击。用多种点击方式能拿到更高的 BPS——更多 bits per second，因为难度更大。
Lex FridmanOh, because what is it, you’re supposed to do either a left click or a right click?哦，因为你需要做左键点击或者右键点击？
Noland ArbaughYes.对。
Lex FridmanIs a different colors, something like this?是不同颜色的格子还是类似这样的区别？
Noland ArbaughDifferent colors.不同颜色。
Lex FridmanCool. Cool.好的，好的。
Noland ArbaughYeah, blue targets for left click, orange targets for right click is what they had done.对，左键点击用蓝色目标，右键点击用橙色目标，他们是这么设置的。
Lex FridmanGot it.明白了。
Noland ArbaughSo my previous record of 7.5-所以我之前的记录是 7.5——
Lex FridmanWas with the two clicks.是用两种点击方式创下的。
Noland Arbaugh… was with the blue and the orange targets, yeah, which I think if I went back to that now, doing the click calibration, I would be able to… And being able to initiate clicks on my own, I think I would break that 10 ceiling in a couple days, max.……是用蓝色和橙色目标创下的，对。我觉得如果我现在回去用那种方式，做一下点击校准，我应该能……而且能够自主发起点击的话，我觉得最多几天就能突破那个 10 的天花板。
Lex FridmanYeah, you would start making Bliss nervous about his 17.那样的话，你会让 Bliss 对他的 17 感到紧张的。
Noland ArbaughYeah, he should be.对，他应该紧张。
Bliss ChapmanWhy do you think we haven’t given him the-你觉得我们为什么没给他——
Noland ArbaughYeah.对啊。
Lex FridmanExactly. Exactly. So what did it feel like with the retractions, that some of the threads are retracted?没错，没错。那么当一些电极线缩回去之后，你是什么感受？
Noland ArbaughIt sucked. It was really, really hard. The day they told me was the day of my big Neuralink tour at their Fremont facility. They told me right before we went over there. It was really hard to hear. My initial reaction was, all right, go in, fix it. Go in, take it out and fix it. The first surgery was so easy. I went to sleep, a couple hours later I woke up and here we are. I didn’t feel any pain, didn’t take any pain pills or anything. So I just knew that if they wanted to, they could go in and put in a new one next day if that’s what it took because I wanted it to be better and I wanted not to lose the capability. I had so much fun playing with it for a few weeks, for a month. It had opened up so many doors for me. It had opened up so many more possibilities that I didn’t want to lose it after a month.真的很糟。那段时间非常非常难熬。他们告诉我那天，正好是我去 Neuralink 在 Fremont 的工厂参观大巡游的日子。就在我们出发之前，他们告诉了我这件事。听到这个消息真的很难受。我当时的第一反应是：好，进去，修好它。进去，取出来再修好。第一次手术太顺利了，我睡着了，几个小时后醒来就成了现在这样。我没有感到任何疼痛，没吃任何止痛药。所以我当时就知道，如果他们想的话，第二天就可以进去再放一个新的，不管需要什么，因为我希望它能更好，我不想失去这个能力。我有几个星期、整整一个月玩得非常开心，它为我打开了太多扇门，让我看到了太多之前没有的可能性，我不想在一个月之后就失去它。
Noland ArbaughI thought it would’ve been a cruel twist of fate if I had gotten to see the view from the top of this mountain and then have it all come crashing down after a month. And I knew, I say the top of the mountain, but how I saw it was I was just now starting to climb the mountain and there was so much more that I knew was possible. And so to have all of that be taken away was really, really hard. But then on the drive over to the facility, I don’t know, five minute drive, whatever it is, I talked with my parents about it. I prayed about it. I was just like, I’m not going to let this ruin my day. I’m not going to let this ruin this amazing tour that they have set up for me. I want to go show everyone how much I appreciate all the work they’re doing.我觉得，如果我好不容易登上了这座山顶看到了那片风景，然后一个月之后一切轰然崩塌，那真的是命运开的一个残忍玩笑。我知道，我说的"山顶"，但我当时的感受是：我才刚刚开始攀登这座山，前方还有太多我知道可以实现的东西。所以一下子失去这一切，真的非常非常难受。但是在开车去工厂的路上，也就五分钟的车程吧，我和父母聊了聊，也祈祷了一番。我就想，我不能让这件事毁掉我这一天。我不能让它毁掉他们为我精心安排的这次了不起的参观。我想去让大家知道我有多感激他们所做的一切。
Noland ArbaughI want to go meet all of the people who have made this possible, and I want to go have one of the best days of my life, and I did. And it was amazing, and it absolutely was one of the best days I’ve ever been privileged to experience. And then for a few days I was pretty down in the dumps, but for the first few days afterwards, I didn’t know if it was ever going to work again. And then I made the decision that, even if I lost the ability to use the Neuralink, even if I lost out on everything to come, if I could keep giving them data in any way, then I would do that.我想去见见所有让这一切成为可能的人，我想让那一天成为我人生中最美好的一天之一——我做到了。那天真的太棒了，绝对是我有幸经历过的最美好的日子之一。后来有几天我相当消沉，因为在那之后头几天，我不知道它是否还能再正常工作。但后来我做了一个决定：就算我失去了使用 Neuralink 的能力，就算我错过了后续所有的一切，只要我还能以任何方式给他们提供数据，我就会继续这样做。
Noland ArbaughIf I needed to just do some of the data collection every day or body mapping every day for a year, then I would do it because I know that everything I’m doing helps everyone to come after me, and that’s all I wanted. Just the whole reason that I did this was to help people, and I knew that anything I could do to help, I would continue to do, even if I never got to use the cursor again, then I was just happy to be a part of it. And everything that I had done was just a perk. It was something that I got to experience, and I know how amazing it’s going to be for everyone to come after me. So might as well just keep trucking along.哪怕我每天只是做一些数据采集或者身体映射，坚持一年，我也会做的，因为我知道我做的每一件事都能帮助到我之后的每一个人，这正是我当初参与这件事的全部原因。我就是想帮助别人。我知道不管我能做什么来帮忙，我都会继续做，就算我再也没有机会用光标了，能成为其中的一部分就已经让我很快乐了。我曾经经历的一切只是额外的收获，是我有幸体验到的东西，而我知道这对我之后的每一个人来说会有多么美好。所以不如就这样一路走下去吧。
Lex FridmanWell, that said, you were able to get to work your way up, to get the performance back. So this is like going from Rocky I to Rocky II. So when did you first realize that this is possible, and what gave you the strength, the motivation, the determination to do it, to increase back up and beat your previous record?话虽如此，你后来还是一步一步把成绩恢复回来了。这就像从《洛奇》第一部到第二部的故事。你是什么时候意识到这是有可能的？是什么给了你力量、动力和决心去一步一步恢复、并打破自己之前的记录？
Noland ArbaughYeah, it was within a couple weeks, [inaudible 08:01:44]-大概两周之内吧，[听不清 08:01:44]——
Lex FridmanAgain, this feels like I’m interviewing an athlete. This is great. I’d like thank my parents.这感觉像是我在采访一位运动员，太棒了。我要感谢我的父母。
Noland ArbaughThe road back was long and hard-回归之路漫长而艰辛——
Lex Fridman[inaudible 08:01:53] like a movie.[听不清 08:01:53] 就像一部电影。
Noland Arbaugh… fraught with many difficulties. There were dark days. It was a couple weeks, I think, and then there was just a turning point. I think they had switched how they were measuring the neuron spikes in my brain, the… Bliss help me out.……充满了重重困难，有过很黑暗的日子。大概两周之后，就有了一个转折点。我想是他们改变了测量我大脑神经元放电的方式……Bliss 帮我解释一下。
