Althouse: "Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp. aims to start putting its coin-sized computing brain implant into human patients within six months..."

December 1, 2022

"Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp. aims to start putting its coin-sized computing brain implant into human patients within six months..."

"... the company announced... Neuralink has been refining the product, which consists of a tiny device and electrode-laced wires, along with a robot that carves out a piece of a person’s skull and implants it into the brain. Ongoing discussions with the US Food and Drug Administration have gone well enough for the company to set a target of its first human trials within the next six months, according to Musk. In typical fashion for an Elon Musk venture, Neuralink is already bounding ahead, aiming implants at other parts of the body. During the event, Musk revealed work on two major products in addition to the brain-computer interface. It’s developing implants that can go into the spinal cord and potentially restore movement in someone suffering from paralysis. And it has an ocular implant meant to improve or restore human vision. 'As miraculous as that may sound, we are confident that it is possible to restore full-body functionality to someone who has a severed spinal cord,' Musk said at the event. Turning to Neuralink’s vision work, he added that 'even if they have never seen before, we are confident they could see.'"

Bloomberg reports.

75 comments:

tim in vermont said...: "We are confident" is short for "We don't really know, but we are really hoping, but still, anything could happen."; 12/1/22, 6:11 AM
Kevin said...: The people who repeat the lies they’re told are certain he can’t fix Twitter.; 12/1/22, 6:12 AM
Inga said...: I wonder if any religious right leaders will have the courage of their convictions/beliefs to liken this Neuralink implant to the Mark of the Beast.; 12/1/22, 6:12 AM
Michael said...: .
...developing implants that can go into the spinal cord and potentially restore movement in someone suffering from paralysis.

Yet to the chattering class Musk is the personification of evil.; 12/1/22, 6:20 AM
Temujin said...: Wow. Just wow. The Brave New World is close.

I wonder what the desolate-brained in our Congress think about when they see yet another potential species changing project that Musk and his teams are working on. As they are daily working on stopping his forward progress. Such is the enlightened mind of our leaders, many of whom love to call themselves progressives. What a misnomer.; 12/1/22, 6:27 AM
Michael P said...: Some of us are still laughing at people who paid Musk for "Full Self-Driving" as long ago as 2016.; 12/1/22, 6:41 AM
rehajm said...: Edisonian…as in too many failures. Good on him for trying? I dunno. Expect lots of backlash for getting hopes up…; 12/1/22, 6:41 AM
Michael P said...: Some of us are still laughing at people who paid Musk for "Full Self-Driving" as long ago as 2016.; 12/1/22, 6:41 AM
Robert Marshall said...: The spinal cord and ocular implants have an easily-understood purpose: restoring normal function to key parts of the body. That should be a fairly easy sell.

The "brain-computer interface" is the Dr. Frankenstein (pronounced Frahnk-n-STEEN, please!) part of this, which will justifiably have the villagers in an uproar. I would like to see some explanation of the therapeutic purpose(s) of this gadget; too open-ended, as is.; 12/1/22, 6:43 AM
Kate said...: This all sounds wild, but if it can actually restore function to the paralyzed, it's miraculous. My uncle was a quadriplegic. Even a small change would've made a huge impact.; 12/1/22, 6:55 AM
Howard said...: Elon Musk has said on Joe Rogan that neuralink ultimately will be how we defeat the AI takeover by merging with AI via this link. Those folks will be called Eloi; 12/1/22, 7:03 AM
Original Mike said...: Musk is making the paralyzed walk just to distract from Twitter…; 12/1/22, 7:12 AM
Humperdink said...: Jnga said: "I wonder if any religious right leaders will have the courage of their convictions/beliefs to liken this Neuralink implant to the Mark of the Beast."

Tell us your view of this concept Inga. Do you believe this is the Mark of the Beast? Do you believe in the Mark of the Beast?; 12/1/22, 7:15 AM
rwnutjob said...: FDA slow-walk coming in 3, 2, 1; 12/1/22, 7:23 AM
Jersey Fled said...: Ahhh...

