Elon Musk announced his huge success on his X account. Neuralink implanted the first implant into the human brain. The patient survived, is doing well and is recovering. Musk also revealed that his company Neuralink's first product will be a chip called Telepathy. It will allow patients to control their smartphone or computer using just their thoughts. Interestingly, it turns out that even in the transhumanism industry, competition is starting to appear. Where will this lead humanity?
Neuralink has implanted the implant and plans further research and tests
The milestone that Neuralink achieved this Sunday is the result of intensified work and testing in recent years. It is worth adding that the very idea of creating a brain-computer interface arose much, much earlier. Elon Musk founded Neuralink in June 2016, but its existence was publicly announced in March 2017. From the very beginning, it was known that Elon Musk wanted to change the face of the bio-tech industry, because the company quickly set about its main goal, which was to create a method for controlling computers and smartphones with just thoughts.
After years of testing on animals, it's time for humans. However, before Neuralink implanted the implant, it was necessary to obtain approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company obtained such permission in May 2023 and began looking for volunteers. It is worth adding that the Telepathy chip implantation procedure itself is automated because the procedure is performed by a special robot at the Neuralink research center and clinic in Texas. The Telepathy chip is intended to allow smartphones and computers to be controlled only by neural signals.
Nerualink has a lot of competition. Are we facing a race for transhumanism?
Although the fact that Neuralnik has implanted an implant into the first patient's brain is a huge milestone in the development of the bio-tech industry, it turns out that the company already has a lot of competition. Interestingly, Synchron implanted a similar implant in the human brain in 2021. Another company dealing with BCI (Brain-Computer Interteface), Precision Neuroscience, already conducted clinical trials on humans last year, and Paradromics will begin such tests in the first half of this year.
Can the cyborgization race carry threats equal to those associated with the corporate race after AGI? There are many indications that these two topics will be combined in the near future, as Neuralink has confirmed that it intends to use artificial intelligence in future chips to better map the brain and make the interface itself as intuitive as possible.