Freeway for Neuralink: Elon Musk will connect human brains to computers

Neuralink received FDA clearance to begin human clinical studiesElon Musk announced the decision on Twitter, which may be surprising, since only three months ago the American regulator denied it in a rather strong opinion.

Neuralink is one of Elon Musk’s many projects. Forget Twitter, Tesla’s self-driving cars, StarLink’s space internet and even travel to Mars with Space X, because this medical research company is the billionaire’s most advanced since he intends to connect the human brain with artificial intelligence under “neural loops”.

The idea is not new and is based on brain-computer interface, a technology based on obtaining brain waves, which are then processed and interpreted by a machine or computer. The technology can find the natural channel of human-machine interaction as well as access all human cognitive and emotional information. As an example, you can think of a science fiction movie transcendence where the great Johnny Depp builds a self-sustaining computer that ends up creating a technological singularity and subsequent insanity.

Neuralink’s declared goals are to treat diseases for which medical science has not yet found a solution, such as Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer’s disease, or paralysis due to traffic accidents, among others. An extremely promising project on paper. The problem, as with everything that comes with AI, is a general distrust of how it will be used and how far they intend to go, because creating brain-machine hybrids is pretty scary.

Musk wants to go beyond medical applications for paralysis or neurodegenerative diseases and believes that in the future humans must connect with artificial intelligence if they don’t want to become “into something pointless and useless”.

Neuralink has a free hand

“We are pleased to announce that we have received FDA approval to begin our first human clinical trial!”says Musk’s tweet acknowledging the work of researchers and “represents an important first step that will one day enable” May this technology help many people.

We are excited to share that we have received FDA approval to begin our first human clinical trial!

This is the result of incredible work by the Neuralink team in close collaboration with the FDA and represents an important first step that will one day allow our…

—Neuralink (@neuralink) May 25, 2023

Human tests will be developed by Stanford University neuroscientists and will come after animal tests. We assume that the tests will be much more exhaustive… When Musk assured that Neuralink monkeys “They were happy and playing video games” it was not known that some of them would end up dead and with a shattered brain.

Claiming that Neuralink is under investigation for possible animal welfare violations and the illegal transportation of dangerous pathogens in chips extracted from monkey brains without adequate containment measures. And the concerns of scientists, who say Neuralink is not yet ready to carry out such ambitious research, are in the air.

The project is exciting in the fight against some diseases, but it is very dangerous depending on the hands. I love machines, but I don’t want to become one Homo digitalisas defined by my colleague David when raising the issues of these technologies.