Of the many adjectives that can describe Elon Musk, ambitious is at the top of the list.
Taking time from his day jobs running Tesla and SpaceX, Musk told an audience on Tuesday night that Neuralink, a neurotechnology company he co-founded, will be able to merge human brains with computers as soon as 2020. While the claim surprised many, it is an idea that has been proposed and bandied about in the realms of science fiction and futurists for decades.
Musk, who said the main reason for doing the presentation was recruiting, admitted that the Neuralink scientists had been able to get a monkey to control a computer with its brain, a revelation that surprised some of the company’s scientists, according to The Verge.
“We hope to have this in a human patient by the end of next year,” Musk added. For this, it will eventually need approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
According to a white paper (first spotted by Stat News) released by the company on Tuesday, Neuralink has already been successful in some of its animal trials using brain-machine interfaces (BMIs), which Neuralink believes “hold[s] promise for the restoration of sensory and motor function and the treatment of neurological disorders.” – READ MORE