Dr. Michael Kilgard

There's a new gene that plays a role.

It's complicated.

We didn't know that.

We really thought it was going to be like our designed world, where there's something simple, where you fix it, this grindstone isn't working because the water's not flowing in right, turning this thing.

And when you're fixing a car, cars are complicated.

Apologies to all my friends who are mechanics.

But by comparison of the brain, where you're talking about 20,000 different genes, you're talking about billions of different inputs coming in every hour, and it's stored in a network of trillions of synapses, it's just really very complicated.

We didn't have enough humility.

But I now think even if we had the humility, it was still smart to spend 50 years trying what we tried.

It just didn't work.

And now the question is what do we do next?

And I think there will be investment.

I think people who are enlightened – and it's interesting.

Patients really like the cochlear implant.

They know how it works.

It's not just take a pill.

It's these eight or 20 electrodes are on my nerve, which is organized like piano keys, and each one pushes a different button.

These are highs.

These are lows.

They kind of get it.