All language subtitles for Mind.Forward.2019.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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[ethereal music plays]

[Randal Koene]
There are all kinds of situations

where we would love to have more control

over what the brain can do,
so that you have these choices

of what exactly you are taking in,
what you're learning,

and where you're going with that.

And there are also situations where we
simply wish that we could experience more.

Say, for example, that you would like
to be able to perceive

things that we currently can't perceive.

You want to be able
to see the ultraviolet,

or you want to be able to hear ultrasound,

or what if you wanted to be able to,

uh, remember more things
than you normally can remember.

[computer beeping, computer processing]

The most exciting part of the future to me

is the potential to achieve
humanistic intelligence.

This idea that the late Marvin Minsky
talked about,

which is being able
to create an environment

where we have a symbiotic relationship
with artificial intelligence,

uh, and we will see a blurring
of our physical, digital,

and biological worlds,
and not so much being separate parts,

but as being seamless parts
of one integrated human organism.

It probably will be possible to read out

what's inside a person's brain,
to understand what's there,

by translating it
into something you can understand,

and maybe even putting it back,
giving it to someone, teaching.

When we make a decision now,

we are under the impression that we are
the ones who are making the decision,

and we make it because we want to make it,

but if our brains are connected
to the net, to a computer cloud,

uh, and their algorithms that
they are using are decision making,

well, who is deciding?

[theme music playing]

[intense music playing]

We are curious to understand who we are,
and why we think the way we think,

and what is the reason of our thoughts,

our memories, our imagination,
our feelings.

[ethereal music playing]

Understanding
this incredibly complex organ,

that gives rise to everything
that makes us human.

Everything we see, feel, hear,
our sense of identity,

and so, given the vast
complexity of the brain,

you know, a hundred billion neurons,

you know, hundreds of trillions
of connections,

um, operating in a dynamic
network that's constantly changing,

it's just a really very,
very complicated system

for us to study with science.

So it's a big challenge,
but one that I really enjoy undertaking.

In the human brain, you have about

three million kilometers
of fibers connecting it,

so it's enough to go around the Moon
a couple of times, just in one brain.

[narrator] The place in the universe

that is likely the most
complex and mysterious…

the place where emotions,
thoughts and memories arise,

that place in the universe that tries
tirelessly to understand itself,

an unsolved enigma.

We don't know and we cannot build

today anything that is even as closely

connected to what we see
in the human brain.

There is one hypothesis

that suggests that what brains are doing,

what our brain is doing
is generating a virtual reality,

a model of the world that is
running in our heads all the time.

This has to do with ideas that have
been floating around in philosophy

for a few centuries,

in particular, with the suggestion
by Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher,

that the reason why the world,
on our minds,

our views of the world agree…

is not because our minds reflect
the world.

No, no, it's the opposite.

Is that the world is created by our minds.

In other words, that what we perceive
is not out there. It's in here.

[narrator]
It weighs less than three pounds.

It consumes scarcely 20
or 30 watts of power,

and nevertheless,
it's able to make calculations

more complex than a supercomputer.

There are a hundred to a thousand trillion
synapses about the size of bacteria.

They basically are chemical machines.

They receive an electric pulse,
and then they release chemicals.

They hit receptors, a very complex
machinery is triggered.

These results in a change
in the behavior of the neurons.

It causes genes to express,
new proteins to come in…

The cascade of biochemical
and biophysical processes

is enormously complex.

If you would try to describe
how the networks of cells is working,

I would say that imagine you are having

phone calls for 10,000 people
at one and the same time,

and the same what you are doing,

everybody is doing, who is living
on our planet, on the Earth,

about seven billion people.

And when you then try
to describe all this communication

that is going on
of all the seven billion people,

and then you imagine that this is only
one-tenth, perhaps, of the capacity,

and everything is only within your skull,

it is restricted to one
and a half kilogram,

and this is complexity in my view.

[ethereal music continues]

[dial rattling]

In spite of a hundred years
of neuroscience,

we still don't understand
how the brain works.

