First of all, what is neuralink?
Neuralink is a company co-founded by three men – Elon Musk, Max Hodak and Paul Merolla in July of 2016. It’s aim is developing implantable brain-machine interfaces (in short BMIs or BCIs) to make humans able to connect their brains to the digital world (which Elon Musk named transhumanism) as well as treat many diseases starting from anxiety, through dementia to paralysis, while being not bigger than a large coin. It’s second product would be a robot, that could safely and quickly perform the implant operation.
2016-2017
Initially, the company was founded under-the-radar, it wasn’t until 2017 when Wall Street Journal reported on its existence. The initial hires were people mostly from areas of neuroscience, biochemistry and robotics. In April of 2017 the company released a statement, where they shared the aims of their products, which I mostly mentioned in the previous paragraph.
2019-2020
In 2019 Neuralink had raised $158 million, of which $100 million were invested by Elon Musk himself and the companys value was estimated to be just over $500 million. (according to PitchBook). The most important event during the year of 2020 was the release of a demonstration video (available here) of a pig named Gertrude, where the implant could precisely predict the positioning of the pig’s limbs. It was reported that the pig was living with the implant for two months at this point. In August of 2020 Stat News reported that only 3 of 8 founding scientists remained in the company, as the pace of timelines conflicted with the slow pace of science.
2021-2022
In April 2021 Neuralink released another video (available here) which this time featured a monkey playing Pong using only the implant. It wasn’t the first time that a monkey could use computer using just an implant, in 2002 a research group managed to make a monkey use a computers cursor just with neural signals, but this time the technology was improved with it being wireless and increasing the number of electrodes. The following month, one of the companys co-founder, Max Hodak announced that he will no longer be working at Neuralink, leaving the company with only 2 of original 8 co-founders.
Controversies
The biggest claims against Neuralinks were related to animal cruelty. An animal rights group, called Physicians Comittee for Responisble Medicine reported, that they obtained records, which shown that 15 out of 23 monkeys had died during the tests, as well as they claimed that the animals were subjected to suffering. Neuralink only admitted death of only 8 monkeys out of reported 15, of which 2 were euthanized to gather information, only obtainable through autopsy. The claims made the company put out a statement on animal welfare on their website. (here)
To be honest, allegations towards Neuralink seem to be serious. Should we believe animal rights groups or the statements that the company put out? It’s hard to determine exactly the animal casualties. Also, Isn’t it a good price to pay for us to be able to help humans overcome diseases and let us progress even more technologically? Probably there are as many opinions as people thinking about this topic and as long as Neuralink works under the state law it will continue their research.
References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuralink#Technology https://www.businessinsider.com/neuralink-elon-musk-microchips-brains-ai-2021-2?IR=T#elon-musk-likes-to-boast-neuralink-can-let-monkeys-control-computers-with-their-brain-signals-but-neuroscientists-dont-see-this-as-a-big-deal-6 https://www.republicworld.com/technology-news/other-tech-news/what-is-neuralink-how-does-the-technology-work-and-what-can-a-person-do-with-it.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/05/elon-musks-neuralink-bold-ideas-hurdles.html https://www.slashgear.com/867308/the-incredible-and-controversial-evolution-of-elon-musks-neuralink/
Neral link seems like a sci-fi future and yet it’s here. If everybody will have instant access to all information our world will change so drastically it’s scary.