There’s no doubt that Elon Musk is a controversial figure, but his name is associated with much of today’s bleeding-edge technology. One of his companies, Neuralink, hasn’t gotten as much press as, say, Tesla or SpaceX but, with the advent of Mark Zuckerburg’s metaverse, renewed attention has increased the spotlight on this company that aims to put implants in human brains as computer interfaces.
- Elon Musk Says the Metaverse Sucks and Neuralink Will Be Better [Futurism] “‘It gets uncomfortable to have this thing strapped to your head the whole time,’ he added. ‘I think we’re far from disappearing into the metaverse.’ Musk also offered what he sees as a far better alternative: a chip surgically implanted in your brain, courtesy of the brain-computer interface company Neuralink he co-founded.
- Elon Musk says Neuralink could start implanting chips in humans in 2022: People with severe spinal injuries would get the tech that the billionaire says could help them walk again [Daily Mail] “‘We hope to have this in our first humans — which will be people that have severe spinal cord injuries like tetraplegics, quadriplegics — next year, pending FDA approval. ‘I think we have a chance of being able to allow someone who cannot walk or use their arms be able to walk again – but not naturally.’”
- Exclusive Q&A: Neuralink’s Quest to Beat the Speed of Type [IEEE Spectrum] “But behind the showmanship and hyperbole, the fact remains that Neuralink is staffed by serious scientists and engineers doing interesting research. The fully implantable brain-machine interface (BMI) they’ve been developing is advancing the field with its super-thin neural “threads” that can snake through brain tissue to pick up signals and its custom chips and electronics that can process data from more than 1000 electrodes.”
- Elon Musk’s Neuralink is “bad science fiction,” brain science pioneer says [Inverse] “For example, Nicolelis says Neuralink’s video game-playing monkey isn’t groundbreaking. ‘We had a wireless implant [in monkeys] since 2014,’ he says, referring to a 2014 paper published in Nature Methods. Nicolelis also says Neuralink is taking credit for the work he and other BCI researchers have conducted for decades. ‘[Musk] sells things that have been invented before and he tries to say that he’s done some amazing thing.’ “
From the Ohio Web Library:
- Elon Musk’s Brain-Computer Startup Neuralink Raises $205 Million (McBride, S. (2021). Elon Musk’s Brain-Computer Startup Neuralink Raises $205 Million. Bloomberg.Com, 1–2.)
- Doctors Sue University of California Over Deadly Brain Experiments on Monkeys (Doctors Sue University of California Over Deadly Brain Experiments on Monkeys. (2021). Good Medicine, 30(3), 14.)
- A computer mouse inside your head (REGALADO, A. (2021). A computer mouse inside your head. MIT Technology Review, 124(6), 28.)