Bliss ChapmanYeah, the way in which we were measuring the behavior of individual neurons.对，就是我们测量单个神经元行为的方式。
Noland ArbaughYeah.对。
Bliss ChapmanSo we’re switching from individual spike detection to something called spike band power, which if you watch the previous segments with either me or DJ, you probably have some [inaudible 08:02:26]-我们从单个 spike 检测切换到了一种叫做 spike band power 的方法。如果你看过之前我或者 DJ 的那些片段，你应该对这个有一些了解——[听不清 08:02:26]——
Noland ArbaughYeah, okay.对，好。
Lex FridmanMm-hmm.嗯嗯。
Noland ArbaughSo when they did that, it was like a light over the head, light bulb moment, like, oh, this works and this seems like we can run with this. And I saw the uptick in performance immediately. I could feel it when they switched over. I was like, “This is better. This is good. Everything up until this point,” for the last few weeks, last, whatever, three or four weeks because it was before they even told me, “Everything before this sucked. Let’s keep doing what we’re doing now.” And at that point it was not like, oh, I know I’m still only at, say in Webgrid terms, four or five BPS compared to my 7.5 before, but I know that if we keep doing this, then I can get back there. And then they gave me the dwell cursor and the dwell cursor sucked at first. It’s obviously not what I want, but it gave me a path forward to be able to continue using it and hopefully to continue to help out. And so I just ran with it, never looked back. Like I said, I’m just kind of person, I roll with the punches anyway. So-所以他们做了这个切换之后，就像一道灵光乍现，我心想，哦，这行得通，而且看起来我们可以就这么跑下去了。我马上就感受到了性能的提升。他们切换过去的那一刻我就感觉到了，我说，"这更好了，这感觉对了。在这之前的一切，"——过去这几周、三四个星期，因为甚至在他们告诉我之前就开始了，——"之前那些全都很糟糕，让我们继续保持现在这样。" 到那个时候，我知道在 Webgrid 指标上，我还只有大概 4 到 5 BPS，比不上之前的 7.5，但我知道只要我们继续这样做，我就能回到那个水平。然后他们给了我悬停光标，悬停光标一开始很难用，显然不是我想要的东西，但它给了我一条路，让我能够继续使用它，也有望继续做出贡献。所以我就这样跑起来了，再也没有回头。就像我说的，我这个人本来就随遇而安，所以——
Lex FridmanWhat was the process? What was the feedback loop on the figuring out how to do the spike detection in a way that would actually work well for Noland?那个过程是什么样的？在摸索出适合 Noland 的 spike 检测方式这件事上，反馈循环是怎么运转的？
Bliss ChapmanYeah, it’s a great question. So maybe just to describe first how the actual update worked. It was basically an update to your implant. So we just did an over-the-air software update to his implants, same way you’d update your Tesla or your iPhone. And that firmware change enabled us to record averages of populations of neurons nearby individual electrodes. So we have less resolution about which individual neuron is doing what, but we have a broader picture of what’s going on nearby an electrode overall. And that feedback loop, basically as Noland described it, it was immediate when we flipped that switch. I think the first day we did that, you had three or four BPS right out of the box, and that was a light bulb moment for, okay, this is the right path to go down. And from there, there’s a lot of feedback around how to make this useful for independent use.是个好问题。也许先描述一下这次更新实际上是怎么进行的。基本上就是一次对植入物的更新，我们通过无线方式对他的植入物做了一次软件更新，就跟你更新 Tesla 或者 iPhone 一样。这次固件更新让我们能够记录每个电极附近神经元群体的平均活动。我们对单个神经元的分辨率降低了，但对每个电极附近整体发生的事情有了更宏观的了解。就像 Noland 描述的那样，反馈几乎是即时的——就在我们切换过去的那一刻。我记得第一天我们这样做的时候，他一开始就有了三四个 BPS，那就是一个灵光乍现的时刻：好，这是正确的方向。从那之后，围绕如何让它适合独立使用，我们有了大量的反馈。
Bliss ChapmanSo what we care about ultimately is that you can use it independently to do whatever you want. And to get to that point, it required us to re-engineer the UX, as you talked about with the dwell cursor, to make it something that you can use independently without us needing to be involved all the time. And yeah, this is obviously the start of this journey still. Hopefully we get back to the places where you’re doing multiple clicks and using that to control, much more fluidly, everything, and much more naturally the applications that you’re trying to interface with.我们最终关心的是你能不能独立地用它做你想做的事。为了达到这一点，需要我们重新设计用户体验，就像你们谈到的悬停光标，让它成为你可以独立使用的东西，不需要我们一直在旁边介入。是的，显然这段旅程还在刚刚起步，希望我们能回到你多次点击、更流畅地控制一切的阶段，更自然地与你想要操作的应用交互。
Lex FridmanAnd most importantly, get that Webgrid number up.最重要的是，把 Webgrid 的数字提上去。
Noland ArbaughYep.对。
Speaker 1Yes. [inaudible 08:04:57].是的。[听不清 08:04:57]
Noland ArbaughYeah.对。
Lex FridmanSo how is, on the hover click, do you accidentally click stuff sometimes?那么悬停点击这个方式，你有时候会不小心误点吗？
Noland ArbaughYep.会的。
Lex FridmanHow hard is it to avoid accidentally clicking?避免误点有多难？
Noland ArbaughI have to continuously keep it moving, basically. So like I said, there’s a threshold where it will initiate a click. So if I ever drop below that, it’ll start and I have 0.3 seconds to move it before it clicks anything.我基本上必须一直让光标保持移动。就像我说的，有一个阈值，一旦光标速度低于那个阈值就会触发点击。所以如果我一不小心低于那个速度，就会开始计时，我有 0.3 秒的时间把光标移走，否则就会点中任何东西。
Lex Fridman[inaudible 08:05:21].[听不清 08:05:21]
Noland ArbaughAnd if I don’t want it to ever get there, I just keep it moving at a certain speed and just constantly doing circles on screen, moving it back and forth, to keep it from clicking stuff. I actually noticed, a couple weeks back, that when I was not using the implant, I was just moving my hand back and forth or in circles. I was trying to keep the cursor from clicking and I was just doing it while I was trying to go to sleep. And I was like, “Okay, this is a problem.” [inaudible 08:05:52].如果我不想让它到达那个阈值，我就保持以一定速度移动，一直在屏幕上转圈或者来回移动，防止它误点。我甚至注意到，两周前，在我没用植入物的时候，我的手也在来回移动或者转圈。我是在下意识地防止光标误点，就这样一直到想睡觉为止。然后我想，"好吧，这是个问题。" [听不清 08:05:52]
Speaker 1[inaudible 08:05:51].[听不清 08:05:51]
Lex FridmanTo avoid the clicking. I guess, does that create problems when you’re gaming, accidentally click a thing? Like-是为了避免误点。那这在玩游戏的时候会不会造成麻烦，比如不小心点到了什么东西？
Noland ArbaughYeah. Yeah. It happens in chess.对，会的。下棋的时候就会出现这种情况。
Lex FridmanAccidental, yeah.误点，对。
Noland ArbaughI’ve lost a number of games because I’ll accidentally click something.我已经因为误点输掉好几盘棋了。
Bliss ChapmanI think the first time I ever beat you was because of an accidental click.我想我第一次赢你就是因为你误点了一下。
Noland ArbaughYeah, a misclick. Yeah.对，误点了。
Lex FridmanIt’s a nice excuse, right? You can always-这是个很好的借口，对吧？你可以一直——
Noland ArbaughYeah, [inaudible 08:06:12] it’s great. It’s perfect.对，[听不清 08:06:12] 太完美了。
Lex Fridman… anytime you lose, you could just say, “That was accidental.”……任何时候输了，你都可以说，"那是误点。"
