Can Elon Musk’s Neuralink tech save humanity in the long run?

Elon Musk is always throwing out big ideas, from sending people to Mars to digging tunnels under cities. Now, he’s claiming that his Neuralink team has put a brain chip into someone’s head, wirelessly. But is he onto something when he talks about this tech potentially saving humanity in the long run? Well, poking around in brains with electrodes isn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff, right?

Back in the 60s and 70s, they were zapping cats with electricity to control their aggression. Fast forward to the early 2000s, and they were teaching monkeys to move a computer cursor with their minds. Neuralink is just one of many companies and universities diving into this tech game. They’re all trying to make it better and sell it, you know? At first, they’re looking at paralysis and tackling tricky brain problems.

Our brains are packed with about 86 billion neurons, those little cells that talk to each other through synapses. Whenever we want to do something – move, feel, or think – it’s like a lightning-fast electrical party among those neurons. Now, scientists have come up with gadgets that can pick up on some of those signals. They either slap a cap on your head or stick wires right into your brain to catch the action. Right now, a ton of research cash seems to be flowing into this thing called a brain-computer interface (BCI).

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Is Neuralink alone in the brain implant industry?

Neuralink’s gadget, which is as small as a coin, gets tucked into your skull. It’s got these super tiny wires that can peek into what your neurons are up to and then shoot out wireless signals to another device. They’ve been testing it on pigs, and apparently, monkeys can even play a stripped-down version of Pong with it.

So, back in May 2023, it got the thumbs-up from the US Food and Drug Administration to start trying this thing out on humans.

Fast forward to now, and we’ve got word that they’ve already popped the first implant into a patient. But, there’s not a lot of info out there about it. Musk just mentioned that the person is doing alright and they’ve seen some good signs with detecting neuron spikes. Neuralink might seem like it’s straight out of a sci-fi flick, but in some ways, it’s trying to keep up with the competition.

There’s this other player in the game, a startup called Synchron, and they’ve already put their stent-looking device into 10 people. And get this, back in December 2021, a dude named Philip O’Keefe, who’s 62 and dealing with motor neurone disease, sent out the first tweet using only his thoughts to move the cursor.

Accurately translating brain signals is the biggest challenge

Scientists over at Lausanne University in Switzerland pulled off something wild. They got a guy who was paralyzed from a bike crash back on his feet by sticking a bunch of gadgets in him to bypass the damage.

In this year’s research paper, they showed how they could zap signals from a device in his brain down to another one near the base of his spine. And bingo, his limbs started moving again! But, not everyone with spinal injuries is totally sold on this flashy new tech. Elon Musk isn’t stopping at just fixing brain and spinal injuries with Neuralink. He’s got bigger plans in mind – he’s talking about merging humans with AI, which he thinks is super important for the survival of our species.

The real challenge here is creating a system that can really understand and translate those brain signals accurately. If we crack that, we could be looking at a future where humans can chat with computers and gadgets in a way that’s way beyond what we can imagine right now.

Imagine you’re sitting there, and you just think about ordering some takeout, or googling something, or even instantly translating languages in your head without lifting a finger. Musk is already dreaming up a world where his gadget lets you shoot off messages to your phone or computer quicker than a pro typist or auctioneer. And get this, he’s even tossed around the idea of saving and playing back memories. But, he’s also joked that it’s starting to sound a bit too much like an episode of Black Mirror.

“At the moment, I’m struggling to see an application that a consumer would benefit from, where they would take the risk of invasive surgery,” says Vanhoestenberghe, professor of active implantable medical devices, at King’s College London. “You’ve got to ask yourself, would you risk brain surgery just to be able to order a pizza on your phone?”

She reckons that the initial widespread applications might involve using the tech to zap the brain and deal with tough issues like treatment-resistant depression, dementia, and maybe even certain sleep problems. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here – the advantages aren’t guaranteed, and we’re still in the early stages of research.

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Neuralink tech could be decades away

Dr. Dean Burnett, who’s tied up with Cardiff University’s psychology school, also points out that there are some huge hurdles standing in the way of Neuralink becoming something regular folks use every day.

“Everyone’s brain is different. You can’t just have one chip that fits everyone and does the exact same thing. It has to be a very meticulous process,” he says. “Technology advances, so do you have to get a new chip every five years? Would it be like having an old Nokia in your head, which was fun at the time and now it’s not really much use?”

Pretty much every brainiac out there is on the same page about one thing: don’t hold your breath for this high-tech stuff to be available at your local brain surgery joint anytime soon. We’re talking decades away, if it even happens.

And Musk himself? Well, he’s not just talking about making your food deliveries quicker. He’s got bigger fish to fry. His endgame is all about shielding humanity from the dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI). He’s called it an “existential threat” before, and he’s dead serious about it.

Musk is saying that if we can fuse human and computer brains more effectively, we won’t get left in the dust as a species. He’s all about riding shotgun on the AI train, saying, “With a high bandwidth, brain-machine interface, we can actually go along for the ride.”