Everything you need to know about Neuralink, Elon Musk's company that wants to put microchips in people's brains
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Neuralink is Musk's neural interface technology company. Simply put, it is building technology that could be embedded in a person's brain, where it could both record brain activity and potentially stimulate it.
While Musk likes to talk up his futuristic vision for the technology, merging human consciousness with AI, the tech has plenty of near-term potential medical applications such as the treatment of Parkinson's disease.
Neuralink was quietly founded under the radar in 2016.
Although Musk has touted the near-term applications of Neuralink, he often links the company up with his fears about artificial intelligence. Musk has said that he thinks humanity will be able to achieve "symbiosis with artificial intelligence" through
Musk told "Artificial Intelligence" podcast host Lex Fridman in 2019 that Neuralink was "intended to address the existential risk associated with digital superintelligence."
"We will not be able to be smarter than a digital supercomputer, so, therefore, if you cannot beat 'em, join 'em," Musk added.
Musk has made lots of fanciful claims about the enhanced abilities Neuralink could confer. In 2020 Musk said people would "save and replay memories" like in "Black Mirror," or telepathically summon their car.
Experts have expressed doubts about these claims.
In September 2020, Insider spoke to neuroscientist Prof. Andrew Jackson of the University of Newcastle. He said: "Not to say that that won't happen, but I think that the underlying neuroscience is much more shaky. We understand much less about how those processes work in the brain, and just because you can predict the position of the pig's leg when it's walking on a treadmill, that doesn't then automatically mean you'll be able to read thoughts," said Prof. Andrew Jackson.
Another professor, Andrew Hires, told Insider in August 2020 that Musk's claims about merging with AI is where he goes off into "aspirational fantasy land."
The chip Neuralink is developing is about the size of a coin, and would be embedded in a patients' skull. From the chip an array of tiny wires, each roughly 20 times thinner than a human hair, fan out into the patient's brain.
The wires are equipped with 1,024 electrodes which are able to both monitor brain activity and, theoretically, electrically stimulate the brain. This data is all transmitted wirelessly via the chip to computers where it can be studied by researchers.
Website : worldtopscientists.com
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