Noland ArbaughYeah. Yeah.对，没错。
Lex FridmanYou said the app improved a lot from version one when you first started using it. It was very different. So can you just talk about the trial and error that you went through with the team? 200 plus pages of notes. What’s that process like of going back and forth and working together to improve the thing?你说这个应用从你刚开始用的第一版到现在改进了很多，变化很大。能不能聊聊你和团队一起经历的那些试错过程？200 多页的笔记，这个来来回回一起改进的过程是什么样的？
Noland ArbaughIt’s a lot of me just using it day in and day out and saying, “Hey, can you guys do this for me? Give me this. I want to be able to do that. I need this.” I think a lot of it just doesn’t occur to them maybe, until someone is actually using the app, using the implant. It’s just something that they just never would’ve thought of or it’s very specific to even me, maybe what I want. It’s something I’m a little worried about with the next people that come is maybe they will want things much different than how I’ve set it up or what the advice I’ve given the team, and they’re going to look at some of the things they’ve added for me. [inaudible 08:07:26] like, “That’s a dumb idea. Why would he ask for that?” And so I’m really looking forward to get the next people on because I guarantee that they’re going to think of things that I’ve never thought of.很大程度上就是我每天不停地用，然后说，"嘿，你们能帮我做这个吗？给我这个功能。我想要能做那件事。我需要这个。" 我觉得很多需求对他们来说可能根本不会想到，直到真的有人开始实际用这个应用、用这个植入物。这些都是他们永远不会想到的事情，或者说，甚至可能是非常具体到我个人的需求。我有点担心的一件事是，下一批人可能会有和我完全不同的想法，他们可能会看到我给团队提的一些建议和加进去的功能，[听不清 08:07:26] 然后说，"这个主意真蠢，他为什么要这样要求？" 所以我非常期待接纳下一批用户，因为我保证他们一定会想到一些我从来没想到的东西。
Noland ArbaughThey’re going to think of improvements something like, wow, that’s a really good idea. I wish I would’ve thought of that. And then they’re also going to give me some pushback about, yeah, what you are asking them to do here, that’s a bad idea. Let’s do it this way. And I’m more than happy to have that happen, but it’s just a lot of different interactions with different games or applications, the internet, just with the computer in general. There’s tons of bugs that end up popping up, left, right, center.他们会想出一些改进，让人觉得，哇，这个主意真好，我怎么没想到。他们也会反过来推翻我的一些想法，说，"你让他们做的这个，是个坏主意，我们换一种方式。" 我完全乐意接受这种情况发生。但就目前来说，大多数还是各种不同游戏或应用的交互问题，还有上网和使用电脑这件事本身，各种各样的 bug 层出不穷。
Noland ArbaughSo it’s just me trying to use it as much as possible and showing them what works and what doesn’t work, and what I would like to be better. And then they take that feedback and they usually create amazing things for me. They solve these problems in ways I would’ve never imagined. They’re so good at everything they do, and so I’m just really thankful that I’m able to give them feedback and they can make something of it, because a lot of my feedback is really dumb. It’s just like, “I want this, please do something about it,” and it’ll come back, super well-thought-out, and it’s way better than anything I could have ever thought of or implemented myself. So they’re just great. They’re really, really cool.所以就是我尽可能多地使用它，向他们展示什么有效、什么没效，以及我希望改进的地方。然后他们把这些反馈带回去，通常都能做出很了不起的东西。他们解决问题的方式是我完全没有想象到的，他们做每一件事都那么厉害。所以我真的很感激，我能给出反馈，他们能把它变成现实，因为我的很多反馈其实很蠢，就是那种"我想要这个，请帮我做点什么"，然后拿回来的东西经过了深思熟虑，比我自己想到的或者能实现的任何方案都要好得多。他们真的很了不起，真的非常非常酷。
Lex FridmanAs the BCI community grows, would you like to hang out with the other folks with Neuralinks? What relationship, if any, would you want to have with them? Because you said they might have a different set of ideas of how to use the thing.随着 BCI 社区不断壮大，你有没有想过和其他装了 Neuralink 的人建立联系？如果有的话，你希望和他们保持什么样的关系？因为你说他们可能对如何使用这个东西有完全不同的想法。
Noland ArbaughYeah.对。
Lex FridmanWould you be intimidated by their Webgrid performance?你会因为他们的 Webgrid 成绩而感到压力吗？
Noland ArbaughNo. No. I hope-不会。我希望——
Lex FridmanCompete.去竞争。
Noland ArbaughI hope, day one, they wipe the floor with me. I hope they beat it and they crush it, double it if they can, just because on one hand it’s only going to push me to be better because I’m super competitive. I want other people to push me. I think that is important for anyone trying to achieve greatness is they need other people around them who are going to push them to be better. And I even made a joke about it on X once, once the next people get chosen, cue buddy cop music. I’m just excited to have other people to do this with and to share experiences with. I’m more than happy to interact with them as much as they want, more than happy to give them advice. I don’t know what kind of advice I could give them, but if they have-我希望他们从第一天起就把我碾压了。我希望他们能超过我、把记录砸烂，如果可以的话，把成绩翻一倍。一方面是因为这只会逼着我变得更好，因为我超级好胜。我需要身边有人来推动我。我觉得，任何想要追求卓越的人，都需要身边有能推动他们变得更好的人。我甚至在 X 上开过一个玩笑，说等下一批人确定之后，哥们组合的音乐就要响起来了。我就是很兴奋能有其他人一起做这件事，一起分享经历。我非常乐意和他们尽可能多地互动，也非常乐意给他们一些建议。我不知道我能给出什么建议，但如果他们有——
Noland Arbaugh… give them advice. I don’t know what advice I could give them, but if they have questions, I’m more than happy.……给他们建议。我不知道我能给出什么建议，但如果他们有问题，我非常乐意。
Lex FridmanWhat advice would you have for the next participant in the clinical trial?你对临床试验的下一位参与者有什么建议？
Noland ArbaughThat they should have fun with this, because it is a lot of fun, and that I hope they work really, really hard because it’s not just for us, it’s for everyone that comes after us. And come to me if they need anything. And to go to Neuralink if they need anything. Man, Neuralink moves mountains. They do absolutely anything for me that they can, and it’s an amazing support system to have. It puts my mind at ease for so many things that I have had questions about or so many things I want to do, and they’re always there, and that’s really, really nice. And so I would tell them not to be afraid to go to Neuralink with any questions that they have, any concerns, anything that they’re looking to do with this. And any help that Neuralink is capable of providing, I know they will. And I don’t know. I don’t know. Just work your ass off because it’s really important that we try to give our all to this.要享受这个过程，因为真的很有趣。我也希望他们能非常非常努力，因为这不只是为了我们，也是为了我们之后的每一个人。有任何需要都可以来找我，也可以去找 Neuralink。Neuralink 能移山，他们真的为我做了一切他们力所能及的事，那是一个了不起的支撑体系。很多我曾经有过疑问的事、很多我想做的事，有他们在旁边让我心安。他们一直都在，这真的非常非常好。所以我会告诉他们，不要害怕去找 Neuralink 提任何问题、说出任何顾虑、分享任何他们想用这个做的事情。我知道只要 Neuralink 有能力提供帮助，他们一定会的。还有……我不知道，就是拼尽全力，因为我们真的需要全力以赴。
