“I expect the first Neuralink chip to be tested on a human within six months.” Here is the new, ambitious project of the visionary entrepreneur Elon Musk. “As miraculous as it may seem – Musk continued to the timid applause of the people in the hall for the presentation held Wednesday evening in Fremont, California – we plan to restore full function to the body to those with a broken spinal cord”.
Elon Musk’s miraculous promises: “Neuralink will give sight even to those born blind”
In fact, during the event he presented two other products, in addition to the brain-computer interface: the implant that can enter the spinal cord and potentially restore movement in someone suffering from paralysis and another intended to improve or restore vision. To succeed in this endeavour, the first step of Elon Musk’s Neuralink will be to insert its coin-sized computer brain implant into human patients within six months. Musk himself announced that ongoing discussions between Neuralink and the Food and Drug Administration have gone “pretty well.”
Founded in 2016, the Neuralink company has so far only conducted tests on animals. The latest was presented to the public over a year ago: a monkey able, thanks to a brain implant, to play a video game on its own.
It is a device with wires and electrodes, about the size of a coin, which can be implanted in the human body and “reads” the brain waves, which are then interpreted and translated by an external device. Neuralink, based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Austin, Texas, has since its foundation been dedicated to enabling people with paralysis to regain their motor skills, but also to challenge degenerative brain diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Without neglecting the study of the possibilities offered by the symbiosis between the human brain and artificial intelligence.