Neuralink states that it is authorized to test brain implants in humans

Neuralink, an Elon Musk company, announced on Twitter Thursday that it has received approval from US health authorities to test connected brain implants in humans.

“This is an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many more people,” the California-based company said on its Twitter account, adding that “hiring for clinical trials has not yet opened.”

Neuralink designs connected devices to be implanted in the brain to communicate with computers directly through thought.

They should be used first to help people who are paralyzed or who suffer from neurological diseases. The company then wants to make these implants safe and reliable enough to qualify as elective (comfortable) surgery. People can then pay a few thousand dollars to endow their brains with computer power.

For Elon Musk, these chips should allow humanity to achieve “coexistence with artificial intelligence,” as he put it as of 2020, delivered at the company’s annual conference.

“We are now confident that the Neuralink device is ready for humans, so the timeline is based on the FDA approval process,” he said at the end of November on Twitter, a month after he bought the social network.

He manages and/or owns other companies, including Tesla and SpaceX.

The billionaire is accustomed to risky predictions, especially regarding the autonomy of Tesla electric cars.

In July 2019, it was estimated that Neuralink could run its first tests on people in 2020.

So far, coin-sized prototypes have been implanted into the skulls of animals.

Thus, many monkeys are able to “play” video games or “write” words on the screen, simply by tracking the movement of the cursor on the screen with their eyes.

Other companies are working to control computers by thinking, such as Synchron, which announced in July 2022 that it had implanted the first brain-machine interface in the United States.