Thousands of people have applied to receive one of the brain implants from Neuralink, the neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk. The call began a month ago, after the company received approval from an independent board to do human testing. According to a report by BloombergNeuralink has not yet selected participants for its experiment, which will begin next year.
The report of Bloomberg It is signed by Ashlee Vance, who published a biography of Musk in 2015 and has made 10 visits to the Neuralink offices in the last three years. Vance does not offer an exact number of people interested in the study. But she explains that the company received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to run additional trials in 2024.
Neuralink said it plans to do 11 surgeries in 2024, 27 in 2025 and 79 in 2026, according to documents delivered to its investors. From then on, the idea is to scale dramatically: They estimate 499 surgeries in 2027, reaching 22,204 in 2030.
Musk and his team are looking for people with paralysis, of legal age – they prefer those under 40 years old -, willing to participate in the research that they estimate will last about six years. Neuralink aims insert small brain chips to treat diseases such as paralysis and blindness. At some point, Musk has also said that he wants to cure schizophrenia or depression.
To get there, this first phase will test a brain-computer interface. The objective is to verify that the mechanism, which has already been tested on animals, allows people with paralysis to control the cursor or keyboard of a computer using only their thoughts.
What will the operation to insert the Neuralink brain chips be like?
The first step in the experiment will be to remove a piece of the patient’s skull. This would make him, for now, a human. Afterwards, the way is clear for a robot developed by Neuralink to insert a series of super-thin electrodes and cables into the volunteer’s brain. The robot in question is a kind of mechanical arm, about two meters high. It has cameras, sensors and a small laser-molded needle.
One by one, the robot’s needle will push some 64 wires, each lined with 16 electrodes, into the brain, while carefully avoiding blood vessels. No human being would be allowed to do this. It would be impossible: each of these electrodes is 5 microns thick. It is 1/14 the diameter of a strand of human hair.
The brain chip, which is the size of a small coin, will be connected there. The entire procedure would last two and a half hours. The majority is taken by the surgical preparation and craniotomy. The implantation of the chip, about 25 minutes, according to the report Bloomberg.
Neuralink brain chips will read and analyze the person’s neural activity. It will then transmit the information wirelessly to a nearby laptop or tablet. The device runs on a battery, which lasts a few hours and can be recharged wirelessly. The next version of the chip should extend battery life to up to 11 hours, with the idea that the patient can recharge their implant overnight using a charging pad built into a pillow.
Neuralink already has at least a dozen of this robot model, which it called R1. These machines have already made 155 of these surgeries on sheep, pigs and monkeys in 2021. In 2022, there were a total of 294.
Musk’s urgency
Neuralink estimates that each surgery to implant these brain chips will cost about $10,500, including exams, parts and labor. Nothing compared to the 100 million annual income that they estimate in income within five years.
Musk has pushed in recent months for the robot to move faster. Also, so that the entire procedure is done without human intervention, according to Vance’s testimony. “I saw scientists wince as they considered the distance between the demands of their bosses and the physical capabilities of their hardware,” says the magnate’s biographer.
Musk is distressed by the competition, which has been ahead of him for some time. Like Synchron Inc, its great rival, a company that has the support of billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. At least 42 people around the world have already used brain implants in clinical trials led by Synchron. His paralysis patients have already used it to browse web pages and send WhatsApp messages.
“Right now, we’re getting our asses kicked,” Musk said in a meeting cited by Bloomberg. “I want to be among dozens of people next year.” He is also concerned about the progress of Onward, which has made headlines for getting people with paralysis or Parkinson’s to walk again.
Musk told his team in a meeting last September that they should hurry as if “the world was ending.” “We need to get there before artificial intelligence takes over,” he said. «We need to get there with a manic sense of urgency. Maniac”.
Musk co-founded Neuralink in 2016 with seven scientists and $100 million of his own money. Since then, he has raised more than $500 million, including $280 million this year. This is the litmus test for the tycoon, recognized as the richest person in the world. Bloomberg Remember that it took Tesla many years to mass produce its cars. The first three SpaceX rockets exploded. But when it comes to brains, “We can’t destroy the first three,” said Shivon Zilis, director of special projects at Neuralink.. “That’s not an option here.”