(Photo by Steve Jurvetson via Flickr/CC BY 2.0 DEED)
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On January 29, 2024, Elon Musk announced on X that his startup, Neuralink, successfully implanted a chip into the brain of a living human for the first time.
This implantable brain chip, or Telepathy, promises to grant humans control over hardware devices simply by thinking. Through a disk, brain activity is registered and sent through any device.
According to Musk, the anonymous volunteer patient who undertook the procedure received the implant and “is recovering well.” Most details about the patient are private, but Neuralink revealed that the volunteer has paralysis. Although Musk’s announcement post was straightforward, he confirmed that the volunteer showed a spike in neural activity after the implant.
This Neuralink implant contains 1,024 electrodes that interpret neurons in the brain. When comparing other implant studies from its competitors (Synchron, Neurotech, Blackrock, and BrainGate), Neuralink has twice as many electrodes in its N1 device, which is responsible for recording neural activity. This higher density of electrodes increases the chip’s capability to gather data from nerve cells. The relevance of such a technology is important to address carefully, and proper analysis is essential for handling a potentially life-changing tool.
What Is Neuralink, and What Does Telepathy Entail?
Founded in 2016 by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, Neuralink is attempting to create brain implants equipped with artificial intelligence (AI). Once installed in someone’s brain, the goal is to transcribe brain signals through an app, where an individual can control their actions through thoughts. Musk presented his vision on X: “Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer. That is the goal.”
When asked about the specifics of Telepathy at the Neuralink Launch event in 2019, Musk said that the brain chip gets placed after drilling a two-millimetre hole in the person’s skull: “The interface to the chip is wireless, so you have no wires poking out of your head.” Additionally, a surgical R1 robot does this procedure — built to install the chip with zero damage to the blood cells in the brain.
The short-term objective of Neuralink is to use Telepathy to help people suffering from neurological conditions such as ALS or dementia. Not only can the implant support those individuals by improving cognitive abilities, but it can also create digital immortality in the long run. In 2017, at the World Government Summit in Dubai, Musk illustrated this concept by stating how “some high bandwidth interface to the brain will be something that helps achieve symbiosis between human and machine intelligence.” In other words, Musk announces a union between the human mind and artificial intelligence.
At a Neuralink’s Progress Update event in 2020, Musk shared that with Telepathy, people would be able to store their memories in a backup where “you could potentially download them into a new body or … a robot body.”
It is important to note that in 2023, Neuralink got approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to do medical tests. However, Musk has a bolder plan of requiring an input-output device that could intersect with every part of the brain.
Musk’s Groundbreaking Technology
Musk’s implantable brain chip is not the first of its kind. However, what makes Telepathy and Neuralink so revolutionary is the surgeries done before introducing the device, which were very lengthy and complex. Through the R1 surgical robot, the chip installation is automatic to a certain extent. The automation will allow the commercialization of chips to grow on a larger scale.
Unlike what is currently on the market, Neuralink has also massively innovated products through AI, which will increase the efficiency and accuracy of such a technology as the brain chip. Musk has publicly addressed his concern about the supposed AI apocalypse for a long time, describing a scenario where AI eventually out-smarts and out-paces human intelligence. He advocates for scientists and the public to merge themselves with AI where, after merging with computers, humans go “along for the ride” with rising technology.
Palmy Olson, a columnist for Bloomberg, confirms that with superintelligence, we, as citizens, will have to address this “existential risk” by adding some digital smarts into our neocortex — the largest part of our brain’s cortex, responsible for codifying our thought, attention, and episodic memory. To illustrate this point, Olson quoted Musk: “If you [cannot] beat them, join ‘em.”
Professor Amir Amedi, founding director of the Ivcher Institute for Brain, Cognition & Technology at Reichman University, clarifies for a brain chip to function well, it needs to read the proper neural code so that when adding electricity, it will know exactly where to go, whether it is an injured leg or hand for example. This capacity for interpreting specific neural codes is where AI presents itself as a mass innovative technology. According to Amedi, AI could “learn … the specific electrical pattern is across masses of neurons to move the hand to the right versus the hand to the left.” With this information in check, AI can effectively stimulate the brain and help individuals with neurological conditions that affect their movement.
Xing Chen, assistant professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh, positively commented on Neuralink’s works as well, emphasizing how “[it is] going to potentially revolutionize the way people with sensory or motor deficits might be able to interact with the environment and live more independently.”
The power that AI has on Telepathy will possibly allow for better control of our moods and assist people with mental health conditions. When we look into a person with depression, for example, certain areas of their frontal cortex are unbalanced, where there is more brain activity on one side than the other. If someone with depression receives Telepathy, for example, Professor Amedi argues that brain stimulation can happen at a higher resolution. Alongside AI, optimal and balanced brain stimulation can occur. “It sounds like science fiction,” he says, “but it is no more difficult than moving fingers in a sophisticated way or restoring vision.”
