by Would you let Elon Musk stick a microchip in your brain? On Sunday, the billionaire’s startup Neuralink put its first human test subject under the knife. The unnamed patient had a tiny chip inserted under his skull, sending the tiny filaments from the processor into their brain.
Musk hopes that the patient will be able to send instructions to the implant using only thoughts.
The chip, or “brain-computer interface”, which Neuralink began developing in 2016, promises to change the lives of people with disabilities that prevent them from moving or communicating.
The tycoon, who runs electric car company Tesla, rocket venture SpaceX and social media platform X, has made many other bold claims about technology in the past. But the start of human trials – after years of controversial animal testing – means those claims are finally being put to the test.
“We know that Elon Musk is very good at generating publicity for his company,” says Anne Vanhoestenberghe, professor of active implantable medical devices at King’s College London. “True success in my mind should be considered in the long term.”
Here are nine ways brain-computer interfaces like Neuralink could change the lives of millions of patients — and, if we’re to believe Musk, the world as we know it…
Keyboard and mouse control
Little is known about the identity of Neuralink’s first patient, but the company’s clinical trial asked those with quadriplegia due to spinal cord injury or advanced motor neuron disease.
On Tuesday, Musk said Neuralink’s first product would be appropriately called “Telepathy.” This allows “to control your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking,” said the billionaire. “The early users are those who have lost the use of their limbs.”
Connecting the human brain to a machine is not a new idea. In the 1990s, scientists began testing electrode implants in the human brain. But technology is advancing rapidly. Computer chips have shrunk to microscopic proportions, and artificial intelligence software has made it possible to better interpret the signals from the human brain.
Helping blind people see
Musk claimed another future use for Neuralink is to give sight to the visually impaired. On Tuesday, he introduced the “BlindSight” technology. Tesla’s chief executive said the implant could represent “direct vision to the brain” by stimulating the visual parts of the cortex, creating a mental image of the world before the patient.
Other scientists have already achieved similar feats in clinical trials. In 2021, researchers at Miguel Hernández University, in Alicante, Spain, showed that they had attached a chip to the visual cortex of retired teacher Berna Gómez, who was then attached to a pair of glasses with a video camera. She was able to recognize some letters of the alphabet and play a basic game.
Touch screen control
Australian start-up Synchron is working on brain-computer interface technology that can be used to control a modern touchscreen. In contrast to the Neuralink chip, the company has developed a type of stent, similar to those used in cardiovascular procedures, that can interpret brain signals.
Synchron says its technology is able to “work inside the body to help enable everyday tasks like scheduling a medical appointment, texting a friend, or buying a gift”.
Unlike Neuralink, the stent technology should not require a complex invasive operation to implant.
Helping disabled people to walk
In 2021, Musk predicted that Neuralink would be able to “return full-body functionality to someone with a spinal cord injury”. Although Neuralink has not released any evidence to support this ambition, other scientists have made progress.
“In recent research trials – not related to Neuralink – scientists have been able to implant brain-spinal interfaces that help people with paralysis to walk,” says Professor Tara Spires-Jones, president of the British Neurological Association.
Last year, a Dutch man, Gert-Jan Oksam, who was paralyzed in a cycling accident, was fitted with a brain implant that communicated wirelessly with a second implant in his spine, allowing him to walk again.
However, this type of brain interface requires “invasive neurosurgery”, says Spiers-Jones, meaning widespread adoption could still be years away.
Prevent epilepsy
Musk has also speculated that brain implants could be used to control epileptic seizures. He told a podcast in 2020: “If you have severe epilepsy you could stop the epilepsy from happening… detect it in real time and prevent it from firing a pulse.”
During an epileptic episode, the neurons in the brain fire abnormal signals, resulting in a seizure. Scientists are conducting trials to see if brain implants can predict these signals, allowing patients to be fit with drugs to prevent them, or even combat them using electrical pulses.
Playing computer games
During one of its early demonstrations of Neuralink’s technology, the company showed a macaque monkey playing the video game Pong using its brain signals. The monkey was taught to play the game with a joystick, given fruit juice. The joystick was then removed, and the monkey was able to “think” about playing the game instead.
Humans have achieved similar feats. In 2004, Matthew Nagle, a Massachusetts man who was left paralyzed after a stabbing, was able to play the same game using a machine connected to his brain, although the device was very bulky and invasive.
Several companies have worked on turning medical equipment, such as electroencephalogram (EEG) scanners, into devices that can be used to play hands-free video games. These headphones typically place electrodes on the scalp to pick up brain signals and do not require expensive and risky surgery.
Cogitat, a start-up from Imperial College London, has developed games designed to rehabilitate stroke patients that are controlled solely by thought. The “games” encourage users to think about grabbing their hands to help train their bodies to move again.
“Just by imagining movement [your hand]you can start that process of rewiring your brain after a stroke,” said Dr Allan Ponniah, chief executive of Cogitat.
Improving one’s memory
Among Musk’s more speculative – and completely unproven – claims is that Neuralink could be used to improve human memory. In a video from 2020, Musk claimed: “You will be able to save and replay memories.”
He added: “Everything that’s encoded in memory, you could upload. You could store your memories as a backup.” Not all experts were impressed. Dr Adam Rutherford, a lecturer in genetics at UCL, called the claims “full god level cock”.
Telepathic thoughts
The entrepreneur has also speculated that brain implants could allow people to communicate using only their thoughts. Speaking to podcaster Joe Rogan, he said “you wouldn’t have to talk”.
Musk isn’t the only one thinking about this possibility. A paper published by ARIA, the UK government’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency, posed the question: “Implanted cortical interfaces enabled people with paralysis to use brain signals to generate words at a rate close to that of regular speech.
“In the future, could such systems enable whole new modalities of communication in healthy individuals?”
Still, even Musk admitted that such progress could take a long time. When pressed on a timeline, Musk said: “It won’t sneak up on you … five to 10 years.”
Symbiosis with AI
Chief among Musk’s claims about Neuralink is that connecting the human brain to computers and the Internet will help stave off a possible AI apocalypse.
In 2019, the billionaire went so far as to claim that brain interfaces would allow “merging with AI” so that humans can “achieve symbiosis with artificial intelligence”.
He claims this will allow humans to increase their cognitive abilities to supernatural levels, akin to futuristic AI.
That’s some distance from its more palatable goal of helping people with severe disabilities — and regulators are unlikely to approve it for a human trial.