We still don't have a general theory
of the function of the brain.

The first reason why I would argue
is critical to understand

how the brain works has to do
with our own definition as human beings.

We are a mental species.
We are defined by our minds,

not by our bodies,
so we are a very special type of animal.

We don't understand the organ
that generates our minds,

so when we understand how the brain works,

we will be able to understand how
our mind is from the inside,

and we'll understand ourselves
for the first time.

[suspenseful music playing]

The second reason has to do
with the clinic, with patients.

Humankind should understand
how the brain works because we need…

Uh, it's urgent

that we help these patients that have
mental and neurological diseases,

and we have to understand
the system in order to fix it.

We estimate that, possibly,
one person out of two

to one person out of three in Europe

have some kind of a disorder
that is related to the brain.

Altogether, it's maybe up to more than
200 million person in Europe

who have one of these disorders.

And it's also associated
with a huge cost for the society.

The cost of all disease affecting
the brain is more than the cost

of all cancer, plus all cardiovascular
disease, plus diabetes.

[Rafael Yuste] And then the third reason
has to do with technology and the economy.

And it is very likely that brains,

not just of humans
but brains of all animals,

have discovered through hundreds
of millions of years or evolution…

ways to compute that could be
much more efficient and powerful

than what we're doing currently
with our digital computers.

So if this is the case, if we understood,

if we were able to break this neural code
and understand how the brain computes,

and what are the algorithms
that are present

in our nervous systems,

we will likely revolutionize, uh,

computer science,

computer technology,

and I would say, the economy,
at the same time.

[monitor whirring]

[Tan Le]
The Holy Grail for this would be to create

a much more symbiotic relationship
with artificial intelligence.

As we can see today,
artificial intelligence

is moving forward in leaps and bounds,

offering us a myriad of new ways of being

more productive and more efficient
in how we conduct our businesses,

and how we manage our daily lives.

With the introduction

of more and more devices
that actually understand the human,

and how humans optimize
their own performance,

we will have a way to create a much more…

a different type of intelligence.

What I would call humanistic intelligence.

The distinction
between the biological world,

the physical world,
and the digital world will just blur,

and we will integrate seamlessly across
all of these dimensions.

[narrator]
A deep understanding of the functioning

of the human brain could bring answers
to great philosophical questions

such as what consciousness
is and how it is built,

or if there is free will.

Concepts such as the inner self, guilt,

or even reality could change forever.

We are opening the door to a world

where we will communicate directly
with a computer through thought,

a world where we will be able
to share our thoughts

and our emotions through the internet.

We can envision a future
in which we are able to read

the thoughts of others
and even to manipulate them.

We are building technology
to read the activity

of all the neurons in these brains

and to write activity to control

and manipulate the activity
of these neurons in the brain.

And these technologies are necessary
to be able to cure human patients.

But the same technologies,
technology is neutral,

it could be used for good or for a bad.

The same technologies to read
and write activity into brains

can be used to decipher
what people are thinking,

or to influence the activity
of the minds of people.

So you'll say,
"Well, this is science fiction."

Well, not really.

[ethereal music playing]

[narrator] In the middle of the '90s,

the last decade of the 20th century
and the second millennium,

a whole revolution
in the world of neuroscience occurred,

the neuro-imaging techniques appeared.

Neuro-imaging techniques
are important for this revolution,

out to learn and explore the brain

because it's a nice non-invasive way
to get inside the brain.

[narrator] One of the imaging techniques

that had the greatest impact
was magnetic resonance imaging.

For the first time ever, we could see
the inner functioning of the brain

while it experiences sensations
and emotions.

In fact, functional magnetic
resonance imaging,

able to detect the presence of oxygen
in the blood in the brain,

has allowed us to discover

something unimaginable years ago,

how different areas in the brain interact

while the patient talks, sees an image,

listens to a sound or simply thinks.

But if you ask him to focus on one task,

like listening to a sound,

only the region from this specific task,
the auditory cortex, for example,

will have more conception of oxygen,

and this region will pop out into contrast

if you analyze the data,
listening to sound

against not listening to sound.

