{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Juan Benet Podcast","title":"We Are Massively Underinvesting in the Human Brain | Dr. Adam Marblestone","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":8988,"description":"New episode with Dr. Adam Marblestone, CEO and co-founder of Convergent Research. Adam is an extraordinary catalyst and accelerant for science: he has influenced or routed billions in funding, he helped start significant companies and scientific subfields, and he is the world’s go-to person for neuroscience roadmapping. This year, the NSF launched a $1.5B X-Labs initiative inspired by the FRO model Adam pioneered. Though he started with neuroscience, today he helps organize scientific endeavors across many fields, including AI, math, biology, climate, astrophysics, and more.\nAdam proposes that fields like neurotech, whole-brain emulation, cryo, and nanotech are severely limited by capital and coordination — not ideas. Connectomics is a clear case. He argues that mapping the brain's full wiring diagram is the approach most poised-to-scale and still extremely neglected. Costs for a molecularly annotated mouse connectome have come down orders of magnitude, from an estimated $10B to $100M–200M, Adam suggests, with a human connectome perhaps costing around $1B–2B. The cost curve of connectomes is similar to transistors and gene sequencing: once it is low enough, we get extraordinary outcomes for humanity. Near-term applications could pay for it: new drug targets for brain disease, insights for AI development, emulations, and even “control knobs” for mood and focus we haven’t identified yet.\nIn this episode, we go deep on many topics in neurotech and beyond: what the brain can do that computers still can't; what neuroscience could teach AI; how you'd actually map a whole mammal brain; how far today's fly-brain simulations really get toward an upload; what it would take to move mind uploading beyond the fringe or science; where brain-computer interfaces go next; nanotech, reversible cryonics, AI doing its own ML research, and even predictive, agent-based economics. I'm very excited to have Adam on the podcast. Hope you enjoy! \nOther links to this episode and references...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/hwLLhmqIyFaujuaCL1KSkRJIl5oD0cpFS9ehspujIpI/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMDJi/MTUwNzM0NTQ0ZjQ3/ZWFkZTBmZjBjNzk1/MzlkYi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}