Elon Musk Addresses Concerns Over Neuralink Overheating

• Elon Musk personally addressed concerns over the Neuralink brain chip possibly overheating in the brain due to increased activity.
• Musk likened the Neuralink processing to using either a smartphone or a computer, except that the chip will have faster inputs and outputs.
• He added that the chip has a temperature sensor and can maintain a safe temperature automatically.

A neuroscientist recently raised concerns over the Neuralink brain chip possibly overheating due to the machine being overworked — a concern that Elon Musk personally addressed.

Amy Eskridge, who has worked in different fields of study such as engineering, chemistry, neuroscience, and theoretical physics, raised the concern over Twitter.

She said that overclocking could possibly result in a heat transfer problem in the brain. While she acknowledged that this may have already been tackled, she created a thread to share her thoughts.

Concerns over Neuralink overclocking

Eskridge explained that while the heat may be countered by allowing the body’s natural amyloid proteins to absorb the heat, she considers this a “suboptimal strategy” since this could result in accumulated deposits of amyloid plaques.

The multithreading brain processing could generate heat that will likely produce unexpected plaques. These plaques may unintentionally lead to harmful consequences, such as diseases.

Concerns over potential CSF leak

Eskridge explained that the increased electrical activity in the brain may lead to an increased production of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which absorbs the excess heat.

While momentary surges in the brain’s electrical activity are fine, sustained electrical activity may result in sustained pressure that needs to be released. This “eventually requires the fluid needing to drain to remove pressure from the brain stem,” she explained.

This “draining” will bring about a cold sensation “from the base of your brain down the throat” since “the leak exposes the heated CSF to surface area away from your brain, releasing heat by diffusion.”

She concluded that the brain indeed has ways to dissipate heat spikes from increased electrical activity, but it may still cause undesirable reactions that she believes would need mitigation.

Elon Musk’s response

Elon Musk responded that Neuralink will “transfer processing to the supercomputer extension of your brain,” thereby avoiding overclocking. He likened the process to using either a smartphone or a computer, except that “Neuralink will have orders of magnitude faster input & output, especially latter.”

Another Twitter user, Vasu Thinks, asked if there will be possible side effects to the brain when the chip becomes heated. Musk replied that the chip has its own temperature sensor and has the ability to maintain a safe temperature automatically.

Source: Tech Times