What Inga said!; 12/1/22, 7:31 AM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: If thinking does happen at the “quantum” level, chips are useless. If there is a way, however, one tin foil hat lining could be the chipped head YouTuber explaining cryptocurrency in such a way that even I could understand. So, I keep an open mind.; 12/1/22, 7:37 AM
AMDG said...: I think it is time for a remake of the 1968 movie “The President’s Analyst”.

They just need to replace The Phone Company with some Tech company!; 12/1/22, 7:44 AM
AMDG said...: I think it is time for a remake of the 1968 movie “The President’s Analyst”.

They just need to replace The Phone Company with some Tech company!; 12/1/22, 7:44 AM
Leland said...: He seems so evil. At least we know progressives will shun this medical breakthrough like they refused the Covid vaccine when Trump was President.; 12/1/22, 8:01 AM
Wince said...: ...restore movement in someone suffering from paralysis. And it has an ocular implant meant to improve or restore human vision...

Oops. Gonna need a 'Musk is like Jesus' tag.; 12/1/22, 8:15 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: 1. This other Musk endeavor had slipped my mind.
2. How many ways will the FDA and woke medical establishment try to sabotage Neuralink.
3. Now that Musk is in the midst of the Left’s 2-Minutes of Hate (TM) I fully expect all of his business endeavors to suffer from smear after smear.; 12/1/22, 8:32 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Making the paralyzed walk and the blind see is fine, but we should think twice about any implant that allows the mute to speak.
What if they say something offensive?; 12/1/22, 8:51 AM
n.n said...: The mechanical body is where a faith evolved to conflate origin and expression.; 12/1/22, 8:52 AM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: restoring health? vision? what a bastard.; 12/1/22, 8:55 AM
Achilles said...: Inga said...

I wonder if any religious right leaders will have the courage of their convictions/beliefs to liken this Neuralink implant to the Mark of the Beast.

It would help if you understood what "religious right leaders" are. Or "courage." Or "conviction/beliefs." Or these Neuralink implants... Or the "Mark of the Beast."

You put a bunch of words together and you don't know what any of them mean or who the people you are talking about are.

You are just hilariously stupid.; 12/1/22, 8:58 AM
tim in vermont said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/1/22, 9:03 AM
planetgeo said...: Musk's energy and range of creative vision make notable previous inventors/visionaries seem like slackers. Not to mention making his spittle-flecked antagonists seem like Lilliputians.

Easily the most significant and consequential human on Earth today. Tomorrow, perhaps on Mars too.; 12/1/22, 9:03 AM
tim in vermont said...: The Terminal Man was one of the first thrillers I ever read as a kid, maybe it’s time for a reboot in a movie.; 12/1/22, 9:03 AM
Steven said...: It is funny that this seems more amazing, but is probably technically simpler than fixing twitter or making a self-driving car. With this, all you need to do is find a way to transform some chemical signals in the body into electronic ones and then convert them back somewhere else. With the others, you have to find a way to deal with hordes of people (users, other drivers) behaving in unpredictable and irrational ways.; 12/1/22, 9:05 AM
Paul Mac said...: A number of companies are already doing much of the same. The vision of Musk's company is to accelerate the pace & scale of both availability & impact, make it mobile. Aspirational definitely. But that is how you get things moving places, even if your reach exceeds your grasp in the end.

Synchron has its Synchron Switch in patients and BlackRock Neurotech has its Utah arrays with a Neurolace product they are working on.

