Elon Musk’s company, Neuralink will have a human brain implant ready “in less than a year”. In a podcast with Joe Rogan, Musk revealed that the Neuralink is close to starting testing in actual humans.
“We’re not testing people yet, but I think it won’t be too long,” Musk told Rogan. “We may be able to implant a neural link in less than a year in a person I think.”
In their conversation, Musk explained that the device could one day fix “anything that is wrong with the brain”
Musk clarified that the process involves shooting holes in subjects’ skulls with lasers and insert flexible threads of electrodes into the brain.
The implant is about one inch in diameter and it will leave behind only a small scar. Musk made it clear that there is ‘a very low potential risk for rejection’, when asked about the risks involved with placing a foreign object in the body.
‘People put in heart monitors and things for epileptic seizures, deep brain simulation, artificial hips and knees that kind of thing,’ he said, noting that ‘it’s well known what is cause for a rejection or not.’
Musk wanted to link human brains to computers so as to avoid our species from being outpaced by artificial intelligence.
It is really a promising technology, but it is still in its early stages.
Musk while referring to his timeline of testing within a year to Rogan, he said, “There’s still a lot of work to do,” “we have a chance of putting a link in someone and having them be healthy and restoring some functionality that they’ve lost.”
