Ekram Alam is the CEO & Co-Founding father of MindPortal, an organization that’s constructing the longer term of human-AI telepathy, by developing non-invasive neural interfaces that transform how humans interact with AI. Their mission is to streamline communication by allowing users to interact with AI through thought alone, bypassing conventional methods like typing or speaking.

One in all your proudest moments is while you dropped out of medical school, could you discuss this fork within the road, and while you realized entrepreneurship was your path?

Dropping out of medical school marked a major turning point in my life, not because I used to be headed towards entrepreneurship in the normal sense, but since it represented a profound shift towards living in alignment with my authentic self. This decision stemmed from a realization where I saw that my previous path was not one among personal alternative but one shaped by external pressures and expectations, primarily to please my parents.

My journey into what some might call ‘entrepreneurship’ is best understood as a quest for authenticity and impact. Influenced by visionaries like Michael Jackson, Steve Jobs, and Walt Disney, I recognized my deep resonance with creativity, innovation, and making a major impact. This realization wasn’t about adopting a brand new label but about aligning my actions with a vision of advancing humanity toward an ever-expanding future.

In exploring this path, I became taken with the potential impact of ideas like psychedelics, which, coupled with readings like “The Singularity is Near,” helped me see the intersection of my personal passions with the broader trajectory of technological and human advancement. This wasn’t about fitting into the present mold of an organization or using capital in the standard sense; these were just tools at my disposal. My real focus was on launching projects that serve the advancement of humanity, leveraging existing current paradigm structures resembling an organization structure and capital as off-the-shelf vehicles towards this vision while staying open to the emergence of latest paradigms that may higher serve our collective journey.

The essence of my endeavor is thus not entrepreneurship per se but a commitment to contributing to the infinite game of human progress. This game involves expanding the frontiers of our capabilities, experiences, and understanding in a way that transcends current societal and economic structures. It’s about playing an lively role within the evolution of humanity and technology, with an eye fixed towards a future where we continually redefine the boundaries of possibility.

To expand on this, my departure from medical school marked not only a divergence from a predefined path but an initiation right into a profound exploration of existential alignment and purpose. This journey was less about rejecting a standard profession and more about awakening to a holistic vision of progress and potentiality that transcends conventional labels like ‘entrepreneurship.’

In essence, my voyage is one among aligning with the macrocosmic evolution of complexity itself—a narrative where the universe, through an inexorable strategy of compounding complexity from simplicity, has birthed consciousness and, subsequently, technology. This trajectory suggests that technology, as an extension of natural evolution, is about to catalyze the subsequent leap within the universe’s expansive odyssey.

Through this lens, the societal constructs of ‘company’ and ‘capital’ are merely provisional tools—artifacts of our current epoch utilized toward the final word end of advancing human and technological potential. This attitude posits these tools not as ends in themselves but as malleable means, adaptable to the evolving needs of humanity’s quest towards infinite frontiers.

The core of my mission, subsequently, is to contribute to this grand tapestry of universal evolution. It’s an endeavor that views human progress and technological advancement not merely as goals but as manifestations of a deeper, cosmic game of exploration and expansion. This game is governed by the principles of perpetual growth, transcendence, and the unending quest to explore and actualize the boundless possibilities that lie before us.

This mission is rooted in a conviction that humanity’s journey is intrinsically linked to the broader evolutionary narrative of the cosmos. It’s a commitment to actively take part in steering the collective trajectory towards a realm of infinite possibilities, where each discovery and innovation serves as a stepping stone to further expansion and understanding.

In embracing this path, I’m driven by a vision that’s directly deeply personal and universally resonant—a vision that seeks not only to navigate but to contribute to the unfolding story of the universe. It’s a path that demands a reimagining of our roles and responsibilities inside this grand narrative, inviting us to view our contributions through the lens of cosmic significance and boundless potential.

Could you expand on how reading Ray Kurzweil’s book “The Singularity Is Near”, led you to start considering the far future and unlocking some latest ideas?

It’s a book that explores exponential technological advancement and its implications for humanity. The Singularity term itself has connotations to an event horizon, a future whereby predicting what’s possible becomes difficult due to how profoundly various things will likely be. Even when we take a moment to assume our wildest dreams and imaginations of what the longer term is perhaps like, the actual future will likely be much more beautiful, wild, intense, and an experience we simply cannot fathom with our current primate biological brains. To me, it represents one among the best books ever written and I enjoy envisioning the longer term of what frontiers of human advancement I’m excited for and the way technology can enable serving the proliferation of this advancement. The bonus of advancement being exponential is that when it comes to absolute time things will occur far faster than we realize and even can intuitively compute in our brains. It’s also an infinite positive sum game of ever-expanding human potential, capabilities, and experiences. In a way, it’s a book that resonates with me since it’s pro-human, it’s about human advancement, and technology is an enabler of that advancement – technology isn’t the goal, it’s a way to an infinite expansion of humanity itself. From living eternally, to mitigating suffering, to expanding our minds and intelligence, to exploring the universe to infinite more unimaginable expanses of this game and delight that’s existence – this book resonated because that is something I really like and live for and am enthusiastic about and need to contribute to human advancement as a part of our collective journey on this tapestry of reality and existence.

