How This Brain Implant Is Using ChatGPT

Watch this: What It’s Like Using a Brain Implant With ChatGPT

04:54

One of the leading-edge implantable brain-computer-interface, or BCI, companies is experimenting with ChatGPT integration to make it easier for people living with paralysis to control their digital devices.

We previously covered Synchron’s unique approach to implanting its BCI without the need for open brain surgery. Now the company has integrated OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its software, something it says is a world’s first for a BCI company.

We spoke with Synchron’s founding CEO, Tom Oxley, and pioneering patient Mark, who’s featured in the demo video, to find out what it’s like to use, where the integration of AI and brain implants may be headed, and what comes next.

Mark was diagnosed with ALS in 2021 and says the use of his hands is “almost gone at this point.” He’s one of 10 people in the world who’ve been implanted with Synchron’s BCI as part of clinical trials.

Typing out messages word by word with the help of a BCI is still time consuming. The addition of AI is seen as a way to make communication faster and easier by taking in the relevant context, like what was last said in a conversation, and anticipating answers a person might want to respond with, providing them with a menu of possible options.

Now, instead of typing out each word, answers can be filled in with a single “click.” There’s a refresh button in case none of the AI answers are right, and Mark has noticed the AI getting better at providing answers that are more in line with things he might say.

“Every once in a while it’ll drop an f-bomb, which I tend to do occasionally,” he says with a laugh.

Synchron CEO Tom Oxley tells me the company has been experimenting with different AI models for about a year, but the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o in May raised some interesting new possibilities.

The “o” in ChatGPT-4o stands for “omni,” representative of the fact that this latest version is capable of taking in text, audio and visual inputs all at once to inform its outputs.

One OpenAI demo in particular caught Oxley’s attention. It showed a man with vision-impairment navigating the city, having the AI describe his surroundings, and even helping him hail a Taxi. Oxley envisions the future of BCIs as perhaps similar: having large language models like ChatGPT take in relevant context in the form of text, audio and visuals to provide relevant prompts that users can select with their BCI.

Oxley also says the company isn’t tied down to any particular large language model. In the fast-moving field of AI, the systems that best serve the needs of their patients is what Synchron will adopt.

Synchron’s implant, called a stentrode, is inserted inside a blood vessel near the brain’s motor cortex, the part of our brain that controls our movements. In order to make a click or a selection with the Synchron BCI, users think about moving, and the BCI interprets those thoughts and transmits them wirelessly to take the desired action on the user’s device.

Synchron’s BCI is expected to cost between $50,000 and $100,000, comparable with the cost of other implanted medical devices like cardiac pacemakers or cochlear implants. There haven’t yet been any implantable BCIs that have earned market approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, something Synchron hopes to change. Though the process may take several years, Synchron’s BCI is already making an impact.

“There’s hope coming,” Mark says, for anybody who may be in a similar situation. Mark concluded our conversation by encouraging people to participate in finding solutions, “Whatever I can do to help others, I think that’s why we’re here.”

To see Synchron’s BCI in action, check out the video in this article.