Lex FridmanSo have fun and work hard.所以就是：享受过程，努力拼搏。
Noland ArbaughYeah. Yeah. There we go. Maybe that’s what I’ll just start saying to people. Have fun, work hard.对，就是这样。也许这就是我以后对人说的话。享受过程，努力拼搏。
Lex FridmanNow you’re a real pro athlete. Just keep it short. Maybe it’s good to talk about what you’ve been able to do now that you have a Neurolink implant, the freedom you gain from this way of interacting with the outside world. You play video games all night and you do that by yourself, and that’s the freedom. Can you speak to that freedom that you gain?现在你是真正的职业运动员了，就说这么简洁的几个字就好。也许可以聊一聊，现在有了 Neuralink 植入物之后你能做到什么——你从与外部世界交互的这种方式中获得了什么样的自由。你能整晚自己玩电子游戏，那种自由感是什么？
Noland ArbaughYeah. It’s what all… I don’t know, people in my position want. They just want more independence. The more load that I can take away from people around me, the better. If I’m able to interact with the world without using my family, without going through any of my friends, needing them to help me with things, the better. If I’m able to sit up on my computer all night and not need someone to sit me up, say, on my iPad, in a position where I can use it, and then have to have them wait up for me all night until I’m ready to be done using it, it takes a load off of all of us and it’s really all I can ask for. It’s something that I could never thank Neuralink enough for, and I know my family feels the same way. Just being able to have the freedom to do things on my own at any hour of the day or night, it means the world to me and… I don’t know.这正是……我不知道，像我这种情况的人都想要的。大家就是想要更多的独立性。我能从身边的人身上减轻的负担越多越好。如果我能够在不依靠家人、不需要朋友帮我的情况下与世界互动，那就再好不过了。如果我能整晚坐在电脑前，不需要有人把我扶起来、帮我把 iPad 放到我能用的位置，然后还要陪我等到我用完为止——不需要这些，就减轻了我们所有人的负担。这真的是我所能求的一切。这件事对我来说，多少 Neuralink 的感谢都不够，我知道我的家人也有同样的感受。就是能够随时随地自由地做自己的事，这对我来说意义重大……我不知道该怎么说。
Lex FridmanWhen you’re up at 2:00 AM playing Webgrid by yourself, I just imagine it’s darkness and there’s just a light glowing and you’re just focused. What’s going through your mind? Or you were in a state of flow where it’s like the mind is empty like those Zen masters.当你凌晨 2 点自己在玩 Webgrid 的时候，我能想象那个画面——漆黑一片，只有一道光亮，你全神贯注。你脑子里在想什么？还是说你进入了一种心流状态，脑子里什么都没有，就像那些禅师一样？
Noland ArbaughYeah. Generally, it is me playing music of some sort. I have a massive playlist, and so I’m just rocking out to music. And then it’s also just a race against time, because I’m constantly looking at how much battery percentage I have left on my implant, like, “All right. I have 30%, which equates to X amount of time, which means I have to break this record in the next hour and a half or else it’s not happening tonight.” And so it’s a little stressful when that happens. When it’s above 50%, I’m like, “Okay, I got time.” It starts getting down to 30, and then 20 it’s like, “All right, 10%, a little popup is going to pop up right here, and it’s going to really screw my Webgrid flow. It’s going to tell me that… The low battery popup comes up and I’m like, “It’s really going to screw me over. So if I’m going to break this record, I have to do it in the next 30 seconds,” or else that popup is going to get in the way, cover my Webgrid.一般来说，我都在放某种音乐。我有一个超长的播放列表，就一边听音乐一边嗨。然后就是和时间赛跑，因为我不停地盯着植入物还剩多少电量，"好，还有 30%，换算成时间的话，意味着我必须在接下来一个半小时内破记录，否则今晚就没戏了。" 所以这个时候会有点紧迫感。电量在 50% 以上的时候我还比较从容，"好，时间还够。" 掉到 30% 开始就有点慌了，掉到 20% 的时候就是，"好了，10% 的时候会弹出一个低电量提示，那个提示会严重干扰我的 Webgrid 状态。它会告诉我……低电量弹窗一出来我就心想，'这真的会把我搞砸。所以如果我要破这个记录，必须在接下来 30 秒内做到，'" 否则那个弹窗就会挡住我的 Webgrid 界面。
Noland ArbaughAnd then after that, I go click on it, go back into Webgrid, and I’m like, “All right, that means I have 10 minutes left before this thing’s dead.” That’s what’s going on in my head, generally. That and whatever song’s playing. And I want to break those records so bad. It’s all I want when I’m playing Webgrid. It has become less of like, “Oh, this is just a leisurely activity. I just enjoy doing this because it just feels so nice and it puts me at ease.” It is, “No. Once I’m in Webgrid, you better break this record or you’re going to waste five hours of your life right now.” And I don’t know. It’s just fun. It’s fun, man.点掉它，回到 Webgrid，然后心想，"好，这意味着我还有 10 分钟，这玩意就要没电了。" 这大概就是我脑子里在想的，再加上当时放的那首歌。我非常渴望打破那些记录，那是玩 Webgrid 的时候我唯一想要的东西。它已经不再是那种"哦，这不过是一个休闲活动，我就是享受这个感觉，让我放松"的东西了。它变成了，"不行。一旦进入 Webgrid，你要么打破这个记录，要么就是白白浪费了五个小时的人生。" 我不知道，就是很好玩，真的很好玩，兄弟。
Lex FridmanHave you ever tried Webgrid with two targets and three targets? Can you get higher BPS with that?你有没有试过在 Webgrid 里设置两个或者三个目标？那样 BPS 能更高吗？
Noland ArbaughCan you do that?可以这样做吗？
Bliss ChapmanYou mean different colored targets or you mean-你是说不同颜色的目标，还是说——
Lex FridmanOh, multiple targets. Does that change the thing?哦，是同时有多个目标，那会改变什么吗？
Bliss ChapmanYeah. So BPS is a log of number of targets times correct minus incorrect, divided by time. And so you can think of different clicks as basically double the number of active targets.会的。BPS 是目标数量乘以（正确次数减去错误次数）再除以时间的对数。所以你可以理解为，多一种点击方式，基本上就等于把有效目标数量翻倍。
Lex FridmanGot it.明白了。
Bliss ChapmanSo basically higher BPS, the more options there are, the more difficult the task. And there’s also Zen mode you’ve played in before, which is infinite-所以基本上是这样：目标越多、BPS 越高，任务难度也越大。还有一种 Zen 模式，你以前玩过的，就是无限——
Noland ArbaughYeah. Yeah. It covers the whole screen with a grid and… I don’t know-对，对。整个屏幕都铺满了格子，然后……我不知道——
Lex FridmanAnd so you can go… That’s insane.这样的话你就可以……这太疯狂了。
Noland ArbaughYeah.对。
Bliss ChapmanHe doesn’t like it because it didn’t show BPS, so-他不喜欢，因为那个模式不显示 BPS，所以——
Noland ArbaughI had them put in a giant BPS in the background, so now it’s the opposite of Zen mode. It’s super hard mode, just metal mode. If it’s just a giant number in the back [inaudible 08:16:01].我让他们在背景里放了一个超大的 BPS 数字，所以现在它变成了 Zen 模式的对立面，是超级困难模式，就叫做 metal 模式。就是背后有一个巨大的数字 [听不清 08:16:01]。
Bliss ChapmanWe should renamed that. Metal mode is a much better [inaudible 08:16:03].我们应该给那个模式改个名字，metal 模式这个名字比[听不清 08:16:03]好多了。
Lex FridmanSo you also play Civilization VI.那你还玩 Civilization VI。
Noland ArbaughI love Civ VI. Yeah.我超爱《文明 VI》，对。
Lex FridmanUsually go with Korea, you said?你说你一般选韩国？
