Elon Musk has made a promise with his company Neuralink: he wants to implant his first brain chip in humans in 6 months. According to Bloomberg, the company announced its intention to begin clinical trials this coming 2023 if the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) grants permission.
What Neuralink is looking for
Neuralink is an initiative by Musk to create a coin-sized device that can connect the brain with computers. The clinical purpose is to try to help patients with neurological disorders to be able to function and improve their lives.
But the objectives do not stop there, since they even want it to be used for entertainment or for activities such as changing songs, sending an email or doing an Internet search with their thoughts. “We have submitted, I think, most of our documentation to the FDA and we think probably in about 6 months we should be able to have our first Neuralink in a human”, he said in a company presentation.
For the ambitious first test that is planned to be carried out in 6 months, it will seek to restore the vision of people who were born blind. “Even in the cases of people who have never been able to see, who were born blind, we think we can restore their vision because the visual cortex is still there. We are confident that we could make them see”, he noted.
A lab monkey writing with his mind
To demonstrate the advances of Neuralink, Elon Musk showed a lab monkey writing with “its mind”. The animal, with an implanted chip, can move the screen cursor across its implant in an attempt to ask for fruit. Recall that previously Neuralink has shown monkeys playing Pong with the same procedure. “We are already cyborgs in a way, since computers and phones are extensions of oneself”, Musk said.
