Neurotech Workshop
If feasible, breakthroughs in frontier neurotechnology, such as brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and whole brain emulations (WBEs), could offer numerous benefits, including life-saving medical applications to insights into consciousness and human flourishing. Frontier neurotechnology may also offer promising approaches to tackle the threat of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) by providing tools for humans to better collaborate or compete with AI systems or by offering insights into how to build more human-like AGI.
Progress in BCIs and WBEs has historically been bottlenecked by the sheer challenging nature of the scientific problems involved, institutional constraints, academic straight jackets, and a lack of funder appetite to support sci-fi sounding goals. However, recent advances in AI have not only made frontier neurotechnology more urgent as possible AI defense strategy, but also rapidly opened up new routes for neurotech progress.
Foresight Institute’s annual neurotech workshop gathers those advancing the frontier of neurotechnology to create common knowledge about capabilities in the field, align on goals, and coordinate on solving outstanding bottlenecks. Participants include a tightly curated set of 60 leading scientists, builders, programmers, funders, and institutional allies.
Format
The workshop features brief talks by selected speakers, and an unconference-style working group session for project collaborations. It closes with project proposal presentations that are eligible for funding by Foresight’s grants, and may be considered by other funders present at the meeting.
Your participation should offer new insights supporting your immediate work, lasting long-term collaborations on shared goals with leaders in the field, or the incubation of novel, fundable projects to drive progress at the frontier.
The workshop discussions are Chatham House Rule (don’t connect people to ideas when discussing them outside of this workshop), apart from some of the presentations which will be recorded.
Presenters
Participants
Bruce Hope
NIDA IRP
Diogo Lucerno
AE Studio
Edward Chang
Chang Lab, UCSF
Gert Cauwenberghs
UC San Diego
Gregg Wildenberg
University of Chicago
Jack Kendall
Rain Neuromorphics
Jay Coggan
NeuroLinx
Kanaka Rajan
Harvard
Kevin Boergens
The University of Illinois Chicago
Kwabena Boahen
Stanford University
Matt Angle
Paradromics, Inc.
Matthew Botvinick
Google DeepMind
Matthew von Hippel
e184
Max Kanwal
Mikhail G. Shapiro
Caltech
Paris Brown
Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
Peter Zhegin
e184
Philip Sabes
Integral Neuro
Richard Csaky
Sonera
Stephan Ihle
University of Chicago
Surya Ganguli
Stanford University
Tom Oxley
Synchron, Inc.
Vikash Gilja
UC San Diego
Day 1
Arrival & Light Breakfast
Participants Intros & Welcome
Talks
Alan Mardinly, Science: Neural Implants
Amy Kruse, Satori Capital: A Funder's Perspective on Frontier Neurotech Progress
Andreas Tolias, Stanford: A Less Artificial Intelligence
Andrew Payne, E11 Bio: What's Possible in Brain Circuit Mapping in 5 Years
Ann Kennedy, Scripps Research: MaBe Challenge
Workshop
Lunch
Talks
Bobby Kasthuri, University of Chicago: Mapping the Brain: Progress in Tools
David Sussillo, Meta Reality Labs: Lessons from Computational Neuroscience and Neurotech for Beneficial AI
Ed Boyden, Boyden Lab: When and How can we Simulate the Brain?
Gabriel Kreiman, Harvard Brain Science Institute: Computation & the Brain
Haleh Fotowat, Wyss Institute: Towards Engineering Intelligent Motile Organoids with a Nervous System
Isaak Freeman, MIT: Implementing the WBE Roadmap
Workshop
Working Group Presentations
Dinner & Optional Breakouts
Day 2
Arrival
Talks
Jacques Carolan, ARIA: ARIA's Neural Interfaces Program: Progress So Far & What's Next
Jordan Matelsky, University of Pennsylvania: Functional connectomics spanning multiple areas of mouse visual cortex
Maryam Shanechi, USC: AI-based Neurotechnology
Mehdi Azabou, Columbia University: Towards Foundation Models of the Brain
Michael Skuhersky, MIT: A New Neuro Moonshot
Workshop
Lunch
Talks
Patrick Mineault, Mila: NeuroAI for AI Safety: Opportunities & Roadblocks
Sean Escola, Protocol Labs / ARNI: How Protocol Labs is accelerating Neurotech field-building
Talmo Pereira, Salk Institute: AI for Understanding the Brain
Viren Jain, Google Research: Simulating the Brain with Connectomics and AI