Noland ArbaughI do. Yeah. So the great part about Korea is they focus on science tech victories, which was not planned. I’ve been playing Korea for years, and then all of the [inaudible 08:16:23] stuff happened, so it aligns. But what I’ve noticed with tech victories is if you can just rush tech, rush science, then you can do anything. At one point in the game, you’ll be so far ahead of everyone technologically that you’ll have musket men, infantrymen, planes sometimes, and people will still be fighting with bows and arrows. And so if you want to win a domination victory, you just get to a certain point with the science, and then go and wipe out the rest of the world. Or you can just take science all the way and win that way, and you’re going to be so far ahead of everyone because you’re producing so much science that it’s not even close. I’ve accidentally won in different ways just by focusing on science.对。韩国有个很厉害的地方，就是它专注于科技胜利，这不是我刻意设计的。我玩韩国已经好几年了，后来各种 [听不清 08:16:23] 的事情发生了，感觉非常应景。但我发现，科技胜利的关键在于，只要你能猛冲科技、猛攻科研，你就能做任何事。游戏到了某个时间点，你在科技上领先所有人太多，以至于你有了火枪兵、步兵、甚至飞机，而对手还在用弓箭打仗。所以如果你想赢得统治胜利，只需要把科技推到某个程度，然后去灭掉剩下的文明就好了。或者就一路狂推科技拿下科技胜利，你产出的科研点数多到其他人根本没法比。我甚至靠着专注科技，不小心以不同方式赢了好几次。
Lex FridmanAccidentally won by focusing on science-不小心靠专注科技就赢了——
Noland ArbaughYeah. I was playing only science, obviously. Just science all the way, just tech. And I was trying to get every tech in the tech tree and stuff, and then I accidentally won through a diplomatic victory, and I was so mad. I was so mad because it just ends the game one turn. It was like, “Oh, you won. You’re so diplomatic.” I’m like, “I don’t want to do this. I should have declared war on more people or something.” It was terrible. But you don’t need giant civilizations with tech, especially with Korea. You can keep it pretty small. So I generally just get to a certain military unit and put them all around my border to keep everyone out, and then I will just build up. So very isolationist.对。我当时一心只搞科技，完全沿着科技路线推，就是想把科技树里每一个科技都点满。结果我不小心靠外交胜利赢了，我当时气死了，气死了。因为这种胜利是在某一回合突然就结束的，它就说，"恭喜你赢了，你太有外交手腕了。" 我心想，"我根本不想这样赢，我早应该多对几个人宣战的。" 太惨了。不过靠科技的话，你不需要庞大的帝国，尤其是玩韩国。你可以保持比较小的体量。所以我一般就是发展到某个军事单位，然后把它们全部部署在边境防御，让所有人进不来，然后一心内建。非常孤立主义。
Lex FridmanNice.不错啊。
Noland ArbaughYeah.对。
Lex FridmanJust work on the science and the tech.就专注搞科学和科技。
Noland ArbaughYep, that’s it.对，就是这样。
Lex FridmanYou’re making it sound so fun.你说得让我觉得好好玩。
Noland ArbaughIt’s so much fun.真的超好玩。
Lex FridmanAnd I also saw a Civilization VII trailer.我还看到了《文明 VII》的预告片。
Noland ArbaughOh, man. I’m so pumped.哦，天哪，我太期待了。
Lex FridmanAnd that’s probably coming out-那应该快出了——
Noland ArbaughCome on Civ VII, hit me up. All alpha, beta tests, whatever.快出来啊《文明 VII》，有 alpha 测试、beta 测试什么的都来找我。
Lex FridmanWait, when is it coming out?等等，它什么时候出？
Noland Arbaugh2025.2025 年。
Lex FridmanYeah, yeah, next year. Yeah. What other stuff would you like to see improved about the Neuralink app and just the entire experience?对对，明年。你还希望 Neuralink 的应用和整体体验有哪些改进？
Noland ArbaughI would like to, like I said, get back to the click on demand, the regular clicks. That would be great. I would like to be able to connect to more devices. Right now, it’s just the computer. I’d like to be able to use it on my phone or use it on different consoles, different platforms. I’d like to be able to control as much stuff as possible, honestly. An Optimus robot would be pretty cool. That would be sick if I could control an Optimus robot. The Link app itself, it seems like we are getting pretty dialed in to what it might look like down the road. It seems like we’ve gotten through a lot of what I want from it, at least. The only other thing I would say is more control over all the parameters that I can tweak with my cursor and stuff. There’s a lot of things that go into how the cursor moves in certain ways, and I have… I don’t know. Three or four of those parameters, and there might-我希望，就像我说的，能回到按需点击、就是普通点击的状态，那就太好了。我还希望能连接更多设备，现在只能用电脑。我想能在手机上用，或者在不同游戏主机、不同平台上用。说实话，我希望能控制尽可能多的东西。能控制一个 Optimus 机器人会很酷，那真的很酷。Link 应用本身，感觉我们已经越来越接近它最终形态了，至少从我的角度来说，很多我想要的东西已经到位了。另外我希望的就是，对光标各种参数有更多控制权。光标移动的方式涉及很多参数，我现在大概有三四个可以调节的，但可能还有——
Lex FridmanGain and friction and all that.增益、摩擦力之类的。
Noland ArbaughGain and friction, yeah. And there’s maybe double the amount of those with just velocity and then with the actual [inaudible 08:19:51] cursor. So I would like all of it. I want as much control over my environment as possible, especially-增益和摩擦力，对。可能还有大概双倍那么多，光是速度和实际的 [听不清 08:19:51] 光标就有很多。所以我想要全部。我想要对我的操作环境有尽可能多的控制权，尤其是——
Lex FridmanSo you want advanced mode. There’s usually this basic mode, and you’re one of those folks, the power-user, advanced-你想要高级模式，通常有个基础模式，而你是那种高级用户、进阶模式——
Noland ArbaughYeah. Yeah.对，就是这样。
Lex FridmanGot it.明白了。
Noland ArbaughThat’s what I want. I want as much control over this as possible. So, yeah, that’s really all I can ask for. Just give me everything.这就是我想要的。我想对这个东西有尽可能多的控制权。所以，就这些了，真的就是把所有的都给我。
Lex FridmanHas speech been useful? Just being able to talk also in addition to everything else?语音功能有用吗？除了其他所有功能之外，能说话这件事？
Noland ArbaughYeah, you mean while I’m using it?你是说在我用它的时候吗？
Lex FridmanWhile you’re using it? Speech-to-text?你在用它的时候？语音转文字？
Noland ArbaughOh, yeah.哦，对，有用。
Lex FridmanOr do you type… Because there’s also a keyboard-还是说你打字……因为也有键盘——
Noland ArbaughYeah, yeah, yeah. So there’s a virtual keyboard. That’s another thing I would like to work more on is finding some way to type or text in a different way. Right now, it is a dictation basically and a virtual keyboard that I can use with the cursor, but we’ve played around with finger spelling, sign language finger spelling, and that seems really promising. So I have this thought in my head that it’s going to be a very similar learning curve that I had with the cursor where I went from attempted movement to imagine movement at one point. I have a feeling, this is just my intuition, that at some point, I’m going to be doing finger spelling and I won’t need to actually attempt to finger spell anymore, that I’ll just be able to think the letter that I want and it’ll pop up.对对对。有一个虚拟键盘。这也是我想继续深入探索的——找到用不同方式打字或者发短信的方法。现在主要是语音听写和一个可以用光标控制的虚拟键盘，但我们试验过手指拼写、手语字母拼写，看起来很有潜力。我脑子里有个想法，觉得学习曲线会和光标的那段经历非常相似——我当时从尝试移动变成了想象移动。我有一种直觉，这只是我的直觉，觉得到了某个时间点，我在做手指拼写的时候，不再需要真的去尝试做手势，而是只需要在脑子里想那个字母，它就会出现。
