Brain-Computer Interfaces
engineering the vanguard of human agency
Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) connect the central nervous system to external technology directly. Imagine your computer receiving directions from your thoughts rather than your keyboard and mouse. AE is developing cutting-edge machine learning software to understand patterns in neurological activity like electrical signals and blood flow. As longtermists, we believe BCI will ultimately become the primary means of human interaction with each other and machines. As optimists, we believe the medical, and economic implications are unimaginable. But unless we want ads interrupting our thoughts, every line of code must be guided by neuroethical principles that increase human agency!
AE Takes First Place in the NLB Challenge!
We are thrilled to congratulate AE’s data science team on their recent victory in the neural latents benchmark challenge (NLB), topping the leaderboard in every category! This is the first step on a long journey, and every participant will play a part. We will play ours. AE is reinvesting its prize money, sponsoring the NLB Challenge Phase II. We’re also awarding $1000 cloud computing grants for up to five teams participating in the NLB Challenge Phase II. If you’re interested in competing, contact us!
What Are Brain-Computer Interfaces?
Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) are the hardware and software that allow information to flow directly between brains and computing devices (computers, smartphones, robots, electrical simulators of limbs, etc.)
The hardware reads brain activity from electrical signals, blood flow, or other features that reflect the underlying brain activity. The software reveals patterns in those signals, interprets those patterns, and converts them into commands a computer can understand.
What are we doing?
We are developing the software component of BCI. Specifically, we are developing machine learning algorithms to interpret brain activity (neural decoding) and a real-time decoding system.
Our mission is to create software that increases human agency. No unwanted neurofeedback, “neuromarketing”, or hacking. Seamless natural transitions between thoughts and improves understanding of self. We aim to inspire the future tech giants to place human agency at the center of their objectives; it’s good for people and good long-term business.
We collaborate with research groups around the world to advance the state of the art and maximize the positive impact of BCI.
We are reading, writing, discussing, and planning the implications of BCI within our optimistic, longtermist view of society.
We are hiring talented machine learning engineers and neuroscientists to help increase human agency in ways we have not yet imagined.
Why Does This Matter?
Humans have deployed technology to increase their agency since the agricultural revolution, at an accelerating pace.
Our relationship with computers has already increased human agency and transcription fluency dramatically. When computers begin responding to our thoughts directly these effects can be accelerated…if BCI is developed with that intent. Alternatively, BCI could diminish our agency if its creators are narrowly-focused on short-term commercial incentives.
BCI should enhance the agency of its users. If you think dark patterns are bad, imagine interruption of thought with ads that sell neural data to the highest bidder without consent. If BCI is designed like modern technology, we can expect both. We want to nudge the field in the right direction.
Currently, BCI technology is being deployed to restore hearing via cochlear implants, restore use of paralyzed limbs, and to treat Parkinson’s disease.
Despite this potential, it remains a neglected topic. The scope of potential restorative and augmentative applications is immense. And just as the creators of the ENIAC could not imagine the ubiquity of smartphones, we cannot imagine all possible users and uses of BCI. But we can aspire to increasing human agency and ensuring neuroethical principles are maintained as the journey continues.
HOW CAN WE GET THERE?
We maintain independence and avoid shareholders, venture capital, and private equity (Google’s founders never wanted ads, but their investors did). AE is already a fully-bootstrapped business that has grown from 0 to ~100 with agency-increasing BCI as its ambitious Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal.
We are growing a profitable, longtermist software company, training the best developers, designers, and engineers on the planet (or any other), building agency-increasing products for those clients and ourselves, and investing in altruistic, agency-increasing BCI initiatives. We love funding internal skunkworks projects
We follow the core principles of increasing human agency, rather than short-term financial incentives, A/B testing baby steps, and realizing that we are only 1% as good as we could be.
What Can You Do?
If you are an academic researcher looking to improve your neural decoding algorithms or (re)create a real-time decoder, we’re here to help!
If you are a hardware company interested in joining a select list of early adopters using our technology for decoding brain signals using state-of-the art techniques, or want to understand how the data from your hardware can help improve human agency, come talk to us!
If you are a developer or data scientist, excited, curious, or concerned about the future of BCI, come work with us!
Ready to interface?
Chat with one of our lovely humans