Elon Musk founded the company Neuralink in 2016 with the aim of enabling human intelligence to stay abreast of rapidly improving artificial intelligence. Also the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has long warned of the impact AI might have on humanity, and he maintains that to survive in an AI led world, we will need to foster a kind of symbiosis with machines! To that end, he and his team have developed fine ‘threads’ that can be woven into your brain which will be able to communicate with and control a machine with the power of thought. These threads work with a computer chip, and can pick up signals from your neurons. The company has also built a smart robot which can perform the surgery. In their latest announcement though, the researchers have said that for now, they will focus on using Neuralink to assist people with neurological illnesses.
The long term goal is to make it available to everyone however. This sounds like mere science fiction, but Musk and his colleagues have already made significant strides in perfecting this groundbreaking technology. The tiny chip called the N1 is placed inside the skull, and from this chip, ultra thin wires reach out to and connect with 1,000 brain cells. In theory, we could have as many as 10 chips installed in our brain! The chip connects wirelessly to a device that the user can wear over their ear. Musk claims that this technology will aid the lives of people with impaired brain-nerve connections, such as sufferers of epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and even paraplegia due to spinal nerve injuries. Human studies have not yet begun, but they are pencilled in for later in 2020.
