The company of the tycoon of South African origin wants people with reduced mobility to be able to carry out actions “with their minds”. Neuralink had previously been questioned for the death of monkeys in experiments.
Billionaire Elon Musk reported that one of his companies, Neuralink, will implant a device in a human brain within six months that would allow communication with a computer.
The interface, explained the also owner of Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX, would allow the person to communicate directly with computers through their thoughts: “I think we have submitted most of our documentation to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration of USA) and we estimate that probably in about six months we should be able to have our first Neuralink in a human ,” he explained in a company presentation.
“We’ve been working hard to get ready for our first human (implant), and obviously we want to be extremely careful and make sure it’s going to work well before we put a device in a human,” he added.
monkeys playing video games
Musk is known for making ambitious predictions about his companies, and several of them haven’t come true. For example, in July 2019, he promised that Neuralink could run its first human tests in 2020.
The coin-sized prototypes have been implanted and tested in monkey skulls. The company showed several of these monkeys “playing” video games or moving a cursor on a screen through their Neuralink implant.
Neuralink has also been harshly questioned for being responsible for the death of 16 of these monkeys during these experiments.
Help for people with reduced mobility
Musk said the company would try to use the implants to restore vision and mobility in humans: “Initially, we would empower someone who has almost no ability to manage their muscles … and we would allow them to operate their phone faster than someone else. that it has hands that work”, he stressed.
“As miraculous as it may seem, we are confident that full-body functionality can be restored to someone who has had their spinal cord severed,” he added.
Beyond the potential to treat neurological diseases, Musk’s ultimate goal is to ensure that humans are not intellectually overwhelmed by artificial intelligence.