Ultimately, the decision to insert this technology will remain in the hands of each individual, but if Telepathy gets increasingly commercialized in the long run, would Telepathy challenge our understanding of ourselves or the sovereign individual?
Insecurities Behind Neuralink
Acknowledging the concerns behind such a potentially revolutionary and innovative technology is noteworthy. Cognitive psychologist Susan Schneider has called Telepathy “suicide for the human mind.” Schneider points out that Musk may not consider the pressing philosophical and ethical dimensions behind such technology. Schneider presents a hypothetical, philosophical scenario — as soon as you are born, an AI device that regulates and inspects your thoughts is installed into your brain to read and interpret how you think and act.
This device will probably be your perfect mirror growing up. In this hypothetical scenario, if your brain is removed and replaced by this device as your new brain, which one is ultimately you? Schneider firmly states that “at the moment you opted to remove your brain, you inadvertently killed yourself.” Back into a non-hypothetical or philosophical scenario, this scholar points out how it will soon be challenging to decide how much people want to merge with AI: What would be the measurements? How much brain or nerve function should be replaced by AI?
One scholar who pinpoints another concern through a social and inequality lens is Éric Fourneretis, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Lille. The high costs of such technology will allow only some people to improve themselves, while others will lack access to improve. It can pose an “existential threat to our societies,” possibly worsening inequality and marginalization of certain groups. For Fourneretis, there is a high potential for such social disparity, with a possible “hierarchy of value attributed to individuals.”
Other than potential insecurities, Neuralink has presented some uncertain and controversial cases about implant screws coming loose and infections in the monkeys used for animal testing, which gained major criticism from animal rights activists.
A report from Reuters showed that Neuralink has killed more than 1,500 animals since 2018. Employees from the company who chose to stay anonymous discussed how one of the reasons for such a high number of deaths was Musk’s pressure for faster results. In one experiment, for example, the wrong size of devices was introduced into 60 pigs, which led to the death of 25 animals. Additionally, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine made references to “apparent [shocking] violations of the Animal Welfare Act” with concerns about improper veterinary care and the use of BioGlue, an “unapproved substance” which killed two monkeys by “destroying [parts] of their brains.”
Syd M. Johnson, a Neuroethicist at the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University, confirmed concern for animal welfare in Neuralink facilities. Moreover, Johnson questioned Neuralink’s scientific legitimacy, asking how the FDA approved such a project despite its “sloppy work and data [that] may not be reliable.”
Elon Musk has also been opting for an informal oversharing of information through social media — far from traditional outlets used by scientists, such as peer-reviewed publications. Marcello Ienca, professor of ethics of AI and neuroscience at the Technical University of Munich, believes that this action limits the scope of understanding and debate between other scientists and “seems to sidestep the established protocols that underpin scientific integrity.” Neuralink has not registered for the public database ClinicalTrials.gov, which is unusual for clinical trials. Ienca adds that although legal, not reporting such clinical trials “violates ethical guidelines for biomedical research.”
Do the Risks Outweigh the Benefits?
After investigating all the opportunities and obstacles, Neuralink needs to address the scientific protocols better and be more transparent about its processes, methodologies and aims while promoting debates that can flourish and bring more credibility for Neuralink to prosper. Musk must register Neuralink in ClinicalTrials.gov for its relevance and importance to the scientific community.
In the long run, brain implant technology should come with age restrictions. It should only be allowed where the individual is of legal age and has developed their character, personality, beliefs, and values so the individual self can always maintain power over their body.
Do the risks outweigh the benefits? If handled correctly and with enough attention, yes. AI continues to develop more to look and think like humans, surpassing human limits and capabilities. We do not have to look at a hypothetical future to see the dangers that it sets. Worries about AI replacing many jobs are already widespread. However, it is ultimately up to us to decide how we use AI.
There will not be a loss of identity, personality or character, but Telepathy would only be a helpful resource that uplifts and builds upon our own inherited and personal selves. We are still in control of our bodies and will always be, no matter which course of action we follow. The real concern is the possibility of increasing inequalities and disparities between people. Such technology has an immensely high cost, and people can face the risk of being devalued or suffering inequality if this technology becomes something that fractures society into attributing different values to individuals.
Hopefully, if Neuralink becomes more popularly introduced, it will not become a mandatory instrument that shapes whether someone is accepted or valued in society. The purpose of technology should be to assist humans in being their best selves and not as a mechanism for segregation or marginalization.
Edited by Anthony Hablak
