Neuralink was founded by Elon Musk to create brain-computer interfaces
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What is Neuralink?
Neuralink was founded in 2016 by Elon Musk, who also runs SpaceX, Tesla and X, formerly Twitter, to create brain-computer interfaces: brain-connected devices that allow people to communicate with computers through thought alone.
These devices can allow you to perform simple tasks such as searching for information or performing complex calculations with computers. In theory, they could also create technological telepathy, restore sight to blind people, and allow paralyzed people to control prostheses and regain movement. Musk has said in the past that his company’s technology could allow humans to form “a kind of symbiosis” with AI.
What has Neuralink achieved so far?
Neuralink’s device is about the size of a coin and is designed to be implanted under the skull, with tiny wires reaching a short distance into the brain to read the activity of neurons. The company has already conducted experiments on pigs and demonstrated that a monkey can play the classic video game Pong using the device. In May 2023, Neuralink said it had received approval for human trials.
According to Musk’s tweet, that process is currently underway. Anonymous received the implant on January 28th and is “recovering well”, Musk said. No other details of the trial have yet been released, and Neuralink did not respond The new scientist request for comment.
Has this been done before?
Musk’s company is far from the only group working on this idea. Many academic groups and commercial startups have already conducted human trials and managed to correctly interpret brain signals into some kind of result.
A team at Stanford University in California placed two tiny sensors just below the surface of the brain of a man who was paralyzed below the neck. The researchers were able to interpret the man’s brain signals as he thought about writing words with pen on paper and convert them into readable text on a computer.
Is the technology safe?
This is what the process aims to discover. But according to reports, not all of Neuralink’s previous animal experiments have been successful.
In 2022, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an advocacy organization, sent a letter to the USDA requesting an investigation into what it called “apparent gross violations of the Animal Welfare Act related to the treatment of monkeys used in invasive brain experiments’. .
A Reuters report from the same year cited documents and sources that showed Neuralink’s tests killed 1,500 animals, in some cases causing “unnecessary suffering and death.”
Any device intended to be implanted in humans will have to overcome a number of regulatory hurdles to ensure that the device itself, the installation process and its continued use are relatively safe and that any potential risks are well understood.
When will Neuralink be available and how much will it cost?
We’re a long way from being a commercial product, with lots of testing and accreditation, so it’s too early to tell. But Musk has made it clear that he intends to commercialize the technology. The the first planned product is called “Telepathy” and will allow users to control their phones and computers.
Tara Spiers-Jones of the University of Edinburgh, UK, told the Science Media Centre, a non-profit organization in the UK, that Neuralink has great potential and that multiple research groups are working on similar ideas.
“In recent research trials (unrelated to Neuralink), scientists have been able to implant brain-spine interfaces that help people with paralysis walk, and other work shows promise in computers interpreting brain waves and brain scans to allow people who cannot speak to communicate,” she said. “However, most of these interfaces require invasive neurosurgery and are still in the experimental stages, so it will likely be many years before they become widely available.”
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