Neuralink was founded by Musk and a group of scientists in 2016 with the stated goal of “giving people with quadriplegia the ability to control their computers and mobile devices with their thoughts.” The company’s implantable and wireless brain-computer interface (BCI) “aims to evaluate the safety of our implant (N1) and surgical robot (R1) and assess the initial functionality of our BCI for enabling people with paralysis to control external devices with their thoughts.”
“We’re excited to announce that recruitment is open for our first-in-human clinical trial!” Neuralink posted on Musk’s social media platform, X (formerly Twitter). “If you have quadriplegia due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), you may qualify.”
The company named its human clinical trials the PRIME Study, which stands for Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface. “During the study,” Neuralink explained, “the R1 Robot will be used to surgically place the N1 Implant’s ultra-fine and flexible threads in a region of the brain that controls movement intention. Once in place, the N1 Implant is cosmetically invisible and is intended to record and transmit brain signals wirelessly to an app that decodes movement intention. The initial goal of our BCI is to grant people the ability to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone.”
Elon Musk touted the company’s approval for clinical trials on X, noting that in the “long term” Neuralink “hopes to play a role in AI risk civilizational risk reduction by improving human to AI (and human to human) bandwidth … “
“When a Neuralink is combined with Optimus robot limbs, the Luke Skywalker solution can become real,” Musk added.
Neuralink was first tested in primates that were already “close to death,” Musk rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">explained on X. Despite Musk’s assurances that Neuralink made all attempts to “minimize risk to healthy monkeys” a medical ethics nonprofit seeking to end live animal testing wrote letters to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requesting an investigation into “Musk’s claims that monkeys who died during trials at the company were terminally ill and did not die as a result of Neuralink implants,” according to Wired.
The letters sent to the SEC echo public fears that the exploratory studies did not conclusively determine that the implant is safe for human clinical trials, as many worry that the development of brain implant technology has the potential to do more harm than good.
This piece first appeared at TPUSA.
