Social Media Doesn't Have High Hopes For First Human Trials Of Elon Musk's Experimental 'Brain Chip' Technology Neuralink

January 24th, 2022 - 12:00 PM EST by Adam Downer

8 comments | Contact Newsroom

Elon musk neuralink diagram showing the brain chip in a human.

Elon Musk, an entrepreneur who has struggled to solve traffic, exploded several rockets and put self-driving cars on the road that are "almost" as safe as cars driven by actual people, is reportedly looking for human volunteers to get one of his Neuralink "brain chips" implanted into their brain.


Neuralink, which is owned by Musk, recently posted a job opening for a "Clinical Trial Coordinator," which most believe is for the first human clinical trial studies on brain chips. Neuralink says the brain chips will be designed to help people power electronics with the power of their minds. In April 2021, the company showed the project off by demonstrating how a macaque with their brain chip could play Pong by simply looking at the screen — later spawning the Neuralink Monkey meme.


The technology could be a tremendous benefit for those without the use of their limbs, and Musk has promised some grand ambitions for human memory. "In the future, you'll be able to save and replay memories," Musk said in a Neuralink presentation. "You could potentially download them into a new body or into a robot body."

The news generated two types of predominant reactions on social media. The first was that, at least in cinema, brain chips tend not to go well. Comparisons to Black Mirror episodes that center around the ethical implications of brain chips flooded Twitter after the news started going viral.


The second major type of reaction was anticipation that the brain chips, much like some of Musk's other projects, are likely to underdeliver.


It looks like Neuralink aims to get its chips into brains by year's end, but the company does have a history of overpromising. In 2019, Musk said he believed he would get chips into brains by the end of 2020.


Top Comments

katakis
katakis

>It seems like a grand ambition for someone whose rockets tend to explode.
Man, so many things to mock Musk about and you chose the one single venue that's actually working really damn good, doesn't have any major failures, and revitalizes the entire industry.

Good going, tech-illiterate intern.

+10

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