Neuralink is looking volunteers for human experiments. He is called by a company owned by Elon Musk “PRIME study” and its goal is to test advanced technologies developed by a medical research firm, one of the world’s leaders in medical research. brain-machine hybrids.

If you follow us regularly, you should know that last May, Neuralink received approval from the US FDA to start clinical trials in humans, but not before 2022, which it ruled out in a previous negative opinion that cited “security risks”.

Once the legal issues are resolved, the company has launched a six-year program to test the technology on humans. To do this, they are looking for people with quadriplegia due to vertical spinal cord injury or ALS who are over 22 years old and have “permanent and reliable caregiver” be part of the study.

The PRIME study will investigate three different sections (but necessary), effectiveness and safety testing. The first is the N1 implant, a brain and computer device designed by the company. The other is the R1 robot, a surgical robot that implants the device. The third is a user application, software that connects to the implant and converts brain signals into computer actions. The tests will be carried out in an unspecified American hospital, and Musk’s company will bear the costs of the research.

Neuralink, controversy and hope

This medical research company was a magnet for controversy since its inception. On the one hand, due to the overly aggressive and unfulfilled promises of Elon Musk (as well as others in the companies he manages), and also due to the internal practices of the company itself in relation to the ethical treatment of animals (monkeys) that it has used in its companies. preliminary tests. Nor is the fear of using brain-machine hybrids in certain tasks any less negligible.

But at the same time it offers he hopes to continue to treat the disease 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 and others. You already know the main idea: connecting human brains with artificial intelligence in the framework of “neural links”.

These technologies seek a natural channel of human-machine interaction as well as access to all human cognitive and emotional information. To do this, you need to create a file brain-computer interfacebased on the acquisition of brain waves, which are subsequently processed and interpreted by a machine or computer.

We’ll see how far Neurolink is able to go with human trials, which should begin very soon. Hopefully so, but don’t let it get out of hand like other technologies where artificial intelligence intervenes. The end of a sci-fi movie will make your hair go crazy Transcendence where the great Johnny Depp builds a self-sustaining computer that ends up creating a technological singularity and a monumental mess.