The reason why we don't understand
how the brain works

is not because of its complexity,

but because we've been lacking methods
to study it at the right level.

Now, if you think about it,
trying to understand

a system as complex as the brain,

that has a hundred billion neurons,

by recording from one neuron

is a little bit like trying to watch
a movie in a TV screen

that has a million pixels
by looking at a single pixel.

So no matter for how long you
study a single pixel,

you study a single neuron,
you will be missing the figures

in the screen and the shapes of the images

because they are an emergent property
of the correlations in space

and time between the individual pixels.

[adventurous electronic music playing]

We think that neuroscience should embark

on this period of new technology,

to develop the methods
so that neuroscientists

and clinicians will be able
to see for the first time in the future

the activity of complete neural circuits

and be able to decipher
the functional meaning of this pattern.

How can one measure the activity

of each and every one of the neurons
in the brain at the same time?

The methods that we and many other people
are using are optical methods.

We use light because light can penetrate
the tissue in a non-invasive fashion.

In particular, the method that
I pioneered is called Calcium Imaging,

and we used it for the first time to
measure the activity of neural circuits.

Every time a neuron fires,
every time it's activated,

calcium comes into the neuron,

so that means if you have
his little calcium indicators,

these fluorescent molecules
in all the neurons,

you can directly see who is firing,

who is being activated
in the entire group at once,

because you see these
as changes in fluorescence

that are happening in different neurons
at different times.

[narrator]
Thanks to neuro-imaging techniques,

we have learned more about the brain

the last 15 years than
in the whole history of humankind.

The advances already made allow us
to think that in the near future,

we will be able to solve
neurological damage,

diseases like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's,

depression or schizophrenia.

Yeah, I think that the revolution
we're experiencing now is,

first, the birth and the success
of human neuroscience.

We now have fields
like cognitive neuroscience,

where we use functional brain imaging
and non-invasive brain stimulation,

to study the functioning human brain.

And that was, I think, the first step.

[adventurous electronic music playing]

From my perspective, I've been
doing neuroscience research for 30 years

and this is the revolution now.

But now, it's the time that neuroscience

is starting to reach
into people's lives directly.

And to me, that's what we need
to have a revolution.

We need to advance
from the lab into the real world.

[Kim Old] This is a super application

to be able to control
the puzzle box orbit.

I'll first connect it
to the emotive NCIG headset.

[app beeps]

And it's now connected.

What we have to do is train two patterns.

Um, the first is a resting state,

so that we understand when you want
to control the orbit versus no.

And then, the second pattern is to control

what you want to apply
for flying the orbit.

[orbit whirring]

-Woo-hoo!
-[orbit clattering]

-[indistinct chatter]
-[laughter]

[narrator]
This leap from the lab to the real world,

can already be seen in the form
of the perfecting of what

belonged to the realm of science fiction
just a few years ago,

brain-computer association.

The so-called Brain-Machine Interfaces

have solidified this revolution
in the world of the neuroscience.

BCI really just means
Brain Computer Interface,

so anything that makes a connection
between processing going on

inside your brain and a machine,
or some other devices.

Brain computer interfaces
can be grouped as a group

of technologies that can help both
from a hardware and software perspective,

able to both decode, process and activate

the interface interactions
between humans and machines,

decoding the brain of course.

But the typical definition would be
a platform that can help us interact

from the brain to the world.

[ethereal music playing]

[narrator] The Brain-Machine Interfaces
are bringing great advances

in various therapeutical applications.

Up to now, one of the main
practical applications

is the treatment of different pathologies
associated with paralysis.

At the Federal Polytechnic School
of Lausanne, Switzerland,

Dr José Millán has been working
for years on an ambitious project

based on the development
of a brain-machine interface

that allows paralytics to control a
robotic exoskeleton with their minds,

thanks to which they can
walk again or move a hand.

The patients wear an electrode helmet

that detects their cerebral
electrical activity.