In a future where AI will inevitably surpass humans, why is it necessary for MindPortal  to construct technologies to enable humans to more intimately communicate and interact with AI?

Human biological evolution, including our brains, has plateaued. AI, however, is exponentially increasing in intelligence and capability. It would surpass humans. And that is great, but I would like us to have the choice of going along for the ride (if we wish to – my perspective is that individual humans should select whatever they wish to do). But what I mean by this can be a human-AI merger – we turn into “one” with AI, and subsequently, as AI becomes infinitely more capable, so can we since it’s not two distinct entities – our brains and minds are, in essence, increasingly nonbiological.

So, in essence, merging human minds with AI is very important. It’s necessary because it enables us as humans to maintain pace and proceed to be on the frontier of this cosmic game of expansion, innovation, and advancement, and it’s also helpful in that it helps to mitigate risks that include runaway AI. So it’s each a possible for upside and minimisation of risk. It’s a boon as we connect and expand what humanity even is to latest frontiers. The definition of humanity, I imagine, will likely be expanded to incorporate biological humans, post-biological hybrid humans, and pure AIs. All of that is humanity.

MindPortal launched with my vision in mind of a human-AI merger, and it exists to at the very least contribute towards the foundational features of this merger. A merger is a spectrum – two separate entities increasingly connected when brought close enough together to turn into a unified entity. The cells in your body communicate, but cohesively they form organs and organ systems. By enabling higher human-AI telepathic communication, which is the present focus at MindPortal, it sets the muse for a greater communication relationship between humans and AI, even when at present we generally consider humans and AI as distinct nevertheless it also paves the way in which for a deeper understanding of how the human brain communicates, and the way AI may be inbuilt a way that operates in tandem with the brain. That is groundwork for the longer term where these insights can contribute to human-AI merging where the communication between the human mind and AI will likely be so seamless and high bandwidth that it represents a cohesive internal unified communication with self aka there isn’t any human communicating with AI, but fairly a unified entity communicating with its own expanded mind.

So MindPortal exists to enable higher human AI telepathy because within the short term high bandwidth comms is nice for spatial computing and LLM interaction – it’s higher than a mouse or keyboard and represents an expansion of the bottleneck when it comes to communicating with powerful tools.

But long run, it represents groundwork and sets the stage for human-AI merging by enabling a deeper understanding of human-AI symbiotic relationships.

Are you able to discuss the technology that’s being developed, and the way it differs from a few of your biggest competitors resembling Neuralink?

Our technology distinguishes itself in two fundamental ways. Firstly, unlike Neuralink’s invasive approach, we utilize non-invasive methods. Our primary focus lies in telepathy, enabling users to speak with AI through imagined language directly. In contrast, Neuralink employs invasive electrodes embedded in users’ brains, utilizing a surgical robot for quicker and more precise electrode implantation to boost spatial resolution.

While invasive electrodes have been demonstrated in academic labs before, Neuralink’s innovation lies in the event of a surgical robot to expedite the implantation process. This approach allows them to position electrodes closer to neurons, enabling more direct recording of neuronal activity. Their emphasis on spatial resolution is primarily geared towards medical applications, for instance in patients with conditions like Parkinson’s.

In contrast, our non-invasive sensor technology is designed with a consumer-oriented focus, catering to a broader audience beyond medical patients. Moreover, our understanding of the human brain recognizes the distinct roles of the neocortex layers. Neuralink’s invasive electrodes primarily reach the deeper layers answerable for functions like dopamine production, often relevant in conditions resembling Parkinson’s.

We acknowledge the distributed nature of language and semantic information within the neocortex. Invasive methods would require multiple surgical electrodes and the requirement for surgical holes drilled into the skull to effectively access this information. Our non-invasive sensors cover larger areas of the brain, allowing for simpler recording of functional dynamics crucial for imagined speech and other areas of interest. This approach eliminates the necessity for invasive procedures and enhances the general usability and accessibility of our technology for a broader user base.

What are among the biggest challenges behind constructing a brain-computer interface (BCI)?

Our research and development has encountered various challenges and uncertainties, showcasing the novelty of our approach. Listed here are some key hurdles we’ve got addressed:

• Experimental Paradigm Design: We faced the challenge of determining essentially the most effective experimental design for eliciting detectable neural signals related to semantics and language based meaning using non-invasive equipment. Drawing insights from neurolinguistics and leveraging our team and collaborators expertise, we designed an experimental paradigm to optimize the possibilities of identifying discoverable neural patterns related to imagined speech.
• Repeatability of Results: Imagining speech produces low-intensity signals within the brain, making it difficult to differentiate from the inherent noise. Moreover, human brain states vary throughout the day and across different days, raising concerns concerning the repeatability of signals across different recording sessions. This uncertainty persevered in each our word decoding and sentence decoding experiments.
• Signal Processing Pipeline for Optical Neuroimaging Data: Non-invasive instrumentation like functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) introduced various sources of noise within the signal, particularly when attempting to discover different sentences with distinct meanings. The decoding of sentences had not been demonstrated previously with fNIRS technology. Furthermore, demonstrating semantic representations had only been achieved with higher resolution fMRI, which is non-portable, fairly than with the portable technology we employed.
• Machine Learning Model Development: Developing a machine learning model able to classifying different sentences in real-time posed a major challenge. The duty required extensive data science experimentation to discover the optimal model architecture able to effectively differentiating between neural patterns corresponding to different imagined sentences.

