Company is seeking people with paralysis to test its experimental device after getting green light from independent review board
Elon Musk’s brain-implant startup, Neuralink, said it has received approval from an independent review board to begin recruiting patients for its first human trial. The company is seeking people with paralysis to test its experimental device in a six-year study.
Neuralink is one of several companies developing a brain-computer interface (BCI) that can collect and analyze brain signals. But its billionaire executive’s bombastic promotion of the company, including promises to develop an all-encompassing brain computer to help humans keep up with artificial intelligence, has attracted skepticism and raised ethical concerns among neuroscientists and other experts.
Last year, the Food and Drug Administration denied the company’s request to fast-track human trials, but in May approved Neuralink for an investigational device exemption (IDE) that allows a device to be used for clinical studies. The agency has not disclosed how its initial concerns were resolved.
It cannot “work”. Even if it succeeded technically speaking, you cannot expect such a device to be secure (as no device is, and certainly not one made by Musk).
Now computerised cars are already an increasing risk in giving new ways to commit murder without being caught, but if you directly put a security risk in your brain, I am pretty sure that many people will jump on the occasion.
Even if it were secure, what happens to all the gen 1 implantees when gen 2 comes out? or when Musk decides to no longer support certain models? Imagine having a 2007 iphone stuck inside your brain, forever. Or I guess people could get brain surgery every few years. That seems reasonable.