What we ask people to do
at the very beginning,

because they need to go through a training

in order to acquire the capability to
modulate voluntarily their brain signals,

is to imagine the movements
that they want to accomplish,

and this requires some time
because it is not easy to do that.

Our algorithms are capable
to discover which are the areas,

the specific areas

that they are activating
and de-activating,

at which frequencies this is happening,

and this is the input
to our machine-learning algorithms

that will build the model of the decoder

that will differentiate an opening,

a closing of the hand, a right step,

a left step and so on and so forth.

So during this training,
people at the very beginning

need to imagine the movement
of their own body,

and in many cases,
people, after some training,

and because of the fact that, as they
imagine the movement of their body,

this is executed via the exoskeleton,

they don't need to think any longer
about their own body.

They think in terms of the exoskeleton

because the exoskeleton
has been integrated, somehow,

in people's body scheme
that we have in our brain.

[amusing music playing]

[narrator] The possibilities that this
technique offers to these patients,

have allowed to a quadriplegic patient

to be able to drive a Formula One car
just with his mind.

In 2017, Rodrigo Hubner Mendes
became the first person

to reach such a milestone.

[Tan Le] This opportunity to work
with Rodrigo was incredible.

Globo TV in Brazil created a vehicle,

a Formula One vehicle
that was completely controlled

just using the power of thought.

So, what they used was
a 14-channel EPOC+ headset,

uh, measuring electrical fluctuations
from Rodrigo's brain.

He spent a few months mapping
and training the algorithms

to understand how he associated
specific thoughts

whether it'd be drive forward,
turn right, left, or stop,

and then he was able to use those commands

to drive this car completely
just using his mind.

So no steering wheel, no pedals,
just him inside the vehicle.

This was a very fortuitous moment
when Lewis Hamilton,

who is obviously world's
reigning F1 champion,

was in the same place
as Rodrigo in the UAE.

Rodrigo posted a very exciting challenge
for Lewis, which is,

"Would you like to race me?"

Surprisingly,
Lewis accepted the challenge,

so I'm not sure when we are going to start

seeing the two of them start practicing,

but I know that Rodrigo is very excited
about the ability

and the opportunity to race
with the reigning world champion

just using his mind.

[keyboard clacking]

[narrator] Around the world,
a wide variety of projects

based on brain-machine interfaces

are currently being developed.

In Boston, the company Neuroelectrics
has developed a technology

based on the use
of mind-controlled video games

to learn to regulate brain activity.

Okay. So, today, we are going to measure

your brain waves with this device.

Uh, this device physically uses
dry electrodes

to measure your brain waves like this.

[man] Mm-hmm.

And today, we are going to measure
your, specifically, alpha brainwaves,

and you're going to be able
to control an object

in these screen going up and down.

So I'm gonna put you the cap.

Then we are first going
to measure your baseline,

which is the baseline of your brain waves,

the level in which your brain
is right now.

[techno music playing]

So the way we have developed
our brain-computer interface is,

we are collecting brain signals,
for example,

alpha or beta or gamma,
which are different frequencies, right?

And we are capering your brain
or power spectrum, your brain bands,

to something in the screen,
which is, in this case, a little avatar

that goes up and down,

according to if your brain waves
are up or down.

So this submarine here,

this is going up and down
according to your brainwaves

and you're controlling it.

So you need to focus on it
and keep relaxed

and try to control it,
moving it up and down.

[game ringing]

[narrator] The mind-controlled video games

are proving to be an efficient treatment
for diseases

like depression
or hyperactivity disorder in children.

At Neuroscape,
a neuro-technological company

based in San Francisco,

they are using these video games
controlled by the mind

for therapeutic uses.

All of our research right now

relies on using the closed-loop
video games that we've created,

so far, just using the performance, not
the cognitive brain computer interface.

That's still very much a research,

in the research phase.

And then we apply these, uh,
these closed-loop video game treatments

to see if they can improve
attention abilities

in many different clinical populations,

including ADHD, which is attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder,

but also post-traumatic stress disorder,

traumatic brain injury, depression
and autism.

