Elon Musk said Neuralink, a brain-interface technology company he co-founded, is hoping to start implanting its microchips in humans next year.
When Will Neuralink Be Available?
In a live broadcast interview at The Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit on Monday, Musk announced that Neuralink hopes to start implanting chips in 2022.
Musk went on to say that they've been testing Neuralink in monkeys and confirmed that it's 'very safe and reliable. He also clarified that the Neuralink brain chip can easily be removed.
"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," Musk said.
According to him, Neuralink has substantially higher standards than what the FDA usually requires when implanting the chips.
In 2019, Musk hoped to begin human trials by late 2020, but it got delayed. Earlier this year, in February, he said Neuralink would start implanting the chip in people by the end of 2021.
This time, it seems Musk is overly confident that the trials will certainly kick off in 2022.
Meanwhile, another brain-interface company, Synchron, will also start its human trials in July 2022 and have already been approved by the FDA.
What Will Neuralink Do?
Neuralink is co-founded by Elon Musk in 2016. Since then, it has been developing a chip. This chip, in particular, will be inserted into a human brain and will simultaneously stimulate and record brain activities.
According to Musk, people who have Neuralink's brain chip implanted on them will be able to give orders to computers by just using their brains. This implies an effort to outsmart budding artificial intelligence industries.
Although not specifically cited, this tech could help humans to have the upper hand should AI malfunction, which is a far-fetched idea according to most experts. It is possible, but not today.
Moreover, the billionaire reiterated tons of times that Neuralink's brain chip is more than what the media perceive. He said it's made for people with paralysis. At the same time, it also allows humans to 'expand' their abilities.
Furthermore, Neuralink's brain chip is also found to have medical applications. Musk himself claimed that the chip they're working on would be useful in treating spinal cord injuries, brain diseases like Parkinson's, and neurological disorders.
Still, experts were not convinced.
As per Tech Times in 2020, Neuralink's brain chip faced a multitude of criticism.
Critics are expressing their concern about the chip being openly vulnerable to hackers and/or cybercriminals.
Crypto.com's chief information security officer Jason Lau penned the potential hacking dangers of Neuralink brain chip, especially the whole concept of brain-computer interface tech, to Forbes.
Lau said that the brain chip is 'still a computer' and it will just attract more hackers to get into people's heads.
Regardless, the dates Musk have released are not yet official without an FDA approval.
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Written by Thea Felicity