You can follow a number of players in this space here on Twitter; 12/1/22, 9:07 AM
mikee said...: I, for one, look forward to the release of the auto-orgasmic implant. Best Christmas gift, ever!; 12/1/22, 9:17 AM
planetgeo said...: OK, now do Musk Cologne.
Ad tag lines:
1) Rich, smart, and horny is a great way to go through life.
2) Cancel me, baby. I dare you.
3) You may not have a trillion dollars, but you can smell like it.; 12/1/22, 9:19 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Inga is just sore still from the failure of the WuFlu as the catalyst for banishing wrongthinkers, taking away their rights to work, associate with others, conduct business, go to school, use mass transit and even maintain parental rights. These are ALL examples of things majority of democrats favored during the fake pandemic and most were used as “emergency measures” were democrat officials could do so under color of authority.

Don’t worry Inga. Progressives will absolutely be ready to use the Mark of the Beast when it comes to pass. They already have demonstrated a strong desire to use any excuse available to exercise absolute control as described in The Revelation of John. Given its satanic associations I’m surprised you admit it’s existence.; 12/1/22, 9:28 AM
Ficta said...: I really shouldn't feed the troll but... What on Earth does this have to do with the Mark of the Beast? Seriously, I grew up in a community that was very much into theories of the Mark of the Beast and the End Times, and I literally have no idea what you're talking about.

"He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." - Revelation 13:16-17

The Mark of the Beast appears to be a prophecy about the economic disenfranchisement of an oppressed religious minority.; 12/1/22, 9:42 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Humans implanted with the chips will be self-driving by 2024.; 12/1/22, 9:50 AM
rcocean said...: That is incredible. And welcome news. wouldn't it be great if all those poor parlyzed people could walk again!; 12/1/22, 9:56 AM
tommyesq said...: Some of us are still laughing at people who paid Musk for "Full Self-Driving" as long ago as 2016.

Maybe not here yet, but Musk/Tesla have done far more to bring it near than anyone else. Even if these medical projects do not ultimately result in actual Musk-branded products, I suspect the state of the technology will be greatly advanced.

By the way, this is far closer to "effective altruism" than anything SBF ever did.; 12/1/22, 10:06 AM
Sebastian said...: Talk about Effective Altruism.

1. Make better widget.
2. Show that widget makes life better.
3. Make profit selling widget that makes life better to people who want to live better.
4. Use profits to invest in other widgets.

And so on. Is any system more effectively altruistic than plain old capitalism?; 12/1/22, 10:07 AM
MadisonMan said...: What a blessing that would be to the impaired.
I wonder how much the vision center in the brain atrophies once sight is lost though, and how much work is required to re-remember how to interpret vision. What a great thing to investigate however.; 12/1/22, 10:07 AM
Lurker21 said...: Yet another Boring Company, this time tunneling into our brains.

What could possibly go wrong there?; 12/1/22, 10:09 AM
Inga said...: Oh so sorry, I was wrong, the Mark of the Beast is the Covid vaccine.

“Peter Feaman, a top Republican National Committee official in Florida, said last month that vaccines are "the mark of the beast" and comparable to a "false god." In May, Feaman wrote on his blog of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer encouraging vaccines in Michigan: "Diabolical Michigan Governor Whiter wants her citizens to get the Mark of the Beast to participate in society."”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/26/covid-vaccine-mark-beast-what-book-revelation-says/8255268002/; 12/1/22, 10:28 AM
PM said...: Elon Musk said on Joe Rogan: 'The goal of Neuralink is to make the transmission of a complex ideas, from your brain to someone else's, more accurate and direct than language can.' Okay, but reversing - or lessening - serious human ailments ain't week-old bread.; 12/1/22, 10:49 AM
tim in vermont said...: "He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." - Revelation 13:16-17

A lot more straightforwardly logical case could be made for the "jab" as the "mark of the beast," given the sanctions on refuseniks, especially in Canada. Loss of bank accounts, so-called "vaccine passports," etc...; 12/1/22, 10:53 AM
tim in vermont said...: I have a pacemaker, but I wouldn't want it to be hackable. Actually, it is, but people are on the "honor system" not to use the medical frequency, I just heard about a new one that will hopefully fix some trouble I have been having that the old one can't handle, so I am not against this in principle, I guess... It's the brain part that seems like of off limits.

