Engineers and scientists are developing an electronic brain implant inside a tall structure shaded by live oaks that will allow the mind to interface with a computer directly, enabling a person to type simply by thinking about it.
It is the stuff of science fiction, made popular by billionaire Elon Musk, but with a different goal in mind: giving those who are unable to speak or type back their voices. Investors have lined up to back Paradromics Inc. in the hopes that it will launch its product before Musk’s neighbouring Neuralink Corp., which is better funded.
With his comments about employing brain implants to help people stay up with developments in artificial intelligence, including the suggestion that he might receive one himself, Musk has brought the field to the public’s attention. Although Musk has advanced the reputation of rivals who are in some respects ahead of him by investing his exceptional resources and star power in Neuralink, legitimising them in the eyes of investors and hastening the race to link human brains with electronic devices.
According to an examination of financial reports, Paradromics and three other significant businesses have received more than $240 million since Musk started Neuralink in 2017. Additionally, other billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have joined the fray to support a competitor, Synchron Inc. In clinical trials, brain-computer implants have been utilised by at least 42 people worldwide, including a paralysed man who in 2016 gave Barack Obama a fist bump using a robotic hand.
Rodney Gorham, an Australian man in his 60s who has ALS, conducted a text-based interview with The Washington Post and typed his comments using a Synchron implant. He waited a minute before answering the question about his hopes. He wrote, “I will try to improve the system for others.”
Companies will need to convince the Food and Drug Administration that their technology is secure enough to be implanted in individuals in order to commercially commercialise such a device. They must also deal with serious ethical and security issues brought up by a technology that could one day give healthy individuals who get implants a cognitive advantage.
Rodney Gorham, an Australian man in his 60s who has ALS, conducted a text-based interview with The Washington Post and typed his comments using a Synchron implant. He waited a minute before answering the question about his hopes. He wrote, “I will try to improve the system for others.”
Companies will need to convince the Food and Drug Administration that their technology is secure enough to be implanted in individuals in order to commercially commercialise such a device. They must also deal with serious ethical and security issues brought up by a technology that could one day give healthy individuals who get implants a cognitive advantage.
Though others claim it has a double-edge, almost all executives and investors in this area of neurotechnology acknowledge Musk’s influence.
The CEO of Blackrock Neurotech, Marcus Gerhardt, attributes Elon Musk with “the rising tide that kick-started broader interest” among investors and consumers. In spite of this, he expresses concern that Neuralink “may try things that the FDA may not approve of” and that “if anyone behaves in an irresponsible manner, it can put the field back decades.”
Neuralink’s main rival, Paradromics CEO Matt Angle, claimed that all of his rivals “have responsible people” who “want to make sure the devices are safe.”
Neuralink’s application to perform human trials was turned down by the FDA last year, according to information released on Thursday by unnamed sources. In November, Musk stated that the business had completed the majority of its FDA paperwork and anticipated starting human trials within six months.
Requests for interviews with Musk and Neuralink were not fulfilled. A reporter was ordered to leave the Neuralink campus in Austin after approaching.
Competitors of Neuralink emphasise that they are committed to assisting those who have lost body control due to paralysis. According to a January study by Stanford researchers that hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed, their prowess is getting more and more amazing, from that presidential fist bump to translating a woman with ALS’s jumbled vocalisations to text at 62 words per minute.
A stadium in the brain
Over the past century, scientists have studied the electrical activity of the brain, but the modern era of linking brain activity to computers intensified in the early 2000s with the help of a pioneering business named Cyberkinetics, which eventually ran out of money. The industry is now divided into businesses that use internal implants and externally worn gadgets to read brain activity.
People who work in the field of brain-computer interface technologies frequently use the example of a sporting event. It sounds like the stadium crowd cheering from outside for devices that fit on top of the head. For those that enter the brain, it’s similar to inserting microphones into the stands and listening in on specific people’s discussions.
In an effort to capture brain activity from as many of these figurative microphones as possible and send it to a computer as quickly as possible, several implant-designing businesses want to record from as many of them as they can. Others claim it is possible to get a respectable signal without puncturing the brain and to do it with less risk.