We developed this closed-loop video games

that record your performance
and use that data to challenge you

in a very personalized manner.

So if it's too hard,
the game could back off.

If it's too easy,
it can make it more challenging.

Just puts it right at that sweet spot.

And then the game mechanics
target different neural networks

that we're trying to improve.

So it could be a prescribable treatment,

just like we currently use stimulants
to help improve attention abilities

in children that are suffering ADHD.

[dreamy music playing]

[narrator] In the last few years,
there has been a progressive

blossoming of neuro-tech start-ups
that are revolutionizing

the way to intervene
in our mental processes.

Nowadays, most of them
are focused on helping patients

with different types of damage
or neurological disorders.

However, in the not-so-distant future,

these companies will end up transferring

all these advances to our daily lives,

radically modifying the way we interact

with each other
and even understand the world.

Investing in novel neuro-technology today

could be the best way to generate
an economic revolution

in the future by the development
of this new technology,

which instead of biotechnology,
in the case of the Human Genome Project,

now it would be neuro-technology.

And this is something
that is starting to happen.

Last year, Elon Musk created
a neuro-technology company, Neuralink.

Brian Johnson, another billionaire,

has created a similar company
called Kernel,

so we start to have some new companies

that are based on the promise

that these new neuro-technologies

are going to be causing
an economic revolution.

Emotiv is a neuro-informatics company,

so what we do is we are a platform
that allows us

to interface directly with the brain.

Today, it's using non-invasive methods.

So we start from the sensor input,

so measuring the brain activity itself,

through to the translation

of the electrical signals from the brain

and then we map those to control

and influence the environment around us.

-[Tan Le] Look at your brain, Kim.
-[both laugh]

So you're wearing a 14-channel EEG,

and this is just picking up
electrical fluctuations

that resolve from neurons
firing inside your brain.

The brain is made up
of billions of neurons

and when they interact,
the chemical reaction

just emits an electrical impulse
that we can pick up.

You can see the different parts
of your brain is lighting up

depending on what you might be thinking

or whether you're paying
attention to what I'm saying.

So, what we're doing here is we're mapping
those electrical fluctuations

into a 3D model
of what your brain is doing,

and each of the colors represent
a different frequency band,

which indicates how fast
the information is traveling

from one part of the brain to another.

[ethereal music playing]

[narrator] Located in Lausanne,
Switzerland, in the centre of Europe,

is the headquarters of MindMaze,

one of the largest neuro-technological
companies in the world.

Our big goals are really to disrupt
industries from health care,

so really improving quality of life
after a neurological injury,

all the way to being able
to help healthy individuals,

you know, enable the ability
of the brain to learn,

to play, to interact, and entertain.

[narrator] One of those technologies

designed to help
the rehabilitation of patients

who have suffered stroke
is MindMotion PRO.

It's the first device a stroke or a brain,

a brain injury patient sees
after the injury.

You know, the first two days

when they come out
and they need to recover.

It's one of the first devices
that's able to start training

of both the brain and the body.

So it's about neuro-plasticity,
tricking the brain.

So we're gonna put markers

on you so that the camera
can see your arms

while we do some activity.

So it's pretty intuitive.

You just need to move your hand
to the start button,

and similarly, if you move it

in the direction that isn't indicated,
you'll see how to correct it.

So let's say, someone who has a stroke

cannot move the left hand,

and he can move the right hand,

the camera in the MindMotion PRO
tracks the right hand

and puts it on an avatar on the left side.

And then the brain suddenly says,

something's happening there,
so I should try more,

and it starts activating the pathways
that used to control that hand,

and slowly accelerates recovery.

[upbeat electronic music playing]

[narrator] The latest and most ambitious
proposal of MindMaze,

the CogniChip, goes one step further

and merges neuro-technology
with artificial intelligence.

Some entrepreneurs are looking
into augmenting our brains

so that we can develop super-intelligence

that allows us to collaborate
with artificial intelligence.

It would be a way to reduce
the risk for human beings

to become irrelevant due to the rise
of artificial intelligence.