I have also heard about a device that is implantable in the shoulder that causes a muscle in the throat to not totally relax when sleeping to cure sleep apnea without one of those masks. There are also pacemakers that can detect a heart attack and automatically defibrillate the heart. So it seems like if it can be thought of, it will be done.; 12/1/22, 11:03 AM
Rocketeer said...: Mark of the Beast?

Until this moment, I never really thought to put the words “offensively stupid” together.; 12/1/22, 11:03 AM
Achilles said...: Ficta said...

The Mark of the Beast appears to be a prophecy about the economic disenfranchisement of an oppressed religious minority.

Everyone here should be learning about what a Central Bank Digital Currency is.

The Biden Regime and the Fed are currently trying to make this happen.

This is the mirror opposite of Decentralized Crypto Currency.

Central Bank Digital Currencies are the modern implementation of the Mark of the Beast.; 12/1/22, 11:07 AM
Mark said...: While it will be great if it works, I have read that a fair amount of monkey subjects have been euthanized.

Not an acceptable regular outcome with human subjects.; 12/1/22, 11:13 AM
MikeR said...: "It's way more important that this horrible man wants to take away our propaganda tool on twitter."; 12/1/22, 11:18 AM
John henry said...: I like the idea, if it works. Good on Musk for trying. OTOH, this is an old idea. I can remember reading in the 80s about someone working on connecting a floppy disk drive to the brain. 1.44MB of additional brainpower! Should have been plenty. Back then 640KB was a big thing and all the computing power we would ever need according to the great visionary Bill Gates.

John Henry; 12/1/22, 11:19 AM
Inga said...: Is Musk telling us something?

Now I don’t think Musk is the antichrist or someone who wants to implant the mark of the beast in people, but if Obama had worn such a costume and spoke of brain implants…; 12/1/22, 11:23 AM
tim in vermont said...: "The goal of Neuralink is to make the transmission of a complex ideas, from your brain to someone else's, more accurate and direct than language can."

There are a huge number of assumptions in this plan. How do we even know if any two people perceive colors in exactly the same way? Much less create the same neural network weightings for various concepts.; 12/1/22, 12:17 PM
tim in vermont said...: It's pretty funny that Inga would link to a Weekly World News level site called the "Daily Idiot."; 12/1/22, 12:18 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: If you get chipped, Musk will throw in a free Twitter blue check.; 12/1/22, 12:23 PM
rcocean said...: "white-supremacist Jew-hater, an ugly, ugly scum like Nick Fuentes."

Its interesting how Leftists, and many neo-conservatives, are always so EXTREME in their language. Everyone they dislike is SCUM, GARBAGE, NAZI, FASCIST, UGLY, FULL OF HATE, PUTRID, etc.

THey always seem to understand they can use this kind of angry, violent, exaggerated rhetoric against others, and the "others" won't engage in the same game and give blowback.

We on the Center-Right are always supposed to be the reasonable ones, patting the angry leftwing child on the head and going "there, there, its not that bad", or making dumb joke comments like "Gee, you're so beautiful when you're angry". Or pretend they have some sort of "derangement syndrome". IOW, excuse it.

Then there's the temptation to go "Actually, Mr. X is not a blahblah", but that'll get you nowhere, since they'll just double down on what UGLY SCUM the person they dislike is. Or the leftist/neo-con/nevertrumper will accuse you of agreeing with the UGLY SCUM, and being UGLY SCUM too, because why would you disagree unless you like Mr. X?; 12/1/22, 12:32 PM
Achilles said...: Inga said...

Is Musk telling us something?

Now I don’t think Musk is the antichrist or someone who wants to implant the mark of the beast in people, but if Obama had worn such a costume and spoke of brain implants…

Oh my god. That link is the dumbest shit in the world.

Obama was a serial liar that was caught using the US government to spy on political opponents.

