Elon Musk’s brainchild, Neuralink is ready for human trials but the question is are we ready for it? In 2016, Neuralink was founded by Elon Musk and 3 others trying to turn the concept of analyzing, studying, and even possibly commanding brain waves into reality.
Since the stone is laid, the first breakthrough could be seen only in 2021 with animals. Although Elon Musk recently said that the company will be starting clinical trials on humans in the next 6 months and he’ll be a part of it.
How important is Neuralink?
Neuralink is the combination of two bits of equipment. The first is a chip that would be implanted in a person’s skill, with electrodes fanning out into their brains. The company’s N1 chip is made up of 1,024 electrodes while the next generation will comprise 16,000 electrodes as stated by the company.
The second step is the robot that would work automatically and implant the N1 chip directly to the cortex as easily as working a sewing machine. Claims have been made that the operation will be as easy as a LASIK eye surgery. Created by Woke Studios, this 8 feet tall robot is said to be precise with it’s surgical algorithms while having a non-scary futuristic look.
With each wire more than 20 times thinner than human hair, the chip is surgically implanted in a person’s brain. Without going further into neuroscience, in Layman’s terms, the chip registers data through the brain’s electrical impulses and transmits it wirelessly. The data is further used for study and then possibly information could be transmitted back to the chip.
If successful, Neuralink could be a game changer in the brain-machine interface industry. It can be used to operate encephalopathy. The main purpose that Elon Musk envisioned through Neuralink was to serve people with neurological disorders and paralysis by helping them with tasks such as taking physical decisions with just a thought. A simple yet big change.
Controversy and the Elon-gated talks around it
Elon Musk is the middle name for controversy and he boastfully owns this. Neuralink was always a risky, delicate, and nerve-wracking project of Elon’s. Other than this, there have been several claims of animal abuse, cruelty, and even demise.
Reasons like surgical complications, chip failure, and post-op infections have been raised by the organizations like Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) which are opposing this outrageous testing method with lawsuits.
And if this wasn’t enough Elon Musk’s scandal of having a twin child with the Neuralink director, Shivon Zilis berated the company’s name a little more. While this doesn’t account for direct relations with the company but with the organization’s progress in view, facts like these bring the wave down.
Having trouble with the staff is not something new for Elon Musk as Neuralink currently holds only 2 of the 8 co-founding scientists who joined the company. With the latest departure of co-founder and President Max Hodak in May 2021 to Synchron, the company’s leadership feels like Tetris.
Neuralink’s link to the future and human trials
With a still pending FDA approval, Musk is holding his breath for human clinical trials whereas their competitor Synchron has started their human trials with the Stentrode system. A new improved N1 chip in production and the success of animal trials in the lab have put some confidence in the SpaceX owner. But with frequent organizational change and Elon’s self-harm in his public image are considered to be an X factor in growth.
In 2020, a pig named Gertrude was used for a demonstration of perfect data capturing through Neuralink’s chip. Making further progress in April 2021, Neuralink displayed a video of a monkey playing the game of ‘Pong’ using a Neuralink implant. Although the experiment has been done previously in 2002, the schematics have been changed drastically and that’s what Neuralink hopes to achieve.
In a nutshell, there are mixed emotions about how Neuralink works but one-way thought for what Neuralink is working upon. If the organization stays true to its path and carries on with its journey, the world will be able to see a new step in neuroscience technology.
And to be honest, SpaceX, Tesla, and The Boring Company’s owner is less likely to be wrong and may achieve ‘symbiosis’.
