Elon Musk is no stranger to bold claims – from his plans to colonize Mars to his dreams of building transport links underneath our biggest cities. This week the world’s richest man said his Neuralink division had successfully implanted its first wireless brain chip into a human, sources BBC.
Neural link Technology
Neuralink is one of a growing number of companies and university departments attempting to refine and ultimately commercialize this technology. The focus, at least to start with, is on paralysis and the treatment of complex neurological conditions.
The human brain is home to around 86 billion neurons, nerve cells connected by synapses. Every time we want to move, feel or think, a tiny electrical impulse is generated and sent incredibly quickly from one neuron to another.
Scientists have developed devices that can detect some of those signals – either using a non-invasive cap placed on the head or wires implanted into the brain itself.
The technology – known as a brain-computer interface (BCI) – is where many millions of dollars of research funding appears to be heading at the moment.
Neuralink’s device, about the size of a coin, is inserted in the skull, with microscopic wires that can read neuron activity and beam back a wireless signal to a receiving unit. The company has run trials in pigs and claimed that monkeys can play a basic version of the video game Pong.
One of its main rivals, a start-up called Synchron backed by funding from investment firms controlled by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, has already implanted its stent-like device into 10 patients.
Back in December 2021, Philip O’Keefe, a 62-year-old Australian who lives with a form of motor neuron disease, composed the first tweet using just his thoughts to control a cursor.
In a research paper published this year, they demonstrated a signal could be beamed down from a device in his brain to a second device implanted at the base of his spine, which could then trigger his limbs to move.
Some people living with spinal injuries are skeptical about the sudden interest in this new kind of technology.
Extremely Important
But for Elon Musk, “solving” brain and spinal injuries is just the first step for Neuralink. The longer-term goal is “human/AI symbiosis”, something he describes as “species-level important”.
The real trick will be developing a system that can interpret or translate the signals coming from the brain with a far greater level of accuracy. If and when that happens humans may be able to communicate with computers and other electronic devices in a way that is difficult to comprehend today.
Imagine being able to order a takeaway with your thoughts, or search the internet, or translate one language to another immediately in your head, just by thinking about it.
Musk himself has already talked about a future where his device could allow people to communicate with a phone or computer “faster than a speed typist or auctioneer”.
Others are more skeptical: “At the moment, I’m struggling to see an application that a consumer would benefit from, where they would take the risk of invasive surgery,” says Prof Vanhoestenberghe.
“You’ve got to ask yourself, would you risk brain surgery just to be able to order a pizza on your phone?”
Instead she thinks the first mass-market uses may be in stimulating the brain to tackle problems like treatment-resistant depression, dementia, and even some sleeping disorders, although the benefits are far from certain and research is at an early stage. Dr Dean Burnett, honorary research fellow at Cardiff University’s psychology school, also says there are enormous practical barriers to Neuralink becoming a mainstream consumer product.
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Source: BBC
