The last person who said he wanted to make paralytics walk again and restore sight to the blind was born in Bethlehem, Palestine, more than two thousand years ago, and said he was the son of God. His name was Jesus and it worked miracles. Elon Musk he was born in Pretoria, South Africa, 52 years ago, he is the richest man in the world, his main companies produce electric cars and space rockets, and he has the same ambition. Yesterday he announced that for the first time a human being has been implanted with a microchip called Telepathy.
Innovation First Neuralink implant in a person’s brain, the neurologist: “Caution is needed” by Emanuele Capone 30 January 2024
Another company of his produces it, the Neuralink, founded in 2016 with the aim of creating an augmented humanity, a sort of new species in which biology and information technology are perfectly integrated. If this project were realized, one day we will be able to control our computer or our car with our thoughts and communicate with whoever we want just by thinking. A film, or a nightmare, it depends. In the meantime, this technology, if the tests are successful, could be used to treat serious pathologies of the nervous system. And in fact, when Neuralink received permission from the American government to carry out the tests on humans that up to that point it had conducted on monkeys, it turned to people with serious physical handicaps.
Neuroscience Neuralink, how it is done and how much it costs to implant a chip in the brain by Arcangelo Rociola 30 January 2024
The challenge is far from unfounded as a line of research and in fact there are several laboratories and a dozen startups working on it in the world. One is also in Italy: it’s called Cortical, was born on the impulse of a group of researchers from the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, and its founder, the scientist Luca Berdondini, claims that from a technological point of view here we are well ahead of Musk’s project, but Musk obviously has a lot more money to invest. This story will be talked about for a long time, because we are truly still at the beginning of a clinical journey that will necessarily not be short; and Elon Musk has proven to be an excellent salesman in his life of projects, but often told much more than what he had and what he achieved (do you remember the million self-driving taxis that would invade the world by 2020? Well, they don’t exist).
Yet one cannot help but be passionate about the scientific challenge: this technology would change the lives of many people who today are afflicted by serious pathologies. If it is realized, it will be like working miracles. Woody Allen once had the protagonist say in one of his films: “You say I feel like God? Well, I’ll have to take inspiration from someone.”