It is the next frontier.
Neuroscience and neuro-technology,

brain technology,
is definitely the next frontier.

Now, we truly are at the frontier

where we can do some
impactful things with the brain.

So, yeah, neuro-technology
is now really going to kick off.

[NASA operator] Ignition sequence starts.

Six, five,

four, three, two,

one, zero.

All engines running.

[narrator]
One of the greatest technological

and scientific milestones in history

was the arrival of man on the moon.

[surreal music playing]

The Kennedy era was one of the periods

of the greatest scientific splendor
the world has ever known.

As a consequence,
an important economy grew around it,

which led in a very short time,

to unprecedented technological
development.

[water splashes]

Ideas are what power our economy.

We do innovation better than anybody else.

And that makes our economy stronger.

We have had many interactions

with the White House Office
of Science and Technology Policy

and they had explained to us that
they were interested in grand challenges

for the US government to pursue
any different areas of science

that they thought could really be
of the same ilk

as, for instance,
the Apollo moon landings,

a big project that really would allow
the entire US community

to get behind something that would make
a huge impact in science.

[upbeat synth-wave music playing]

[narrator] They found that great
science project in the BRAIN Initiative,

a research megaproject
that Obama announced in 2013,

with the goal of unveiling
the mysteries of the brain.

It's a very exciting moment, uh,

there are many groups around the world
developing new methods,

and this is now leading
to reenergizing of neuroscience,

and to the perception
that we can really do it,

that this is doable,
that we can actually end up

being able to record the activity
of every neuron in a brain

and decipher it, and this could really
revolutionize neuroscience

just like the Human Genome Project
revolutionized genetics.

[narrator] Very soon after the launching
of the BRAIN Initiative,

the European Union announced
its own megaproject,

the Human Brain Project.

[Rafael Yuste]
It turns out that similar initiatives

have been created in different countries.

So there is a brain initiative in Japan,

in Canada, in China, in Australia,
South Korea and Israel.

[whooshing, crackling]

[narrator]
The development of all these projects

could change the scenario
of brain research

and lead humanity
to unprecedented advances.

So this is very exciting.
This is just happening,

and I hope that this will provide
the ability to generate, uh, knowledge

and send this knowledge throughout
the world, into different countries,

uh, in a way in which no one
is left behind,

and we're all part of the same
exciting moment in history.

[surreal music playing]

[narrator]
We've started the path to a new world

in which a deeper knowledge of the brain

will radically transform
our human condition.

[powering up]

[sweeping music playing]

[whirring]

[computer beeping]

Brain-machine communication will grow
progressively more efficient and precise,

and will open up a vast range
of possibilities for human beings

to benefit from the potential offered
to us by artificial intelligence.

[sweeping music continues]

With the introduction
of more and more devices

that actually understand the human

and how humans optimize
their own performance,

we will have a way to create a much more…

a different type of intelligence,

what I would call,
"Humanistic intelligence."

The idea is that you can create a myriad
of devices and sensors around us

that interface and interplay
with artificial intelligence

in a way that makes humans much more
symbiotic with their environment.

So, you know, the distinction
between the biological world,

the physical world,
and the digital worlds will just blur,

and we will integrate seamlessly
across all of these dimensions.

And so, when you feel confused,

your AI will recognize that
and will prompt you with commands.

If it recognizes your fatigue,

it will send a command
to brew the coffee pot,

or a message to your phone
reminding you to go out

and take a short walk
and stretch your legs.

So you will become integrated
with your environment,

and your environment becomes
an extension of your brain.

And I think that's the type
of humanistic intelligence

is really what we are going
to see the future go.

[electronic whirring]

[coffee dripping]

[electronic whirring, beeps]

[narrator] The cognitive capacities
of human beings will be enhanced.

There are experiments by colleagues, um,

such as Roi Cohen Kadosh, that have shown

that you can improve
numerical abilities in children,

um, that have dyscalculia,

people who have difficulties
in doing arithmetic and so on.

I think enhancement via implants, um,
and things like this

is definitely gonna be possible.