Addressing these challenges has been integral to the advancement of our R&D, pushing the boundaries of what’s achievable in the sphere of non-invasive neural interface technology.

Everyone’s brain is different, how is machine learning used to discover thoughts?

MindPortal acknowledges the unique nature of every individual’s brain while recognizing fundamental similarities in speech production and processing networks. In semantics, the neocortex serves as a typical ground for representing meaning.

Through our neuroimaging technology, we capture images of brain activity when users imagine different sentences, revealing distinct patterns of activation. By collecting data from multiple participants, we’re training a machine learning model to create a generalized model. This approach is akin to image evaluation in computer vision, where a model is trained on diverse images to discover patterns, resembling recognizing pictures of a bear despite variations in context, shape, or color.

This generalized model can then be fine-tuned through a calibration experiment, accommodating subtle differences in a brand new user’s brain. This process allows the model to adapt, ensuring effective recognition of imagined sentences. In essence, our methodology mirrors the principles of image evaluation in computer vision, demonstrating the flexibility and flexibility of our neuroimaging technology in understanding and interpreting the neural patterns related to imagined speech.

Are you able to discuss one among your guiding principles which is: “what’s the Experience We Need a Human to Have”. What specifically is the experience you’re aiming for?

Within the short term, we’re aiming for human-AI telepathy at MindPortal. A human thinks, and something happens. The experience I would like is magical. Godlike. You’re thinking that, and it becomes. You wish something done in your environment, and it happens.

The experience ought to be intuitive and subsequently require minimal training to make use of. You simply naturally imagine speech in your mind e.g. you would possibly imagine a sentence or inner monologue in your mind resembling “Show me one of the best restaurants in my area”, and it immediately happens. The experience will likely be private, hands-free, accurate, intuitive, and in real-time.

The wearable we’re designing at MindPortal will likely be lightweight, fashionable, stylish, comfortable, and integrated into your every day life. In the longer term, this technology will integrate with AR hardware like headsets or glasses. Imagine yourself projecting a hologram of a rocket, and you’re thinking that to yourself, “What changes do I intend to make to this rocket?,” and the design will auto-shift in line with your thoughts and desires whilst you lay back in your sofa.

MindPortal is currently working on mentally interfacing with Large Language Models, are you able to discuss your progress on this?

MindPortal has made significant progress with demonstrating human-AI telepathic communication between a human user and Large Language Models resembling chatGPT. We began by successfully classifying sentences and words using non-invasive technology, specifically through optical neuroimaging. This breakthrough allowed us to decode sentences with different meanings directly from the human brain. In early 2023, we demonstrated our ability to decode individual words like ‘yes’ and ‘no’ using a specialized headset, enabling users to interact with screens by imagining ‘yes’ or ‘no’—the first-ever demonstration of human telepathic interaction with ChatGPT. Constructing on this success, we advanced to decoding full sentences from the human brain. Users could imagine sentences from a set of pre-trained options, and our machine learning model recorded their real-time brain state, predicting the imagined sentence, which was then communicated to ChatGPT for a response. Currently, we’re developing our next milestone, set to be unveiled in Q3 2024. This advancement will showcase a significantly larger vocabulary of sentences, covering the range of expressions users convey in on a regular basis speech.

What’s your vision for the longer term of BCI?

Within the short term, our vision for brain-computer interfacing focuses on two areas. One area is spatial computing integrated input. Imagine an immersive experience in virtual and augmented reality, where executing commands is so simple as considering. Your thoughts directly shape the virtual environment, making interactions effortless. The second area extends to the telepathic integration with Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI assistants like Alexa, Siri, or ChatGPT. The power to receive responses and execute commands through thought alone represents a major shift in human-AI interaction, offering unparalleled convenience. The 2 areas are prone to increasingly converge in the longer term, whereby you possibly can be in an AR experience and navigate your spatial computing ecosystem with the assistance of an AI assistant with whom you telepathically communicate.

Looking further ahead, our long-term vision involves a profound human-AI merger. We foresee a continuum where minds seamlessly integrate with AI, where humans increasingly move from being predominantly biological to predominantly non-biological. This evolution positions us as post-biological humans, with individuals having the autonomy to find out their existence. Crucially, this transformative shift is voluntary, respecting the preferences of those that may select to not embrace this hybridization with AI. Our goal is to empower individuals with the liberty to make a decision the extent of their integration with AI, fostering a future where human-AI collaboration is each versatile and customizable.