Elon Musk’s brain tech company, Neuralink, is starting to test its brain-machine interface devices on monkeys as it moves on from pigs.
The tech is designed to sit on top of the user’s brain and connects to it with tiny wires. When these wires sense brain activity, they send readings to a computer. It’s unclear what types of things Neuralink will be capable of, but Musk has said that it could help cure Parkinson’s or cause the brain to release chemicals to help people with imbalances. He’s also mentioned the ability to connect the device to an app and stream music to it.
That said, Neuralink is still in its infancy and is just ramping up its operations. However, Elon Musk shared that the company is now working on getting two monkeys to interface with each other using the Neuralink implant. It’s unclear how many monkeys the company has, but it’s at least one. Musk later bragged that Neuralink has one of the best monkey facilities in the U.S. and that its primates seem happy.
Musk specifically mentions attempting to get a game pong going between the monkeys in an effort to give the primates something simple to play within their brains. While this sounds incredibly futuristic and Cyberpunk 2077 inspired, the technology’s real potential is very unclear. Is Musk attempting to build a brain-interface device that can also allow humans to communicate silently? Who knows.
While Neuralink is undeniably one of Musk’s weirder companies, I hope it doesn’t lose its medical potential on the way to becoming a consumer-facing product.
Source: Sky News