[beeping, electronic whirring]

[Rafael Yuste]
Technologies are going to enable humans

to augment ourselves mentally.

Just like holding an iPhone,

we can have access
to an enormous amount of information.

If that comes directly piped
into our brains,

we are going to be able to operate
at the cognitive level

above what we operate at normally.

So they're going to be augmented humans.

So this could cause major difference
in the society.

Can accentuate the difference

between different social groups
and different countries.

And we have to ensure that
there is equal access to all of that.

That there is a principle of fairness

that runs across the application
of these new neuro-technologies

and artificial intelligence algorithms.

-[surreal music playing]
-[electronic whirring]

It gets more interesting
when you can think about neuro-prosthesis

in the cognitive parts of the brain.

So let's take for instance
this hippocampus prosthesis.

The patients who are going
to be the first ones

to use these devices
are going to be the first people

with some kind of superhuman
memory ability.

The very first type of memory ability

is going to be that they can choose

when they do remember something
and when they don't.

Because they can say,
"Okay, the stuff that I…

The experiences that were coming
through at three o'clock yesterday…

I want those to be enhanced."

[surreal music continues]

[electronic whirring, beeps]

[piano music playing]

[narrator]
Brain-Computer communication will make way

for Brain-Computer-Brain Interfaces.

You take what this person has learnt,

you run it through the translator,
and you give it to someone else's brain.

Or you just want to be able to communicate

through something like telepathy.

You can read out
what a person is trying to say

or what they're imaging,
what they are imagining,

and you can try to give those imaginings,

or those sounds, to someone else.

[dramatic music playing]

Or you could try to detect
what a person is feeling,

and you can translate that in a way,
and then give it to someone else.

So you can imagine this as a…

as a communication pathway
that wouldn't just work for words,

but it would work for images,
it would work for feelings.

It would work for anything
that we share in a sense

where you can say,
because we are all humans,

we all have feelings of happiness,
and of sadness and of pain,

and we have a smell, and we have vision.

So you can transfer smells,

you can transfer vision,
you can transfer auditory, you can…

eventually, with enough translation,

even translate knowledge and memory.

Connecting brains is gonna be done.

Um, there are definitely hurdles,

and it's gonna take very important
technological breakthroughs.

I think in the future,
we will definitely have

uh, very powerful synthetic
telepathy technologies.

[energy pulsating]

[computer alarming]

[narrator] It will be possible
not only to read other's thoughts,

but also to manipulate them.

Let's think about it a little bit more,

about the impact and repercussions

of this new knowledge to society,
to humanity.

[electronic whirring]

We can, uh, using mice.

We cannot read the activity
of every neuron in the brain from ours,

but if you look at the visual cortex,

you can actually read the activity
of a few thousand neurons there.

And we can decipher
some of the patterns of activity,

as they relate
to what the animal is seeing,

what the animal is looking at.

And then we can go in
with optical methods, with optogenetics,

and selectively change
the patterns of activity

and fool the animal into thinking that
he's seeing one thing or the other thing

by essentially playing the piano
with his neural circuits

in the visual cortex of the brain.

This is something we can do today.

[circuits scrambling]

People could do this
with humans, not today.

We don't have the methods to control,

to read the activity of a…

of many neurons in the brain
of humans and to change that,

but these methods
are going to be developed

because we need them for the patients.

In fact, there is a project
supported by DARPA,

by the foundation of military research,

to build an electronic chip

to record the activity
of one million neurons…

in a human, in a human patient,

and to stimulate 100,000 neurons
at the same time.

And this is not science fiction.

This is something
that is being built as we speak.

In fact, we are helping to build them

because they need to use this
for patients.

And this could be in the clinic
in four years.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] A whole new world
of opportunities is opening up

before our eyes,

a world where we will have the ability

to co-evolve
with the artificial intelligence.

There is even a hypothesis
that in the distant future,

we won't need our biological structures.

If all we are, are our thoughts,
our memories, our emotions,

our whole "self" can be transferred
into a computer,

our biological bodies
will no longer be necessary.

