Elon Musk's Neuralink technology will see its first human implant this year. If you're excited to see how Musk's brain chip will work on humans, we might find out very soon.
The brain-interface tech company was founded by Elon Musk in 2016 and its chip will finally be implanted into a human brain this year. In 2021, the implant was seen in action in a monkey who played MindPong. The monkey was able to play the game by simply thinking it, with help from Neuralink chip.
Recently speaking at the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit, Elon Musk shared what's in store for the mind-bending tech. “We have Neuralink working well in monkeys. We are also doing a lot of testing and confirming that it’s very safe and reliable and that the Neuralink device can be removed safely," Musk said.
For Elon Musk, Neuralink implant is a "profound" device, for it could help many people who have suffered spinal cord injuries and struggle to perform bodily tasks. This tech could help them regain independence.
“We hope to have this in our first humans ,which will be people that have severe spinal-cord injuries like quadriplegics,next year," Musk said
How does Neuralink work?
In the simplest terms, Neuralink works by inserting tiny wires into the cortex, recording the electrical activity of the surrounding neurons, processing that data on the chip and sending it wirelessly to a computer (or phone) for further processing.
Updated design of Neuralink
To insert the device, a robot has been developed to act like an autonomous “sewing machine” to insert each wire into the brain with minimal insult. The robot is even supposed to be able to complete the craniotomy, all with local anesthesia.
The device itself is coin sized, runs on a rechargeable battery (with battery life of about a day…), and relays a thousand or so channels of the times when neurons around each of the wires fire. The software the device uses is a bit more opaque, and hopefully all of the details will be released soon.
Earlier, Musk had hoped to begin testing Neuralink in humans in 2021,this didn't happen and the timeline has now been delayed.
The lesson here is that while Musk seems optimistic about the tech, its utility, and a pending FDA approval, he has a history of providing unrealistic timelines. While we'd love to see Neuralink in action this year, we'll just have to wait and find out.