Neuralink announces that it is authorized to test its brain implants on humans

2023-05-25 23:20:07

The Californian company initially aims to help people who are paralyzed or suffering from neurological diseases.

By Le Figaro with AFP

Published update

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So far, the coin-sized prototypes have been implanted in the skulls of animals. – / AFP

La start-up Neuralinkone of Elon Musk’s companies, announced Thursday, May 25 on Twitter that it had received approval from US health authorities to test its connected brain implants on humans. “This is an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people”said the Californian company on its Twitter account, specifying that “Recruitments for clinical trials are not yet open.”

Neuralink designs connected devices to be implanted in the brain to communicate with computers directly through thought. They must first be used to help people who are paralyzed or suffering from neurological diseases. The start-up then wants to make these implants safe and reliable enough for them to be elective (comfort) surgery. People could then pay a few thousand dollars to endow their brains with computer power.

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Allowing humanity to achieve ‘symbiosis with AI’

For Elon Musk, these chips must allow humanity to arrive at a “symbiosis with AI”in his 2020 words, delivered at the company’s annual conference. “We are now confident that Neuralink’s device is ready for humans, so the timeline depends on the FDA approval process. (the agency responsible for public health in the United States, editor’s note)»he said at the end of November on Twitter, a month after buying the social network.

The billionaire is a regular at risky predictions, especially about the autonomy of Tesla electric cars. In July 2019, he estimated that Neuralink could perform its first tests on people in 2020. So far, the coin-sized prototypes have been implanted in the skulls of animals. Many monkeys are thus able to “play” to video games or «taper» words on a screen, simply by following the movement of the cursor on the screen.

Other companies are working on controlling computers by thought, such as Synchron, which announced in July 2022 that it had implanted the first brain-machine interface in the United States.

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