On January 29, Elon Musk announced on X (formerly known as Twitter) that a human had successfully received a Neuralink chip implant. He followed up with an update, saying the patient was recovering well and that the Neuralink was successfully picking up brain waves. However, Neuralink is not the only company investing in brain chip technology; other rival companies like Blackrock Neurotech, BrainGate, and Synchron have been investing in, exploring, and testing medical implants for years. The difference is that Elon Musk’s ambitions reach beyond simply restoring senses to those suffering from paralysis.
For years, there have already been successful tests and implants. Blackrock Neurotech began testing on monkeys in 2002 and already has multiple success stories about people controlling artificial hands, eating through neuroprosthetics, regaining arm movement, and even sensing touch through brain stimulation. Over 30,000 days of data have been collected by the company. Another competitor, BrainGate, helped restore functionality to Matthew Nagle, a man paralyzed from the neck down. The first product of Elon Musk’s company Neuralink, Telepathy, aims to give people the ability to control electronic devices, like phones and computers, just by thinking. However, these primary goals of telepathy have already been surpassed since 2007.
However, Musk’s technique is significantly more invasive. The Neuralink chip implant requires highly invasive surgery using a machine capable of performing the ultra-precise movements needed for success. Yet, these processes have brought up questions about Elon Musk’s true intentions and ethical debates. In 2020, Musk revealed that his ambition is to “achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence.” Former employees have also divulged that the company improperly pursued many procedures and exposed test subject animals to an unwarranted amount of suffering and damage. This led to a hard fight to earn the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) approval to test the technology on human subjects. After finally convincing the FDA to forge ahead with the trials, concerns have been raised about the attainability and desirability of Elon Musk’s goal to merge with artificial intelligence.
Public opinion on brain chips continues to be unfavorable. In a poll by the Pew Research Center, 77% of adults favored using brain chips to help those who are paralyzed, compared to just 25% saying they favor using brain chips to search the internet using thoughts. Neuralink’s more intrusive route of placing the chip inside the brain comes from Musk’s attempt to increase the potential bandwidth, allowing for much higher rates of data communication. This increases the concern about privacy, especially regarding how this technology is screened and controlled. Without proper regulations for a product meant for the market, will the privacy of our thoughts, the last truly private thing in an increasingly data-driven world, be taken away? What ethical standards are there for an area of technology that has never been explored before? These are the questions that we have to be prepared to face, possibly sooner than we would like.