So now we are getting
into the more far future

science fiction aspect
of this whole endeavor.

There is a science fiction term
called "mind uploading."

What it means is that, mind,
or who we are,

is then no longer dependent
on the biological brain as such.

You still need a brain, of course,

there is no such thing as no device

running your mind,
but it could be all sorts of devices.

It could be a device
that is better suited for, say,

for example, living in space,
or living on another planet,

or living underwater,
or something like that.

So when you get to a far future where
the technology of all brain emulation,

which is, really,
the more scientific concept,

what is it you're actually doing here?

You are trying to emulate
what's going on in the circuitry.

When you have that,
then you can start thinking

about the personal and social
consequences of doing that,

which is really what mind uploading means.

It's a very philosophical term,
in a sense.

It's, like, what happens
if you can take who I am,

my mind and move me to something else.

So many things are then,
potentially, possible.

You could make backups of your mind,

so that if something happens,
you can restore and it's not, uh…

You know, it's not as devastating.

[whooshing]

[mellow music playing]

[narrator] The knowledge
we have acquired in recent years

about the brain has given us possibilities

until recently-considered science-fiction.

We're advancing at very high speed.

We can't know where a deeper knowledge
of the brain will lead us,

but it's in our hands
to steer it in the right direction.

It's critical to have guidelines,

ethical guidelines, for the development
of these technologies.

We propose to add
to the human universal declaration

of human rights, new rights,

to protect individuals from the abuse

of neuro-technologies
and artificial intelligence.

So this is what we call the neuro rights.

And they have to do with protecting
the mental privacy of people,

so this is our first one.

Not just the data privacy of our phone.
No, no, the mental privacy.

Our thoughts, and even worse,
our subconscious thoughts,

things that we don't even know,
we are not aware of knowing them.

Those should be protected, should be…

This is the ultimate human right,
our mental privacy.

[ethereal music playing]

We should also have protection
as we connect ourselves

to computers
through brain computer interfaces.

Look at the effect that connecting us
to the net through our iPhones

has had in our culture.

Well, imagine if that connection
could be direct

through some brain-computer interface
that could be, maybe, wireless and, uh…

and non-invasive.
That could happen in the future.

So this is going to affect our sense
of identity, of who we are.

We need to protect the sense
of identity, the I, the self.

This is something that humans never had
to worry about in the past. [chuckles]

No one ever had that problem before.

[computer alarming]

Related to this is also our sense
of agency, our free will.

There could be someone who wants to
actually change the way you're operating.

So that's another fundamental right
that has to be protected.

So these are the neuro rights
and now we have to convince…

um, the leaders of the world

and the leaders of the society

that this is a very important issue.

Discussing the future of our society,
the future of humankind,

and that we have to make sure

that these technologies,
which are so powerful,

and they could cause so much good,

not just in patients
but in among ourselves,

we'll be able to finally understand
who we are.

It's like a new renaissance,

that these technologies
are not used against us. [chuckles]

Um, we have to be vigilant

and we have to put this ethical framework
in place,

so that doesn't happen.

[Randal Koene] This understanding
is just going to give us the tools

to develop in many different directions,

to explore in many directions,

and also to be versatile and adaptable.

So that maybe the human species
has a really long-term future,

not the kind of future where, you know,

it works for a while and then we're
not adapted well enough and that's it,

but a really long-term future.

That's what I'm hoping,
that this could ultimately lead to.

I hope it could provide us
with the tools to have basically, uh…

like, you might call it
another Cambrian explosion

where the new species develop in all kinds
of directions, except it's us.

It's the human species deciding

that we want to try out this direction,

try out that direction and so forth.

[Rafael Yuste]
Science can change the world.

It can change society,
it can change the course of history,

and it can do that for good or for bad.

It's up to us to make sure
that it goes in the right direction.

[narrator] We've entered a new age,

the age of neuroscience,

an age in which the way
we experience and feel the world

will radically change.

Welcome to the world of tomorrow.

[upbeat epic music playing]

[music ends]