Brain chip company Neuralink gets approval for human trials

Among other people, Elon Musk launched the brain implant business Neuralink, which has tested implants in pigs and monkeys in the past. It now has authorization for human testing.

Neuralink, a company that develops brain-computer interfaces, declared on May 25 that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had given its approval for a human clinical investigation.

On Twitter, Neuralink declared, “We are excited to share that we have received the FDA’s approval to launch our first-in-human clinical study.” According to the tweet, the clearance “represents an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people”

The company also stated that the recruiting for the trial has not yet begun and that it has not yet provided any additional information regarding what the trial will entail.

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What is Neuralink?

With Elon Musk as the company’s CEO, it’s not a stretch to say that Neuralink’s goal seems like it might be taken directly out of the diaries of a mad genius. However, if you look past what at first glance appears to be a science fiction horror film, you can catch a peek of a very different future for humanity—one that possesses a new, sixth sense called Neuralink. Neuralink is a tool that will first be used to assist paraplegics with basic things like using an iPhone and clicking a mouse on a computer without making any bodily movements. To be clear, human trials were forbidden, until now. Elon Musk and his colleagues were optimistic that they will get underway by the end of 2020, but they base that prediction on the difficulty of obtaining FDA approval. According to Musk, Neuralink prototypes have so far been tested on rodents and possibly even monkeys.

Neuralink does require some components to be surgically implanted on the surface of the brain. However, since the 1970s, brain implants have been the subject of study and development, testing, and application. It’s only that until recently, brain implants weren’t viewed as improvements because our brains are still largely a mystery and we have only lately begun to unravel the genetic basis of our intelligence.

Humans turning into AI machine learning or Human life improvement?

Although this is cutting-edge technology, it appears horribly obtrusive to the untrained eye. Of course it is, too. But just as computers became more and more common, brain-machine interfaces will eventually offer more capabilities in a smaller package. The entire trepanning aspect will eventually vanish. As nanotechnology develops, neural nanorobots will be implanted in our brains to connect us to machines.

But what do we get from it?

Musk is open about the fact that Neuralink’s medicinal uses are a springboard for its commercial applications. Neuralink’s initial objective is to increase the level of freedom in daily life for persons who have paralysis. They’ll be able to write emails, explore the internet, and display creativity while operating their computers and mobile gadgets with their minds. Yet, Elon Musk is not saying what is the bigger picture behind this idea. Does he just want to be the first to link human brain with machines and see how it goes, is he letting Ginny out of the bottle like fathers of AI, not knowing what will happen or is there a deeper, more thought trough concept. Will humans become AI walking, talking and sensing information gatherers?

If we look at our fast, there is no company on our planet that does’t take profit as their first goal over anything else. So why would Neuralink be any different?

How many paralyzed people are out there who could afford such a technology?

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Playing God or unavoidable improvement

Neuralink chip in human brains could indeed bring human life improvement as claimed by the companies goals. Amputees will be able to operate prosthetic limbs with sensory input thanks to Neuralink. Paraplegics will be able to walk on their own two legs thanks to the technology when it is implanted at important motor neuron clusters. Deafness, blindness, addiction, and a variety of neurological illnesses are further treatment targets.

Neuralink, according to Musk, will eventually provide countless improvements, ranging from cognitive enhancement to mind-controlled virtual worlds. Users will theoretically be able to browse a Neuralink app store and select which apps to install.

And here is the possible danger of “playing God”, human brains can be improved but also tweaked with! If users can download any software they wish, who is to say that the same will not be done by order of Governments or any authority for that matter?

The generalization of human-machine communication will continue. We’ll call for autonomous vehicles and instruct our smart houses to turn on the heat.

After that, we’ll get rid of intermediary apps like Messenger and Zoom. Two Linked users will be connected by human-to-human communication, enabling the sharing of multisensory data from sight, hearing, taste, and touch. Even telepathy can’t begin to describe it. Then, things start to become quite bizarre. Could we use Neuralink to download entire textbooks, writing information directly to long-term memory? Were we able to download entire libraries, even the internet?

Surely downloading knowledge via click of a button and striving for God like capabilities is tempting, yet we will not be human any longer, would we?

Neuralink presents countless opportunities as well as countless worries!

What will it turn out to bring us as human species we shall see as the Genie is out of the bottle for good!