Grace Kay
Wed, November 8, 2023
Thousands of people are interested in becoming Neuralink patients, a Bloomberg report says.
Elon Musk's startup received FDA approval earlier this year to start human trials.
The brain-chip startup hopes to implant a device that acts as a "Fitbit in your skull."
Thousands of people have expressed interest in receiving one of Neuralink's brain implants, a recent Bloomberg report from one of Elon Musk's biographers, Ashlee Vance, says.
Vance, who said he visited Neuralink's facilities 10 times in three years, said the company had yet to implant its device in a human but aimed to operate on 11 people next year and more than 22,000 by 2030.
Earlier this year, the US Food and Drug Administration gave Neuralink, which Musk cofounded in 2016, approval to launch human trials of its device that Musk has described as a "Fitbit in your skull." The FDA had previously rejected Neuralink's bid for human testing in March over safety concerns, Reuters reported, including that the wires connected to the brain chip could move within a subject's head or that the chip could overheat.
In September, the company began recruiting for its first human trial. Neuralink said in a blog post that it was looking for people who had paralysis in all four limbs because of a spinal-cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The company says it hopes to eventually make a device that will create a sort of symbiosis between humans and machines and will allow people to send messages or play games using only their thoughts. But first, the company says it hopes to help people with neurological disorders.
Vance, who authored the 2015 biography "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future," said in his report that despite "an outpouring of interest from thousands of prospective patients," the company was still looking for its first volunteer or "someone willing to have a chunk of their skull removed by a surgeon so a large robot can insert a series of electrodes and superthin wires into their brain."
Musk's biographer said it would take a "couple of hours" for a surgeon to perform the craniectomy and then about 25 minutes for the robot to insert the device, along with its ultrathin array of about 64 threads. He said the device would replace the portion of the skull that had been removed. Vance added that the threads were about one-fourteenth the width of a single strand of human hair.
The chip is designed to sit behind the ear while electrodes are threaded into the brain.
Neuralink/YouTube
Vance wrote that Neuralink had done 155 implantation surgeries using the robot on a variety of animal test subjects, including pigs and monkeys. But, he said, in typical Musk fashion, the billionaire had continued to push for the robot to move faster, as well as for the surgery to be performed without human help.
A spokesperson for Neuralink did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.
The biographer said Musk had pointed to the need to combat competition from other brain-computer startups such as Synchron and Onward, which had already begun human trials.
"They are currently kicking our ass," Musk said after Synchron implanted its first device in a US patient in July 2022. (In December 2021, one of Synchron's patients in Australia was the first person to send a tweet using only his thoughts.)
Vance quoted the billionaire saying Neuralink needed to pick up its pace "like the world is coming to an end" to keep up with artificial intelligence and the possibility of an AI being that wouldn't be friendly to humans.
Yet while Musk's "maniacal sense of urgency" may work at Tesla or SpaceX — where he has initiated sprints and slept on the factory floor to meet deadlines — at least one Neuralink executive has taken a note of caution.
"We can't blow up the first three. That's not an option here," Shivon Zilis, Neuralink's director of special projects and the mother of two of Musk's children, told Vance in a reference to SpaceX's first three rockets, which exploded.
Vance wrote that Neuralink had done 155 implantation surgeries using the robot on a variety of animal test subjects, including pigs and monkeys. But, he said, in typical Musk fashion, the billionaire had continued to push for the robot to move faster, as well as for the surgery to be performed without human help.
A spokesperson for Neuralink did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.
The biographer said Musk had pointed to the need to combat competition from other brain-computer startups such as Synchron and Onward, which had already begun human trials.
"They are currently kicking our ass," Musk said after Synchron implanted its first device in a US patient in July 2022. (In December 2021, one of Synchron's patients in Australia was the first person to send a tweet using only his thoughts.)
Vance quoted the billionaire saying Neuralink needed to pick up its pace "like the world is coming to an end" to keep up with artificial intelligence and the possibility of an AI being that wouldn't be friendly to humans.
Yet while Musk's "maniacal sense of urgency" may work at Tesla or SpaceX — where he has initiated sprints and slept on the factory floor to meet deadlines — at least one Neuralink executive has taken a note of caution.
"We can't blow up the first three. That's not an option here," Shivon Zilis, Neuralink's director of special projects and the mother of two of Musk's children, told Vance in a reference to SpaceX's first three rockets, which exploded.
Elon Musk's plan to implant chips into people's brains shares amusing similarities to a 2015 British spy movie featuring an eccentric billionaire played by Samuel L. Jackson
Pete Syme
Wed, November 8, 2023
Neuralink's human trials have had thousands of applicants, per Bloomberg.
Elon Musk's brain chips have amusing similarities to the plot of 2015 movie "Kingsman: The Secret Service."
In it, Samuel L. Jackson plays an eccentric billionaire who tries to control the world using neural implants.
Thousands of people are clamoring to have an eccentric billionaire implant a microchip into their brain.
That's not just what's going in real life with Elon Musk's Neuralink, it's also the plot of the 2015 spy caper "Kingsman: The Secret Service," which shares a bunch of amusing similarities to Musk's real life plans.
Neuralink received approval for human trials in May. And according to a Bloomberg report from Musk biographer Ashlee Vance, thousands of people are lining up for the opportunity.
The process will involve the patient having "a chunk of their skull removed by a surgeon so a large robot can insert a series of electrodes and superthin wires into their brain," Vance wrote.
"Kingsman: The Secret Service," which stars Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, and Taron Egerton, features a similar neural implant as a key plot point.
