by Daisy Luther, The Organic Prepper:
This site published an article back in 2019 on “smart chips for the brain.” It quoted Northwestern University neuroscientist and business professor Dr. Moran Cerf saying, “In as little as five years, super smart people could be walking down the street; men and women who’ve paid to increase their intelligence.”
Well, here we are, five years later. … and at the end of January, Elon Musk announced on Twitter (X) that the first human had received a Neuralink implant, a device called Telepathy. We’re not sure if he is super smart yet. But if Telepathy works as planned, he may have a variety of new capabilities.
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Neuralink is not the first company to develop brain-machine interfaces.
People have understood that we can use electrical stimuli to provoke nerve reactions for hundreds of years. In 1969, the first cochlear implant restored a sense of sound to a patient. In 2012, BrainGate developed a device that allowed a paralyzed woman to drink from a bottle, using her thoughts to control a robot arm.
Historically, work in brain-computer interfaces (BCI) has focused on restoring function to people with degenerative neurological diseases or spinal injuries. More recently, startups such as Precision Neuroscience, Synchron, and Neuralink are trying to turn BCI technology into something usable by a wider patient pool.
Again, Neuralink is not the first company to put a device in a human’s brain, but its device can record far more information than previous ones.
Neuralink is also the first device surgically placed by a robot. The implant threads are so fine they can’t be inserted by a human hand, which is why Musk’s team developed a robot surgeon to perform the task. The robot removes a piece of the skull and then weaves electrodes and superfine wire into the brain.
What does Neuralink do?
Ramses Alcaide, CEO of Neurable, a neurotech company developing non-invasive, brain-computer interfaces in the form of headphones, explains the planned uses of Neuralink:
According to Neuralink’s website, the company’s initial goal is to help those immobilized by paralysis regain lost skills of communication. Down the line, it intends to pursue restoring motor, sensory and visual functions as well as treatment of neurological disorders.
“A Neuralink-like device has the potential to enhance human memory, processing speed and cognitive abilities by creating a direct interface between the human brain and digital devices,” Alcaide said.
Brain-computer interfaces can be used to control prosthetics or exoskeletons. This use case would enable people with paralysis or amputations to regain a certain level of mobility and independence, according to Alcaide.
Neuralink’s main focus is to help people who are unable to speak or write communicate with others by allowing them to control a virtual mouse, keyboard or send messages by thought.
For example, someone with paraplegia would be able to manipulate a computer or mobile device using speech or text synthesis to surf the web and create digital art.
By monitoring brain activity, brain-computer interfaces can also detect changes that may indicate neurological conditions such as epilepsy, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, Alcaide said.
To someone with any of the aforementioned disorders, diseases, or injuries, Neuralink might sound like a Godsend.
But it does have other potential uses, which we’ll get to in a moment.
Move fast and break things
If this sounds ambitious, it is, and the development schedule has been delayed because Musk did not get testing approvals as quickly as he originally planned. In 2022, Neuralink came under federal investigation after employees claimed that experiments were being rushed, leading to unnecessary animal deaths. In more standard research settings, a scientist will thoroughly analyze what happens when an animal dies during testing before moving on to further animal trials. This is a time-consuming process.
In 2021, rival company Synchron’s recipient of a brain implant posted a message to Twitter using only his brain. Synchron’s BCI technology differs slightly from Neuralink’s, and the implantation is minimally invasive. Their success drove Musk to push his employees even harder. He is known to “move fast and break things.”
Except animals aren’t just “things,” which most people seem to intuitively understand, even if Elon Musk doesn’t. Of the 23 monkeys tested on in Neuralink’s labs, 15 were euthanized or died, sometimes after extreme suffering. In some cases, the deaths were linked to infection or hemorrhage after the electrodes were inserted. In one case, a male monkey was found missing some of its fingers and toes, likely caused by stress-induced self-mutilation.
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