Lex FridmanThat would be epic. That’s challenging. That’s hard. That’s a lot of work for you to take that leap, but that would be awesome.那会很史诗级。这个很有挑战性，工作量很大，要做到那一步需要付出很多，但那真的会很了不起。
Noland ArbaughAnd then going from letters to words is another step. Right now, it’s finger spelling of just the sign language alphabet, but if it’s able to pick that up, then it should be able to pick up the whole sign language language, and so then if I could do something along those lines, or just the sign language spelled word, if I can spell it at a reasonable speed and it can pick that up, then I would just be able to think that through and it would do the same thing. After what I saw with the cursor control, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work, but we’d have to play around with it more.而且从字母到词汇又是另一步。现在是用手语字母表逐字母拼写，但如果它能捕捉到这些，就应该能捕捉到整套手语语言。那如果我能做到类似的事情，或者说只是用手语拼出单词，只要我能以合理的速度拼出来，它能识别到，那我就能只是在脑子里想，它就能做同样的事情。在看到光标控制的结果之后，我想不出有什么理由说这不可行，但还需要更多的尝试。
Lex FridmanWhat was the process in terms of training yourself to go from attempted movement to imagined movement? How long did that take? So how long would this process take?从尝试移动到想象移动这个过程，你是怎么训练自己做到的？花了多长时间？所以这个过程大概要多久？
Noland ArbaughWell, it was a couple weeks before it just happened upon me. But now that I know that that was possible, I think I could make it happen with other things. I think it would be much, much simpler.大概两周之后它就自然而然地来了。但现在我知道这是可能的，我觉得我可以让它更快发生在其他事情上。我觉得会简单得多。
Lex FridmanWould you get an upgraded implant device?你会换一个升级版的植入设备吗？
Noland ArbaughSure, absolutely. Whenever they’ll let me.当然，绝对会。只要他们允许，随时都行。
Lex FridmanSo you don’t have any concerns for you with the surgery experience? All of it was no regrets?那手术体验你没有任何顾虑？整件事你都不后悔？
Noland ArbaughNo.不后悔。
Lex FridmanSo everything’s been good so far?到目前为止一切都好？
Noland ArbaughYep.对。
Lex FridmanYou just keep getting upgrades.你就一直在升级。
Noland ArbaughYeah. I mean, why not? I’ve seen how much it’s impacted my life already, and I know that everything from here on out, it’s just going to get better and better. So I would love to get the upgrade.对啊，为什么不呢？我已经看到它对我的生活影响有多大了，我知道从这里开始一切只会越来越好。所以我非常想要升级。
Lex FridmanWhat future capabilities are you excited about? So beyond this telepathy, is vision interesting? So for folks, for example, who are blind, so Neuralink enabling people to see, or for speech.你对哪些未来的功能感到兴奋？除了这个心灵感应，视觉方面有没有让你感兴趣的？比如对失明的人来说，Neuralink 帮助他们重新看见，或者语音方面的功能。
Noland ArbaughYeah, there’s a lot that’s very, very cool about this. I mean, we’re talking about the brain, so this is just motor cortex stuff. There’s so much more that can be done. The vision one is fascinating to me. I think that is going to be very, very cool. To give someone the ability to see for the first time in their life would just be… I mean, it might be more amazing than even helping someone like me. That just sounds incredible. The speech thing is really interesting. Being able to have some real-time translation and cut away that language barrier would be really cool. Any actual impairments that it could solve with speech would be very, very cool.对，这里面有很多非常非常酷的东西。我们谈的是大脑，所以这只是运动皮层的部分，还有太多太多可以做的事情。视觉那个对我来说太吸引人了，我觉得那会非常非常酷。让一个人生平第一次拥有视力，这……我是说，这甚至可能比帮助像我这样的人更了不起。听起来就难以置信。语音这件事也非常有趣。能实现实时翻译、消除语言障碍，那真的会很酷。任何能解决语言表达障碍的应用，都会非常非常酷。
Noland ArbaughAnd then also, there are a lot of different disabilities that all originate in the brain, and you would be able to hopefully be able to solve a lot of those. I know there’s already stuff to help people with seizures that can be implanted in the brain. I imagine the same thing. And so you could do something like that. I know that even someone like Joe Rogan has talked about the possibilities with being able to stimulate the brain in different ways. I’m not sure how ethical a lot of that would be. That’s beyond me, honestly. But I know that there is a lot that can be done when we’re talking about the brain and being able to go in and physically make changes to help people or to improve their lives. So I’m really looking forward to everything that comes from this. And I don’t think it’s all that far off. I think a lot of this can be implemented within my lifetime, assuming that I live a long life.而且还有很多起源于大脑的残障，说不定都能得到解决。我知道已经有可以帮助癫痫患者的脑植入设备了，我想 Neuralink 也可以做类似的事情。我知道就连 Joe Rogan 也谈过以不同方式刺激大脑的可能性。其中有多少符合伦理我不太确定，坦白说这超出了我的认知范围。但我知道，当我们谈论的是大脑、谈论的是能够进入其中并做出实质性改变来帮助人们或改善他们的生活时，能做的事情实在是太多了。所以我非常期待这一切带来的所有可能。我也不认为这一切有多遥远，我觉得很多都能在我的有生之年实现——假设我能活得长久的话。
Lex FridmanWhat you were referring to is things like people suffering from depression or things of that nature, potentially getting help.你提到的那些，比如帮助抑郁症患者或者类似问题的可能性。
Noland ArbaughYeah, flip a switch like that, make someone happy. I think Joe has talked about it more in terms of you want to experience what a drug trip feels like. You want to experience what it’d be like to be on mushrooms or something like that, DMT. You can just flip that switch in the brain. My buddy, Bain, has talked about being able to wipe parts of your memory and re-experience things for the first time, like your favorite movie or your favorite book, just wipe that out real quick, and then re-fall in love with Harry Potter or something. I told him, I was like, “I don’t know how I feel about people being able to just wipe parts of your memory. That seems a little sketchy to me.” He’s like, “They’re already doing it.”对，就像翻一个开关，让人变得开心起来。我觉得 Joe 谈到的更多的是，你想体验一次致幻剂之旅的感觉，想体验一下迷幻蘑菇或者 DMT 是什么感觉，在大脑里翻一个开关就行了。我朋友 Bain 谈到过，能不能抹去大脑里的某段记忆，然后重新体验某些东西，比如你最喜欢的电影或最喜欢的书，直接把那段抹掉，然后重新爱上《哈利·波特》之类的。我告诉他，"我不太确定我对有人能随意抹掉你记忆这件事是什么感受，感觉有点诡异。" 他说，"他们已经在这么做了。"
Lex FridmanSounds legit. I would love memory replay. Just actually high resolution, replay of old memories.听起来挺靠谱的。我很想要记忆回放，那种真正高分辨率的旧记忆回放。
Noland ArbaughYeah. I saw an episode of Black Mirror about that once, so I don’t think I want it.对。我曾经看过一集《黑镜》讲的就是这个，所以我觉得我不想要它。
Lex FridmanYeah, so Black Mirror always considers the worst case, which is important. I think people don’t consider the best case or the average case enough. I don’t know what it is about us humans. We want to think about the worst possible thing. We love drama. It’s like how is this new technology going to kill everybody? We just love that. Again like, “Yes, let’s watch.”《黑镜》总是展现最坏的情况，这很重要。我觉得人们不够多地考虑最好的情况或者平均情况。不知道为什么我们人类就是喜欢往最坏处想。我们热爱戏剧感，就是要想"这项新技术会怎么把所有人都干掉？" 我们就是喜欢这个。就像是，"对，让我们看啊。"
