TECH
Neuralinks implantat.
Neuralink
Neuralink’s brain implant has now begun to be tested on humans. Elon Musk’s company received approval for clinical studies last year, but has also been criticized for how it treated animals during previous tests.
Enables control of your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking.
Initial users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs.
Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer. That is the goal.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 2024 ođajagemánnu 30
With the company Neuralink, Elon Musk wants to connect the brain. After testing the chip on rats, pigs and monkeys, the luck has now come to humans.
– The first human received an implant from Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well, wrote Elon Musk on X on January 29.
The implant is a coin-shaped chip and is operated on by a robot to replace a piece of the patient’s skull. 64 small flexible wires go out from the chip and into the cerebral cortex. To begin with, the goal is to help paralyzed patients, such as people with spinal cord injuries.
In the long term, however, the company hopes to be able to connect everyone who wants to upgrade their cognitive abilities. An example of an ability the company hopes to offer is being able to communicate using only the power of thought.
Criticism of the company’s animal testing
The American pharmaceutical agency FDA approved clinical trials of the implant in the spring of 2023. It is not yet clear who the first patient is. But the patient needs to be over 22 years old, have a spinal cord injury or ALS that affects the motor skills of the arms and legs and not have any other implants, writes the journal New Atlas.
The 64 wires going into the brain open up 1,024 channels of two-way communication between the chip and the brain. With the help of this, the idea is that the patient will then be able to communicate wirelessly with computers and other devices.
In a well-known video published in 2021, the macaque Pager is seen playing Pong without a controller, the monkey controlling the game by thinking. Evidence of excessive and unnecessary cruelty in animal testing and beyond 1,500 dead animals however, has also emerged, which has caused the company to receive harsh criticism.
Neuralink is also not alone in developing interfaces to connect human brains with technology, nor are they the company that has come the farthest. Other companies are, for example, Blackrock Neurotech, Synchron and Braingate.
The first product from Neuralink will be called Telepathy, writes Elon Musk on X.
– Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a “speed typist” or an auctioneer. That’s the goal, He writes on X.