Neuralink: Elon Musk’s Brain Chip Draws Massive Crowds for Brain Implants

In accordance with a recent Bloomberg report authored by Ashlee Vance, one of Elon Musk’s biographers, thousands of individuals have shown interest in obtaining one of Neuralink’s brain chip.

Although Neuralink has not yet implanted its device in a human, Vance stated he has been to the company’s facilities ten times in the last three years and that it plans to operate on eleven patients next year as well as more than 22,000 by 2030.

Since the 2016 launch of Neuralink, Elon Musk has made a number of audacious predictions for the company. 

These include the claim that the technology will enable people to connect to the Internet directly and, more realistically, that it will enable paralyzed people to walk without assistance—a feat that has already been achieved by other companies in the same field. 

However, Neuralink’s technology is still largely in its infancy; the company was just granted approval for a clinical trial that will test the brain chip’s basic functionality and safety in paralyzed individuals. 

The objective, according to the company, is to allow users to control a computer mouse with their thoughts; multiple other teams have already succeeded in achieving this.

Neuralink’s First Human Trial

The business started hiring for its first human trial in September. In a blog post, Neuralink stated that it was searching for individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or spinal cord injuries that resulted in paralysis in all four limbs. 

The company claims that one day it will produce a gadget that will enable people to communicate with machines through a kind of symbiosis and play games with just their minds. 

However, the company’s stated goal is to assist those suffering from neurological conditions.

Musk’s biographer estimated that a surgeon would need a “couple of hours” to complete the craniectomy, and that the robot, with its incredibly thin array of roughly 64 threads, could put in the device in about 25 minutes. 

He stated that the removed portion of the skull would be replaced by the device. According to Vance, each thread was roughly one-fourteenth the width of a single human hair strand.