So anything Obama says or does should be assumed to be evil because his actions are evil.; 12/1/22, 12:48 PM
walter said...: I like the demo showing a monkey playing pong. Musk assures us the monkey enjoys it and gets a smoothie.
You will own nothing and be happy..with smoothies!; 12/1/22, 12:55 PM
MadisonMan said...: but if Obama had worn such a costume and spoke of brain implants
Get back to me when Musk is President.
Because there's a difference between a President of the country vs. a Leader of a Company.; 12/1/22, 12:56 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: I’m just here for the ratio now; 12/1/22, 12:57 PM
Yancey Ward said...: They will plug Joe Biden into a Commodore 64 to raise his IQ above 90.; 12/1/22, 12:58 PM
Mason G said...: Is this something that would be mandated as a condition of employment or to maybe just eat out at a restaurant? You know- the way the experimental Chinese Bat Flu "vaccine" was?; 12/1/22, 1:10 PM
boatbuilder said...: ""He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." - Revelation 13:16-17"

Sounds very much like the Social Credit system--currently on display in China, and coming to a neighborhood near you very soon!; 12/1/22, 1:13 PM
William said...: It's the kind of thing that you hope is true, and he certainly has a better track record than Elizabeth Holmes. Science keeps working miracles and at an accelerating rate. Good luck to him....I do hope, however, that paraplegics of conscience will not yield to his siren song and sign up for his cure. Such a cure, whatever short term benefits it offers to paraplegics will ultimately aid Musk in his efforts to subvert Twitter and cause the death of democracy. It's important to keep your eye on the big picture.; 12/1/22, 1:16 PM
walter said...: "his efforts to subvert Twitter "
From subversion?; 12/1/22, 1:33 PM
Howard said...: PM: thanks for posting that. It reminded me that Elon Musk on Joe Rogan podcast also said that the biggest bottleneck for human beings are the interfaces to our phones and computers we have to slowly type out our thoughts using thumbs and fingers.

One of the things he might have missed in that regard is a neuralink tapping into flow of consciousness and then you spend all your time editing out all the crazy shit that comes pouring out of your medulla oblongata; 12/1/22, 1:51 PM
PM said...: Neuralink, William said: "...will ultimately aid Musk in his efforts to subvert Twitter and cause the death of democracy."

There's nothing quite like the freedom to express, or expose, oneself on the web.; 12/1/22, 2:23 PM
tim in vermont said...: The goal of Neuralink is to make the transmission of a complex ideas, from your brain to someone else's, more accurate and direct than language can.

"I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord! Please don't let me be misunderstood." It's like the credo of the age.

But I am not sure that a Musk "Mind Meld" is gonna do it. But it could level out the playing field in math. Once you understand the concepts, they are easy enough to use, it's groping for that spark of understanding that's hard. Of course, the opportunities for brainwashing are all too apparent. "Did I really think of that?" Total Recall is another take on this.; 12/1/22, 2:49 PM
William said...: I use a delicate, subtle form of irony that only the most sophisticated reader can understand. Post modern irony is the most accomplished form of being a smart ass. If you missed it, don't feel bad. It's not for everyone....For the record, it is my belief that paraplegics should take Musk up on his offer if he can find a cure for paraplegia and that Musk's effort with Twitter will not cause the death of democracy.; 12/1/22, 4:01 PM
stunned said...: As someone who's been recently diagnosed with Best vitelliform macular dystrophy, I am especially interested in the 'even if they have never seen before, we are confident they could see' part.; 12/1/22, 5:07 PM
Pauligon59 said...: I fully expect this to be life changing for people. My life went from barely able to function with severe hearing loss to hearing things I hadn't heard in 50 years when I got cochlear implants. While the cochlear implants are amazing, my hearing is still not "normal". Also, the auditory signals require lots of processing to translate them into electrical pulses that properly stimulate the auditory nerve. That processing requires a hearing aid like thing hanging on my ear that connects to the implant through the skin using a magnet attached electrode. I can sort of envision something similar being done for the optic nerve coupling eyeglass mounted cameras coupling through the skin at the temples. Stimulating the optic nerve appropriately would seem to be quite complex compared to the auditory nerves.

