Within six months, Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp. hopes to begin implanting its coin-sized computing brain implant into human patients, the company stated on Wednesday night at a gathering at its Fremont, California headquarters.
The equipment, developed by Neuralink, consists of a tiny gadget, electrode-laced wires, and a robot that removes a portion of a person’s skull and inserts it into the brain.
According to Musk, ongoing negotiations with the US Food and Drug Administration have gone well enough for the business to set a goal of launching its first human trials within the following six months.
Neuralink is already charging forward, aiming implants at various bodily areas, in a typical Elon Musk way.
In addition to the brain-computer interface, Musk disclosed work on two other significant products at the event.
It is creating implants that could be inserted into the spinal cord and give paralyzed people the ability to move again. Additionally, it has an eye implant designed to enhance or restore human vision.
“As miraculous as that may sound, we are confident that it is possible to restore full-body functionality to someone who has a severed spinal cord,” Musk said at the event.
Turning to Neuralink’s vision work, he added that “even if they have never seen before, we are confident they could see.”
The purpose of a brain-computer interface, or BCI, is to initially enable thought-based communication in people with incapacitating conditions like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or stroke survivors.
A monkey “telepathically typing” on a screen in front of the company served as a demonstration of this.
The Neuralink device converts neural impulses into data that computers can understand.
Musk believes that the technology could one day go mainstream and enable information sharing between robots and people.
He has long maintained that human beings need computer-like enhancements in order to keep up with the progress being made by artificial intelligence (AI).
To read our blog on “Elon Musk wants To Link Brains Directly To Machines,” click here.
