On Wednesday, during a video update, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that his brain-computer startup, Neuralink Corp., is set to implant its device into a second human patient in a week or so.
During the discussion, broadcasted on Musk’s social platform X, formerly Twitter, it was also revealed that Neuralink intends to have its technology in several more patients by the end of the year, with Musk stating the number could be in the high single digits.
The tech billionaire said that the short-term goal is to mitigate the longer civilizational risk of AI by creating a closer symbiosis between human intelligence and digital intelligence. He said that the idea is to give people superpowers.
When asked Can a Neuralink chip repair paralysis in the long term, Matthew MacDougall, a practicing neurosurgeon and head of Neurosurgery at Neuralink said, We can’t do that right now. We have done preliminary work planting a second Neuralink in the spinal cord. We can restore naturalistic-looking hand and leg movements in animal models.
He added, Don’t hold your breath waiting for it. It’s going to be a while. We’ve got a lot of work to do.
In May earlier this year, the first Neuralink patient, Noland Arbaugh, passed the 100-day milestone since the chip was implanted in his brain.
However, Neuralink has also faced some challenges. Previously, it was reported that the company was aware of a malfunctioning issue with tiny wires in the brain implant for years.
Meanwhile, Neuralink is also facing competition. Last month, it was reported that neurotech startup Paradromics is preparing to conduct human trials of its brain implant, marking its entry into the competitive brain-computer interface (BCI) market where Neuralink has been dominating the headlines.