Noland ArbaughHopefully people don’t think about that too much with me. It’ll ruin a lot of my plans.希望人们别在我身上想太多这些，不然会打乱我的很多计划。
Lex FridmanYeah, I assume you’re going to have to take over the world. I mean, I love your Twitter. You tweeted, “I’d like to make jokes about hearing voices in my head since getting the Neuralink, but I feel like people would take it the wrong way. Plus the voices in my head told me not to.”对，我猜你是要统治世界的。我非常喜欢你的 Twitter，你发推说："自从装了 Neuralink 之后，我很想开脑子里有声音这个玩笑，但我觉得人们可能会理解错。再说了，脑子里的声音告诉我不要说。"
Noland ArbaughYeah.对。
Lex FridmanYeah.是的。
Noland ArbaughYeah.对。
Lex FridmanPlease never stop. So you were talking about Optimus. Is that something you would love to be able to do to control the robotic arm or the entirety of Optimus?请永远不要停止这样。你刚才提到了 Optimus，能不能控制机械臂或者整个 Optimus 机器人，这是你非常想实现的吗？
Noland ArbaughOh, yeah, for sure. For sure. Absolutely.哦，当然，绝对，毫无疑问。
Lex FridmanYou think there’s something fundamentally different about just being able to physically interact with the world?你觉得能够在物理世界里实际互动这件事，有没有什么本质上的不同？
Noland ArbaughYeah. Oh, 100%. I know another thing with being able to give people the ability to feel sensation and stuff too, by going in with the brain and having a Neuralink maybe do that, that could be something that could be transferred through the Optimus as well. There’s all sorts of really cool interplay between that. And then also, like you said, just physically interacting. I mean, 99% of the things that I can’t do myself, obviously, I need a caretaker for, someone to physically do things for me. If an Optimus robot could do that, I could live an incredibly independent life and not be such a burden on those around me, and it would change the way people like me live, at least until whatever this is gets cured.有啊，100%。我知道另一件很酷的事是，通过脑植入和 Neuralink，说不定也能让人重新感受到触觉，这甚至可以通过 Optimus 机器人传递过来。这里面有各种各样非常酷的联动可能。而且就像你说的，仅仅是能够在物理世界里互动这件事本身就意义重大。我有 99% 的事情是我自己做不到的，显然需要护理人员、需要别人来帮我做。如果 Optimus 机器人能做到这些，我就能过上一种极度独立的生活，不再是周围人的负担——至少在这个伤情得到治愈之前是这样。
Noland ArbaughBut being able to interact with the world physically, that would just be amazing. And not just for having it be a caretaker or something, but something like I talked about. Just being able to read a book. Imagine an Optimus robot just being able to hold a book open in front of me. I get that smell again. I might not be able to feel it at that point, or maybe I could, again, with the sensation and stuff. But there’s something different about reading a physical book than staring at a screen or listening to an audiobook. I actually don’t like audiobooks. I’ve listened to a ton of them at this point, but I don’t really like them. I would much rather read a physical copy.能够在物理世界里互动，那真的太美好了。而且不只是把它当护理员或者什么，而是像我说的那些更日常的事情。想象一下 Optimus 机器人把一本书放在我面前翻开——我又能闻到那个气味了。那时候我可能感受不到书的触感，或者说，也许有了那个触觉传导功能，又说不准。但阅读实体书和盯着屏幕看，或者听有声书，感觉就是不一样。我其实不喜欢有声书。到目前为止我听了很多，但我真的不喜欢，我宁愿读实体书。
Lex FridmanSo one of the things you would love to be able to experience is opening the book, bringing it up to you, and to feel the touch of the paper.所以你非常想要的体验之一，就是能打开那本书，拿起来，感受纸张的触感。
Noland ArbaughYeah. Oh, man. The touch, the smell. I mean, it’s just something about the words on the page. And they’ve replicated that page color on the Kindle and stuff. Yeah, it’s just not the same. Yeah. So just something as simple as that.对，天哪。那种触感，那个气味……就是纸上的那些字有种说不出的感觉。他们在 Kindle 上复制了那种纸质颜色，但感觉就是不一样。就只是这么简单的一件事。
Lex FridmanSo one of the things you miss is touch?所以你很想念的一件事是触觉？
Noland ArbaughI do. Yeah. A lot of things that I interact with in the world, like clothes or literally any physical thing that I interact within the world, a lot of times what people around me will do is they’ll just come rub it on my face. They’ll lay something on me so I can feel the weight. They will rub a shirt on me so I can feel fabric. There’s something very profound about touch, and it’s something that I miss a lot and something I would love to do again. We’ll see.对，是的。很多我在生活中接触的东西——衣服或者任何物理接触——很多时候周围的人会直接把东西在我脸上蹭，或者把什么东西放在我身上让我感受重量，或者把一件衬衫在我身上蹭让我感受布料的触感。触觉里有一种非常深刻的东西，我非常想念它，我非常渴望能再次感受到。我们走着瞧吧。
Lex FridmanWhat would be the first thing you do with a hand that can touch? Give your mom a hug after that, right?如果有一只能感受触觉的手，你第一件事会做什么？肯定先给你妈妈一个拥抱，对吧？
Noland ArbaughYeah. I know. It’s one thing that I’ve asked God for basically every day since my accident was just being able to one day move, even if it was only my hand, so that way, I could squeeze my mom’s hand or something just to show her how much I care and how much I love her and everything. Something along those lines. Being able to just interact with the people around me. Handshake, give someone a hug. I don’t know. Anything like that. Being able to help me eat. I’d probably get really fat, which would be a terrible, terrible thing.对，是啊。自从出事以来，我每天基本上都在向上帝祈求，希望有一天能再次动弹，哪怕只是我的手，这样我就能握住我妈妈的手，向她表达我有多在乎她、多爱她以及一切。类似于这样的事情。能够和身边的人有实质性的互动，握手、拥抱。我不知道，随便什么都行。能让我自己吃东西的话，我可能会胖得很厉害，那就太惨了。
Lex FridmanAlso, beat Bliss in chess on a physical board.还有，在真实棋盘上赢 Bliss 下棋。
Noland ArbaughYeah. Yeah. I mean, there were just so many upsides. And any way to find some way to feel like I’m bringing Bliss down to my level because he’s just such an amazing guy, and everything about him is just so above and beyond, that anything I can do to take him down a notch, I’m more than happy-对对，我是说，好处真的太多了。无论什么方法，只要能感觉上把 Bliss 拉到我这个水平——因为他这个人实在太出色了，方方面面都远超常人，所以任何能让他降一格的事情我都乐意——
Lex FridmanYeah. Yeah, humble him a bit. He needs it.对，让他谦虚一点，他需要。
Noland ArbaughYeah.对。
Lex FridmanOkay. As he’s sitting next to me. Did you ever make sense of why God puts good people through such hardship?好的，就在他坐在我旁边的时候说这些。你有没有弄明白过，为什么上帝要让好人经历这么多苦难？
