Day: January 30, 2024
Tech billionaire Elon Musk says his Neuralink company has successfully implanted one of its wireless brain chips in a human for the first time, the BBC reports.
Initial results detected promising neuron spikes or nerve impulses and the patient is recovering well, he said.
The company’s goal is to connect human brains to computers and it says it wants to help tackle complex neurological conditions.
A number of rival companies have already implanted similar devices.
Mr Musk’s company was given permission to test the chip on humans by the FDA in May, a critical milestone after earlier struggles to gain approval.
This gave the green light for the start of the six-year study during which a robot is being used to surgically place 64 flexible threads, thinner than a human hair, on to a part of the brain that controls “movement intention”, according to Neuralink.
The company says that these threads allow its experimental implant – powered by a battery that can be charged wirelessly – to record and transmit brain signals wirelessly to an app that decodes how the person intends to move.
Posting on X, the social media platform he owns which was formerly known as Twitter, Mr Musk said Neuralink’s first product would be called Telepathy.
Telepathy, he said, would enable “control of your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking”.
“Initial users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs,” he continued.
Enables control of your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking.
Initial users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs.
Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer. That is the goal.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 30, 2024
