Would you let Elon Musk implant a microchip in your brain? On Sunday, the billionaire’s Neuralink startup put its first human test subject under the knife. A small chip was implanted under the unnamed patient’s skull, connecting tiny filaments from the processor to his brain.
Musk hopes the patient will now be able to send instructions to the implant using just his thoughts.
The chip, or “brain-computer interface” that Neuralink started developing in 2016, promises to change the lives of people with disabilities that prevent them from moving or communicating.
The businessman, who also runs electric car company Tesla, rocket startup SpaceX and social media platform X, has made many bold claims about technology in the past. But after years of controversial animal testing, the start of human trials means these claims are finally being put to the test.
“We know that Elon Musk is very adept at promoting his company,” says Anne Vanhoestenberghe, professor of active implantable medical devices at King’s College London. “True success in my mind should be evaluated in the long term.”
Here are nine ways brain-computer interfaces like Neuralink could change the lives of millions of patients and, if Musk is to be believed, the world as we know it.
Control keyboard and mouse
Little is known about the identity of the first Neuralink patient, but the company’s clinical trial involved patients with quadriplegia due to spinal cord injury or advanced motor neuron disease.
On Tuesday, Musk said Neuralink’s first product will be aptly named “Telepathy.” The billionaire said it “lets you control your phone or computer, and through them, almost any device, just by thinking.” “The first users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs.”
The idea of connecting the human brain to a machine is not new. In the 1990s, scientists began testing electrode implants in the human brain. But technology is advancing rapidly. While computer chips have shrunk to microscopic sizes, artificial intelligence software has made it possible to better interpret signals from the human brain.
Helping blind people see
Musk claimed that another future use of Neuralink could be to enable visually impaired people to see. On Tuesday he called the technology “Blindsight.” The Tesla CEO said the implant could beam “direct vision to the brain” by stimulating the visual parts of the cortex, creating a mental image of the world in front of the patient.
Other scientists have achieved similar success in clinical trials. In 2021, researchers at Miguel Hernández University in Alicante, Spain, revealed that they inserted a chip into the visual cortex of retired teacher Berna Gómez, which was then connected to a video camera and glasses. He was able to distinguish several letters of the alphabet and play a basic game.
Controlling the touch screen
Synchron, an Australian start-up, is working on brain-computer interface technology that could be used to control a modern touchscreen. Unlike the Neuralink chip, the company has developed a type of stent that can interpret brain signals, similar to those used in cardiovascular procedures.
Synchron says its technology “can work inside the body to help accomplish everyday tasks like scheduling a medical appointment, texting a friend, or buying a gift.”
Unlike Neuralink, implantation of stent technology does not require an invasive and complex operation.
Helping disabled people walk
In 2021, Musk predicted that Neuralink could “restore full-body functionality to someone with a spinal cord injury.” Although Neuralink has not published any evidence to support this ambition, other scientists have made breakthroughs.
“In recent research trials unrelated to Neuralink, scientists have succeeded in implanting brain-spine interfaces that help paralyzed people walk,” says Prof Tara Spires-Jones, president of the British Society for Neuroscience.
Last year, Dutch Gert-Jan Oksam, who was paralyzed in a cycling accident, was fitted with a brain implant that communicates wirelessly with a second implant in her spine, allowing her to walk again.
Still, such a brain interface requires “invasive brain surgery,” Spires-Jones says; This means widespread adoption may still be many years away.
prevent epilepsy
Musk also suggested that brain implants could be used to control epileptic seizures. “If you have severe epilepsy, you can kind of stop the epilepsy from occurring… you can detect it in real time and then fire the counterstroke,” he said in a podcast in 2020.
During an epilepsy attack, neurons in the brain trigger abnormal bursts of signals, causing a seizure. Scientists are investigating whether brain implants could either predict these signals, thereby preventing patients from complying with medications, or even neutralize them entirely using electrical pulses.
playing video games
In one of the first demonstrations of Neuralink technology, the company showed a macaque monkey playing the video game Pong using brain signals. The monkey was taught to play the game with a joystick and was rewarded with fruit juice. The joystick was then removed and the monkey was able to “think” about playing the game instead.
Humans have achieved similar success. In 2004, Matthew Nagle, a Massachusetts man who was left paralyzed after being stabbed, was able to play the same game using a machine connected to his brain, although it was very cumbersome and invasive.
Some companies have worked on turning medical equipment, such as electroencephalogram (EEG) scanners, into devices that can be used to play video games hands-free. These headsets usually place electrodes on the scalp to pick up brain signals and do not require expensive, risky surgery.
Cogitat, a start-up born out of Imperial College London, has developed games designed to rehabilitate stroke patients who are controlled solely by thoughts. Their “game” encourages users to consider holding their hands to get their bodies used to moving again.
“Just dreaming of moving [your hand]Cogitat’s CEO Dr. “After a stroke, you can begin the process of rewiring your brain,” Allan Ponniah said.
Improving human memory
Among Musk’s more speculative and completely unproven claims is that Neuralink could be used to improve human memory. “You will be able to save and replay memories,” Musk claimed in a 2020 video.
He added: “You can load anything that is encoded in memory. Basically, you can keep your memories as a backup. Not all experts were impressed. Dr D., lecturer in genetics at UCL. Adam Rutherford called the allegations “absolute god-level nonsense.”
telepathic thoughts
The entrepreneur also suggested that brain implants could allow people to communicate using only their thoughts. While speaking to podcaster Joe Rogan, he claimed that “you won’t have to talk.”
Musk isn’t the only one considering this possibility. A paper published by the UK government’s Advanced Research and Innovation Agency, ARIA, posed the question: “Implanted cortical interfaces allowed paralyzed individuals to use brain signals to produce words at a rate close to the rate of normal speech.
“Could such systems in the future enable entirely new methods of communication in healthy individuals?”
Still, even Musk admitted that such progress could take a long time. When asked for a timeline, Musk said: “This won’t sneak up on you…five to 10 years.”
Symbiosis with artificial intelligence
The strangest of Musk’s claims about Neuralink is that connecting the human brain to computers and the internet will help prevent a possible artificial intelligence apocalypse.
In 2019, the billionaire went so far as to claim that brain interfaces would allow “merging with AI” so that humans could “achieve symbiosis with AI.”
He claims this will allow humans to increase their cognitive abilities to superhuman levels, on par with futuristic artificial intelligence.
This falls some distance from its more acceptable goal of helping people with severe disabilities, and that goal is unlikely to be approved by regulators for human testing.