San Francisco area Event report • Committees
Beyond the Brain: The Next Frontier of Human-Machine Interaction
How close are we to truly seamless interaction between humans and machines?
Credit photos: Frederic Neema / Octamedia Productions
The French like Brain Tech (and after this event, I do too)
At the French American Chamber of Commerce in California, we’re used to putting on great events, but the latest panel at INSEAD was in a league of its own. I arrived expecting a routine medtech discussion. I left feeling unexpectedly changed, as if the speakers had rewired my perspective in real time.
The venue was sleek and modern, fitting the big goals of the night. But instead of just talking about gadgets, the focus was on the amazing human connectome of 86 billion brain cells that makes us who we are.
Dr. Jun Axup, COO at E11 Bio, moderated the evening with contagious enthusiasm. She didn’t hide her awe for the brain’s complexity, and neither did anyone else. When she described her team’s work, already mapping a fly brain and now moving on to a mouse, her eyes lit up. Someone asked about mapping the human brain. Jun was honest: we’re not there yet. But then she smiled, “if there’s a billionaire in the room that would like to donate, we can move faster…” It was a reminder that while science is advancing rapidly, the path to scaling it may depend just as much on unconventional funding models as on technological breakthroughs. This kind of research is extraordinarily expensive, long-term, and uncertain; qualities that do not always align with the expectations of venture capital. The path to scaling and making it accessible to everyone may depend on developing unconventional funding models, such as nonprofit Focused Research Organizations (FROs) like Forest Neurotech and E11 Bio.
The chemistry on stage was electric. Instead of sterile jargon, the panelists exchanged stories - funny, raw, sometimes vulnerable. There was laughter, confessions of failure, and a humility that stripped away the intimidation of brain science, making it feel accessible to everyone.
Professor Philip Sabes, founder of the technology behind Neuralink and Integral, underlined a key reality: nobody has “solved” the brain, and nobody pretended otherwise. Instead, neuroscience is a patchwork of methods. There are electrodes, which are amazing but invasive. There is an electroencephalogram (EEG), which is safe but blurry. And now, functional ultrasound (fUS), a promising newcomer invented in Paris. The way the panelists described these tools, you could tell they were both proud of what’s possible and humbled by what remains out of reach.
Dr. Claire Rabut Nastaskin, a French scientist trained in Paris, passed around a miniaturized ultrasound device, smaller than a credit card. This cutting-edge technology felt like the early days when Apple unveiled the first iPhone. The skull usually blocks such measurements, she explained, but by tracking blood flow, functional ultrasound (fUS) offers a middle ground: better resolution than EEG, with no surgery required. For now, it is a game-changer for patients who have lost part of their skull, but Claire’s excitement was contagious. You could tell she believes that one day, we will see through bone, too.
Then, suddenly, things got a little magical. The evening took a turn worthy of science fiction.
Dr. Philip Shamash from Meta showed off the Meta Neural Band—a wristband that can read signals from your muscles. He connected it to a computer and typed in the air, moving his fingers to write on the screen, "The French like brain tech!" Then Claire tried it to show it was real. She typed “Allez les bleus” in the air. The audience cheered, and Claire laughed, surprised. For a moment, we all felt like kids again, watching the future unfold before us.
It’s not measuring anything going on in your brain; it’s not reading your thoughts. Every time you create a movement, the neurons in your spinal cord and muscles activate, creating tiny electrical signals. When your muscle fires and contracts, it produces an electrical signal on the surface that we can measure—essentially, we’re reading the electrical activity of the muscle, not your brain.
But then things got more serious. Dr. Sabes believes that these tools can be used to change the parts of the brain that cause depression, addiction, or OCD. People were hopeful, but also worried. No one wanted to pretend there were simple answers. Everyone knows these are tough questions. Yet, as the panel warned, this is a double-edged sword. A device that instantly lifts your mood or sharpens your focus? That could be a miracle or dangerous. The experts didn’t dodge the tough stuff, admitting they worry about addiction, inequality, and the limits of consent. There was a real sense of responsibility in the room, a recognition that technology is only as good as the humans guiding it.
By the end of the night, I felt both hopeful and uneasy. Not only are we looking at the brain, but we are now beginning to talk to it. The $800 price tag on the Meta neuroband could potentially create ‘cognitive inequality,’ though it may become less of an issue if access grows over time. What matters now is how we handle this turning point, knowing that technology, left unchecked, might deepen the very divides we hope to close.
Sitting in that room, surrounded by visionaries and skeptics alike, I realized the true story isn’t about the wires, but about us and the choices we face as we try to believe we can cure depression while controlling the specter of addiction.
As the event ended, one phrase lingered: “Allez les BCI.” The future is accelerating toward us, and it promises to be a great human adventure.
Lisiena Hysenaj, co-Chair