Noland ArbaughOh, man. I think it’s all about understanding how much we need God. And I don’t think that there’s any light without the dark. I think that if all of us were happy all the time, there would be no reason to turn to God ever. I feel like there would be no concept of good or bad, and I think that as much of the darkness and the evil that’s in the world, it makes us all appreciate the good and the things we have so much more. And I think when I had my accident, one of the first things I said to one of my best friends was… And this was within the first month or two after my accident, I said, “Everything about this accident has just made me understand and believe that God is real and that there really is a God, basically. And that my interactions with him have all been real and worthwhile.”哦，天哪。我觉得这一切都是为了让我们明白，我们有多需要上帝。我觉得没有黑暗就没有光明。如果我们所有人都一直快乐，就永远不会有理由去转向上帝。我觉得根本就不会有善恶的概念。我认为，尽管世界上有那么多黑暗和邪恶，但它让我们更加珍视美好的事物和我们所拥有的一切。我出事之后，我对我最好的朋友说的第一句话之一是——那是在我出事后的一两个月内——我说，"这场事故让我完全理解并相信上帝是真实存在的，真的有一个上帝。我和他之间所有的互动，都是真实的、值得的。"
Noland ArbaughAnd he said, if anything, seeing me go through this accident, he believes that there isn’t a God. And it’s a very different reaction, but I believe that it is a way for God to test us, to build our character, to send us through trials and tribulations, to make sure that we understand how precious He is and the things that He’s given us and the time that He’s given us, and then to hopefully grow from all of that. I think that’s a huge part of being here, is to not just have an easy life and do everything that’s easy, but to step out of our comfort zones and really challenge ourselves because I think that’s how we grow.他说，如果有什么的话，看着我经历这场事故，反而让他相信上帝是不存在的。这是两种截然不同的反应，但我相信这是上帝对我们的考验，是塑造我们品格的方式，让我们经历磨难，确保我们懂得珍视他以及他赋予我们的一切、给予我们的时间，然后从这一切中成长。我认为这是我们来到这个世界的很大一部分原因：不是过安逸的生活、只做容易的事，而是走出舒适区，真正挑战自我。我认为这就是我们成长的方式。
Lex FridmanWhat gives you hope about this whole thing we have going on human civilization?是什么让你对我们这整个人类文明心存希望？
Noland ArbaughOh, man. I think people are my biggest inspiration. Even just being at Neuralink for a few months, looking people in the eyes and hearing their motivations for why they’re doing this, it’s so inspiring. And I know that they could be other places, at cushier jobs, working somewhere else, doing X, Y, or Z, that doesn’t really mean that much. But instead, they’re here and they want to better humanity, and they want to better just the people around them. The people that they’ve interacted with in their life, they want to make better lives for their own family members who might have disabilities, or they look at someone like me and they say, “I can do something about that. So I’m going to.” And it’s always been what I’ve connected with most in the world are people.哦，天哪。我觉得人是我最大的鼓舞来源。就算只是在 Neuralink 待了几个月，看着那些人的眼睛，听他们讲述为什么要做这件事，就真的非常励志。我知道他们可以去别的地方，待在更舒适的岗位，做其他的事——那些在意义上差得远了。但他们选择在这里，他们想要让人类变得更好，想要让身边的人变得更好。他们生命里接触过的那些人，他们想为有残疾的家人创造更好的生活，或者他们看到像我这样的人，然后说，"我能为此做点什么，所以我就去做。" 这一直是我在这个世界上最有共鸣的东西——人。
Noland ArbaughI’ve always been a people person and I love learning about people, and I love learning how people developed and where they came from, and to see how much people are willing to do for someone like me when they don’t have to, and they’re going out of their way to make my life better. It gives me a lot of hope for just humanity in general, how much we care and how much we’re capable of when we all get together and try to make a difference. And I know there’s a lot of bad out there in the world, but there always has been and there always will be. And I think that that is… It shows human resiliency and it shows what we’re able to endure and how much we just want to be there and help each other, and how much satisfaction we get from that, because I think that’s one of the reasons that we’re here is just to help each other, and… I don’t know. That always gives me hope, is just realizing that there are people out there who still care and who want to help.我一直是个重视人际关系的人，我喜欢了解别人，喜欢了解人们是怎么成长的、从哪里来的。看到那么多人愿意为像我这样的人付出这么多——他们本可以不这样做，却甘愿多走那一步来让我的生活变得更好——这让我对人类整体充满了希望，让我看到了我们有多在乎彼此、当我们团结起来努力改变时能做到什么。我知道这个世界上有很多丑陋的东西，但一直都有，以后也会有。我认为这体现了人类的韧性，体现了我们能承受什么、我们多么想在彼此身边、多么想互相帮助，以及我们从这当中得到多少满足感。因为我觉得这正是我们来到这里的原因之一——就是彼此帮助。不知道，这一直是我的希望所在——只要意识到还有人在乎、还有人愿意帮忙。
Lex FridmanAnd thank you for being one such human being and continuing to be a great human being through everything you’ve been through and being an inspiration to many people, to myself, for many reasons, including your epic, unbelievably great performance on Webgrid. I’ll be training all night tonight to try to catch up.谢谢你成为这样一个人，并在经历了这一切之后继续做一个了不起的人，为很多人提供了鼓舞，也鼓舞了我，原因有很多，包括你在 Webgrid 上那令人难以置信的史诗级表现。我今晚要训练一整夜追上你。
Noland ArbaughHey, man. You can do it. You can do it.兄弟，你能做到的，加油！
Lex FridmanAnd I believe in you that once you come back… So sorry to interrupt with the Austin trip, once you come back, eventually beat Bliss.我相信你，等你回来之后……不好意思，打断一下说到 Austin 那次，等你回来，最终一定会赢过 Bliss 的。
Noland ArbaughYeah, yeah, for sure. Absolutely.对，肯定的，绝对会。
Lex FridmanI’m rooting for you, though. The whole world is rooting for you.我支持你，全世界都在支持你。
Noland ArbaughThank you.谢谢。
Lex FridmanThank you for everything you’ve done, man.谢谢你为这一切所做的一切，兄弟。
Noland ArbaughThanks. Thanks, man.谢谢，谢谢兄弟。
Lex FridmanThanks for listening to this conversation with Nolan Arbaugh, and before that, with Elon Musk, DJ Seo, Matthew McDougall, and Bliss Chapman. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Aldous Huxley in The Doors of Perception. “We live together. We act on and react to one another. But always, and in all circumstances, we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena. They are crucified alone. Embrace the lovers desperately tried to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence in vain. But it’s very nature, every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy its solitude, sensations, feelings, insights, fancies, all these are private, and except through symbols and a secondhand incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.” Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.感谢收听这次与 Nolan Arbaugh 的对话，以及此前与 Elon Musk、DJ Seo、Matthew McDougall 和 Bliss Chapman 的对话。请在节目说明里查看我们赞助商的信息，以支持本播客。现在让我用 Aldous Huxley 在《知觉之门》中的一段话来作结：「我们共同生活，彼此影响，又被彼此影响。但无论何时何地，我们始终独自存在。殉道者们手牵手走向竞技场，却是各自被钉上十字架。相拥的恋人拼命试图将彼此密封的狂喜融为一体，超越自身，却终究徒劳。从本质上讲，每一个具象化的灵魂都注定要在孤独中受苦与欢愉——感官知觉、情感、洞见、幻想，这一切都是私人的，除了通过符号以二手的方式，根本无法传递。我们可以交流有关经历的信息，却永远无法分享经历本身。从家庭到国家，每一个人类群体都是一个由孤岛宇宙构成的社会。」感谢您的收听，希望下次再见。