Engage / Workshops / Neurotechnology Workshop – BCI, WBE & AGI
Event
Neurotechnology Secure AI

Neurotechnology Workshop – BCI, WBE & AGI


When

Where

San Francisco, USA

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

Ed Boyden

Boyden Lab

Alan Mardinly

Science

Allison Duettmann

Foresight Institute

Amy Kruse

Satori Capital

Andreas Tolias

Stanford University

Andrew Payne

E11 Bio

Ann Kennedy

Scripps Research

Bobby Kasthuri

University of Chicago

David Sussillo

Meta Reality Labs

Gabriel Kreiman

Harvard Medical School

Haleh Fotowat

Wyss Institute

Isaak Freeman

Boyden Lab

Jacques Carolan

ARIA

Jordan Matelsky

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Kirill Eves

e184

Maryam Shanechi

USC Viterbi

Mehdi Azabou

Columbia University

Michael Skuhersky

MIT

Patrick Mineault

Amaranth Foundation

Sean Escola

Protocol Labs / ARNI

Talmo Pereira

Salk Institute

Viren Jain

Google

Participants

Akash Kulgod

Dognosis

Aran Nayebi

Carnegie Mellon University

Bruce Hope

NIDA IRP

Claire Wang

MIT, E11 Bio

Daniel Burger

Eightsix Science

Diogo Lucerno

AE Studio

Edward Chang

Chang Lab, UCSF

Gert Cauwenberghs

UC San Diego

Gregg Wildenberg

University of Chicago

Jack Kendall

Rain Neuromorphics

Jacob Robinson

Motif Neurotech

Jay Coggan

NeuroLinx

Jun Axup

E11

Kanaka Rajan

Harvard

Kevin Boergens

The University of Illinois Chicago

Kwabena Boahen

Stanford University

Logan Collins

WUSTL

Matt Angle

Paradromics, Inc.

Matthew Botvinick

Google DeepMind

Matthew von Hippel

e184

Max Kanwal

Michael Andregg

Eon Systems

Mikhail G. Shapiro

Caltech

Paris Brown

Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Peter Zhegin

e184

Philip Sabes

Integral Neuro

Richard Csaky

Sonera

Richie Kohman

Eon Systems

Stephan Ihle

University of Chicago

Sumner Norman

Forest Neurotech

Surya Ganguli

Stanford University

Tom Oxley

Synchron, Inc.

Vikash Gilja

UC San Diego

Yasmeen Hmaidan

Draper Associates

Zan Huang

University of Michigan

Day 1

09:00 – 09:30 am

Arrival & Light Breakfast

09:30 – 10:00 am

Participants Intros & Welcome

10:00 – 11:10 am

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

11:10 am – 12:20 pm

Workshop

12:20 – 1:20 pm

Lunch

1:20 – 2:30 pm

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

2:30 – 3:40 pm

Workshop

3:40 – 5:00 pm

Working Group Presentations

5:00 – 7:00 pm

Dinner & Optional Breakouts

Day 2

09:00 – 09:30 am

Arrival

09:30 – 10:40 am

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

10:40 am – 12:00pm

Workshop

12:00 – 1:00 pm

Lunch

1:00 – 2:00 pm

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

2:00 – 3:20 pm

Workshop

3:20 – 4:40 pm

Working Group Presentations

4:40 – 5:00 pm

Closing Ceremony & $10k Grant Award

5:00 – 6:00 pm

Social Time

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