Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and now Twitter, co-founded the brain-control interfaces (BCI) startup Neuralink six years ago.
It’s been three years since the company first demonstrated its “sewing machine-like” implantation robot, two years since the company implanted its technology into the heads of pigs — and just over 19 months since the company implanted its technology into the heads of primates, an effort that allegedly killed 15 of 23 test subjects.
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Following a month-long delay in October, Neuralink held its third “show and tell” event on Wednesday, where CEO Elon Musk stated, “we think we should be able to have a Neuralink installed in a human in about six months.”
In the previous April 2021 status update, Neuralink’s co-founder, Max Hodak, quietly quit just after that event, though he said he was still a “huge cheerleader” for Neuralink’s success. That confidence was shattered in August when Musk reportedly approached Neuralink’s main rival, Synchron, about an investment opportunity.
Earlier this month, Neuralink confirmed that monkeys died during prototype testing of its BCI implants at the University of California, Davis Primate Center, but denied accusations of animal cruelty leveled by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Musk responded to the allegations in a roundabout way on Wednesday.
“Before we would even think of putting a device in an animal, we do everything possible we with rigorous benchtop testing, We’re not cavalier about putting these devices into animals,” he said.
“We’re extremely careful and we always want the device, whenever we do the implant — whether into a sheep, pig or monkey — to be confirmatory, not exploratory.”
Synchron beat Neuralink to market in July, when doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York successfully implanted the company’s inch-and-a-half-long device into an ALS patient.
The patient, who has lost their ability to move and communicate independently, should be able to use the device to translate their thoughts into computer commands and surf the web and send text messages.
That same month, it was revealed that Musk had an affair with a Neuralink executive who is now pregnant with his twins. Neuralink is still working to obtain FDA approval for its implant, despite receiving the agency’s Breakthrough Device Designation in July 2020.
By expediting the development and regulatory testing of promising treatments and medical devices, this program provides patients and caregivers with more “timely access.” The FDA has granted that designation to 728 medical devices as of September 2022.
The FDA has also updated its best practices guidance regarding clinical and nonclinical BCI testing in 2021. “The field of implanted BCI devices is progressing rapidly from fundamental neuroscience discoveries to translational applications and market access,” the agency asserted in its May guidance.
“Implanted BCI devices have the potential to bring benefit to people with severe disabilities by increasing their ability to interact with their environment, and consequently, providing new independence in daily life.”
“In many ways it’s like a Fitbit in your skull, with tiny wires,” Musk said of Neuralink’s device during the 2021 livestream event.
The device relies on as many as 1,024, 5-micron diameter leads “sewn” into a patient’s grey matter to form connections with the surrounding neurons, providing high-resolution sampling of the brain’s electrical emissions and translating between analog electrical impulses and digital computer code.
Theoretically, at least. So far, all Neuralink has accomplished is getting a monkey to play Pong without a joystick.
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“We are all already cyborgs in a way,” Musk quipped during his opening remarks, “in that your phone and your computer are extensions of yourself.” However, those devices pose significant limitations on our ability to communicate, he argued.
“If you’re interacting with a phone, it’s limited by the speed at which you can move your thumbs, or the speed at which you can talk into your phone.” He notes that this method can only transmit “tens, maybe a hundred” bits of data per second while “a computer can communicate at, you know, gigabits, terabits per second.”
“This is the fundamental limitation that I think we need to address to mitigate the long-term risk of artificial intelligence,” he said.
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