In the movie — which parodies British spy films like the "James Bond" series — eccentric tech tycoon Richmond Valentine, played by Jackson, announces a plan to give everyone in the world SIM cards with free phone and internet access.
As the movie progresses, it transpires that Jackson's character can control the SIMs remotely, and wants to put into motion a Malthusian plan to cut the increasing global population by triggering a signal from the chips that makes their users kill each other.
It turns out that chips have been implanted into the brains of the global elite, from wealthy executives to the head of the secret service, with the elites signing up to Valentine's plan in exchange for protection from his deadly signal via the chips.
But the plan is scuppered as the secret agent Eggsy, played by Egerton — a member of the organization "Kingsman" — sneaks into Valentine's bunker, while another agent hacks into the implants and makes them explode, killing the elite.
The film, which grossed over $400 million worldwide, came out two years before Neuralink was founded — though it seems unlikely Musk took any inspiration from a mid-budget action movie for his plans.
And Musk won't look to ape Jackson's fictional Valentine by controlling people's minds with Neuralink's chips, because brain-computer interfaces don't actually allow that. Instead, the brain controls the computer, and its possible applications for those with diseases like ALS could be significant.
The two also differ in cutting the world's population. Musk is certainly not a believer in depopulation, and has frequently stated his belief that the planet needs more people on it, not less.
Neuralink is also evidently wary of any potential accidents.
Shivon Zilis, Neuralink's director of special projects and mother of twins with Musk, joked with Vance — referring to a number of failed rocket launches for SpaceX, another of Musk's companies: "We can't blow up the first three. That's not an option here."
Musk has long been jokingly compared to a supervillain
Internet users have long joked that Musk holds many similarities with science fiction and action movie villains, often comparing him to the likes of Hank Scorpio, a cartoonishly evil villain masquerading as a legitimate businessman in "The Simpsons."
In 2019, Musk even jokingly agreed that he was actually Scorpio in a tweet responding to discussions about a flamethrower he put into production via his business, The Boring Company.
Parallels between Musk and Jackson's Valentine have also been made frequently, with memes comparing the pair being shared sporadically online for several years.
Several Reddit threads over the years have made tongue-in-cheek comparisons between Musk and Jackson's character, sharing similarities between the pair.
Musk is even seemingly briefly mentioned in the movie, when Valentine speaks to someone called "E" on the phone to ask to borrow a satellite.
Neuralink Ready to Start Letting Robots Implant Chips into Human Brains
Noor Al-Sibai
Wed, November 8, 2023
Elon Musk's Neuralink brain-computer interface (BCI) company is apparently ready to begin its robot-assisted brain chip implantation — despite widespread attention on the gruesome fates that befell monkeys it experimented with early on.
As Bloomberg reports, the company hasn't announced exactly when it plans to do its first implantation feautiring its bespoke robot surgeon, but Musk is pushing for it to be as soon as possible.
One obstacle is because it still hasn't yet found its ideal volunteer, despite an apparent wellspring of interest stemming from its approval for human trials from the Food and Drug Administration in May and subsequent announcement in September that it was recruiting its very first human subjects.
Neuralink's prime candidate for its first implant would be someone under 40 who's paralyzed in all four of their limbs — and, of course, who is actually willing to have a chunk of their skull removed and replaced with the quarter-sized implant that will, the company hopes, be able to collect data from their brains.
As Musk biographer Ashlee Vance points out in that Bloomberg story, thousands of people have expressed interest in becoming the first person to get the Musk brain chip implanted in their heads.
On the opposite end of the hype spectrum, however, is the unsettling recent spate of reports about the company's experiments on rhesus macaques, many of which would become visibly distressed, attempt to hurt themselves, become severely ill, or straight up die after the implantation.
Vance insists that during his visits to Neuralink's Fremont, California facilities, conditions are far better than one might expect from the recent spate of grisly reports about the horrific fates that befell the rhesus macaque monkeys — and that moreover, the company has emphasized all those terrible stories were from public records requests gleaned from Neuralink's earliest experiments.
Per Vance's reporting, the monkeys at the Fremont facility — which he says are the same group he's seen over the past three years — are now in good health, with some having newer models implanted in their brains, a few being retired to sanctuaries, and just one having to be euthanized. Along with the computer games the monkeys play "when they feel like it" to assist in the mind-reading aspect of the experiments, the macaques also have large playpens full of toys and fake trees, the reporter explains, and they get to watch TV and listen to music, too.
While the portrait Vance paints is indeed pretty adorable — albeit admittedly surreal — it's impossible to ignore the reports about what happened to the other Neuralink monkeys.
As Wired reported last month, the brain of one female macaque literally ruptured after the chip was implanted. Instead of euthanizing her when they realized what was happening, the UC Davis scientists who were experimenting on the primate on behalf of Neuralink instead left her alive to see what happened. After she died, an autopsy revealed that the chip had leaked fluid into the monkey's brain that caused it to become so inflamed, it protruded from the back of her skull.
Neuralink claims, per Bloomberg, that this incident and all the others that have made for very unsettling reading in recent months were the result of human error rather than faults with the equipment itself.
Whether or not that's true, it's very hard to "square away," as Vance puts it, the idea that soon, Neuralink will be having robots place its implants into humans so soon after all those terrifying tales dropped.
But that may just be science in the age of Musk.
"We can’t blow up the first three," Shivon Zilis, Neuralink’s director of special projects and the mother of two of Musk's children, told Vance in a reference to SpaceX's exploded Starships attemps. "That’s not an option here."
More on Neuralink: Elon Musk Says Neuralink Tests Only on Terminally Ill Monkeys
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