Elon Musk is a man with many irons in the fire, and one of them is a project called Neuralink – which, in short, is connecting technology to the human brain, in a relatively literal sense. Now we’ll finally get a real demo of the solution, reports Engadget.
In a Twitter post Musk announces that a “show and tell” event on Neuralink will take place the same day as Halloween, October 31. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t share exactly what he plans to show, so it remains to be seen what’s next.
Picks up brain signals
The Neuralink project has often found itself somewhat in the background of Musk’s many other projects, for example Starlink, but the project has been buzzing since its inception.
In short, Neuralink aims to improve the human brain using a high-tech method where the technology is physically integrated into the human brain. As you know, brain implants already exist, but Neuralink will take the technology much further.
It’s about operating on many tiny wires in the brain in a way that has to be both very careful and very precise.
These wires are meant to capture the electric fields generated when the brain cell “triggers” electrical signals. These signals are sent by stimulation of so-called dendrites – the part of the brain cell that receives incoming signals from other cells via synapses.
By capturing these fields, the tiny wires, which act as electrodes, should be able to register the information represented in the brain cell. These electrodes are capable of both reading and “writing”. That is, they not only record information, but can also restore signals elsewhere in the brain.
Musk unhappy with lack of progress
The idea is that it could have many important applications in medicine, such as repairing paralysis or curing brain diseases like Alzheimer’s, which the technology is originally intended to be used for.
Musk has previously said the longer-term goal is to achieve some kind of “symbiosis” with artificial intelligence – which he believes is necessary lest artificial intelligence “catch up” with humans. The entrepreneur is known for his skepticism towards artificial intelligence.
Neuralink has demonstrated the technology in the past, in the form of a monkey that allegedly played the computer game Pong using the Neuralink solution.
However, some have expressed skepticism of the concept, and the company has had a few setbacks as well. One of the company’s co-founders left Skuta last yearand that Business Intern reported recently, Musk is said to be frustrated with the lack of progress. According to the website, Musk went so far as to contact a rival company called Synchron about a possible deal.
Synchron should have already been testing the technology with humans, something Neuralink hasn’t been able to do yet, despite it having been planned for some time.