Coupling a general purpose computer to your brain would be even more complicated. Note, that the computer wouldn't be going in the brain, just the interfacing electrodes. The computer would connect to those using something like my cochlear implant does - maybe a magnet attached short range wifi link like many hearing aids use to provide better directional cues to the users. I suspect it might be something like a skull cap with multiple connection points providing for vision, hearing, and maybe taste and smell inputs. These wouldn't necessarily bee used for people with no problems, but for those, like me, who have a neuro-sensosry impairment that the implant would mitigate.

We are maybe 50 years (probably more like a century) away from healthy people doing thee sorts of things to augment their perfectly normal senses.; 12/1/22, 6:05 PM
Steven said...: This is years away; the death rate in monkeys was way too high for the regulators to give permission for use in humans. Move along, nothing to see here.; 12/1/22, 7:01 PM
PM said...: William: My brain resists MRIs. Skull too thick. Peace.; 12/1/22, 7:22 PM
MadTownGuy said...: Noel Paul Stookey (Paul, from Peter, Paul & Mary) wrote a song some years ago called "Miracles," part of which suspected corporate malfeasance:

"In the cool white light of an office
Behind a security guard
The computer supplies suggestions
To improve the credit card
The new card would be issued at the time of birth
And the credit potential will be determined
For everyone on earth
And for ease of identification
'though there's some aversion now
The credit number will be tattooed
On the wrist or on the brow

And so we build a beast revealed by miracles
As time unfolds the prophet's dreams
Remember what they say about coincidence
Life is always more than what it seems"

In the intervening years, it could apply as easily to social credit scoring, or AI implants. Governmental malfeasance or sociomedical experiments, either way, any technology has potential for misuse.; 12/1/22, 7:25 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: I don’t know about the brain, but science and medicine has come a long way in terms of nerves. I had the nerve running between my little and ring finger on my left hand, along with the muscles controlling the little finger, severed. I had a great surgeon, at the local Mayo Clinic sew them all back together successfully. His second surgery, a couple days after the first had him fishing for the nerve, and replacing the missing segment of the nerve with, I believe, cadaver nerves. Or some such. The amazing thing is that it all works now. Maybe a little more tremor in those fingers, but that really isn’t that new - it is familial - my grandmother and father had it.

Another thing was that my partner had installed in her neck and lower back neurostimulators. They apparently work by stimulating larger nerves, cutting out pain messages from lesser nerves. It really did work. Finally had the last one out last summer, because she couldn't get high def MRIs of her spine, needed for more spine surgery in September. They do work, but always left her jittery, and as a result, couldn’t sit very long. The problem that she did repeatedly face was infection. I do think that she may have been over sensitive to such, because she has an amazing immune system. At 65, she appears to have survived COVID-19, in two days, using only vitamin C (no vaccination with an artificial mMRNA gene therapy treatment either - which might very well have killed her). Still - that is one big problem with brain implants - eliminating infections, when they can’t do it yet with spinal implants. Or, maybe she ended up with a immune response to the neurostimular leads into her spine, that looked like infection. That might be even more problematic with brain implants.

One of my favorite sci/fi authors is Catherine Asaro, PhD. In her books, some people easily have their brains wired, which allows them to control their other body augmentation, as well as, for example, their space ship. Some people can’t take the surgery at all. And most everyone else is in between. Not surprisingly, those who can take full augmentation are the ruling elite…; 12/1/22, 7:26 PM
MadTownGuy said...: Link to the aforementioned song, Miracles.; 12/1/22, 8:07 PM
walter said...: Maybe they are coin sized to allow coin-op. Like payphones.
Fed tokens distributed per social credit score.; 12/1/22, 9:26 PM