导读
在Neuralink将其设备投入预期用途之前，还有许多技术挑战和伦理问题需要解决。本文2020年8月31日发表于《中国日报》（China Daily），以下给出原文与中文翻译。
Still lot of questions to be answered about brain-computer interface devices
On Friday, Elon Musk livestreamed the unveiling of a working prototype of his newly-founded company Neurallink's much-anticipated brain-implant device, along with a pig which had a microchip implanted in its head.上周五，埃隆·马斯克现场直播了他新成立的Neurallink公司备受期待的脑部植入装置的工作原型的揭幕仪式，还有一头在头上植入了微芯片的猪。By planting a coin-like terminal into the brain of the pig, they could wirelessly collect the neural signals from its brain and show the activeness of some neurons when people touched the pig on the nose.通过在猪的大脑中植入一个硬币状的终端，他们可以无线地从猪的大脑中收集神经信号，并在人们触摸猪鼻子时显示一些神经元的活性。Although the technology is still in its early stages, the company aims to develop the means to link human brains with machines as a prescription for medical ailments and disabilities such as memory loss, blindness and paralysis. According to Musk's previous interviews, such devices could, in principle, repair problems with the signaling functions of the brain and so improve eyesight and hearing, recover limb movements, even cure epilepsy.尽管这项技术仍处于早期阶段，但该公司的目标是开发将人脑与机器连接起来的方法，作为治疗记忆力丧失、失明和瘫痪等医疗疾病和残疾的治疗方式。根据马斯克之前的采访，这种设备原则上可以修复大脑信号功能的问题，从而改善视力和听力，恢复肢体运动，甚至治愈癫痫。As a scientist myself, I look forward to the day when the technology Musk describes can solve these problems. Yet every one with basic natural science training knows how many difficulties one has to overcome to turn "in principle" into practice.作为一名科学家，我期待有一天马斯克所描述的技术能够解决这些问题。然而，每一个受过基础自然科学训练的人都知道，要把“原则上”付诸实践，必须克服多少困难。Unlike other companies, Musk's team chose to implant the "coin" into the pig's brain, which we call an "invasive implant". In that process, there is risk of the pig's immune system attacking this foreign body, which might cause injury. Even if that harm could be under control, scar tissue may form around the wounded area, which makes it difficult to collect signals from neurons. This will be a major challenge.与其他公司不同，马斯克的团队选择将“硬币”植入猪的大脑，我们称之为“侵入性植入物”。在这个过程中，猪的免疫系统有可能攻击这个异物，这可能会造成伤害。即使这种伤害能够得到控制，受伤区域周围也可能形成疤痕组织，这使得从神经元收集信号变得困难。这将是一个重大挑战。The tiny implant has more than 3,000 electrodes attached to flexible threads that are capable of monitoring around 1,000 neurons. Musk's implant transmitted the signals from about 500 neurons in the pig's brain, but compared to 80 billion neurons in a human brain, this number is tiny. To cover the whole human brain will be very difficult because the electrodes and affiliated technology will have to be made a lot smaller.这个小小的植入物有3000多个电极连接在可弯曲的螺纹上，能够监测大约1000个神经元。马斯克的植入物传输了猪大脑中大约500个神经元的信号，但与人脑中800亿个神经元相比，这个数字很小。要覆盖整个人脑是非常困难的，因为电极和相关技术必须要小得多。Even if we can track every one of these 80 billion neurons, we are still far from understanding their collective activities, namely our minds. It is quite possible that there are new principles that only emerge on the level of many neurons. We are only in the early stage of understanding how the brain works. The huge progress of artificial intelligence in recent years is not based on mimicking human brains, but based on improvements in data computational capabilities, and deep-learning algorithms, all of which have little to do with brain science. Therefore, the hope of controlling the brain via controlling a few neurons seems overly optimistic.即使我们能追踪到这800亿个神经元中的每一个，我们仍然远远不能理解它们的集体活动，即我们的大脑。很有可能，有些新的原理只会涌现在大量神经元的水平上。我们对大脑是如何工作的了解还处于初级阶段。近年来人工智能的巨大进步并不是基于对人脑的模仿，而是基于数据计算能力的改进，以及深度学习算法，所有这些都与脑科学关系不大。因此，希望通过控制少数神经元来控制大脑似乎过于乐观。There are many technological challenges to be overcome and ethical questions that will need answering before Neuralink can put its devices to the purposes intended.在Neuralink将其设备投入预期用途之前，还有许多技术挑战和伦理问题需要解决。
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背景简介：本文作者袁岚峰，中国科学技术大学化学博士，中国科学技术大学合肥微尺度物质科学国家研究中心副研究员，科技与战略风云学会会长，“科技袁人”节目主讲人，安徽省科学技术协会常务委员，中国青少年新媒体协会常务理事，入选“典赞·2018科普中国”十大科学传播人物，微博@中科大胡不归，知乎@袁岚峰（https://www.zhihu.com/people/yuan-lan-feng-8）。