Neuralink has implanted a device in a patient's brain, says Elon Musk
Neuralink, a company working to develop computer interfaces that can be implanted in human brains, placed its first device in a patient on Sunday, founder Elon Musk said.
Mr Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said on Monday that the company's first product was called Telepathy and would allow a human to control a phone or computer “just by thinking”.
“Initial users will be those who have lost use of their limbs,” Musk said wrote in a series of posts on X, his social media platform. “Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer.”
Mr Musk and Neuralink provided no further details about who received the implant and whether it worked. Mr Musk did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
In November 2022, Mr Musk predicted that the company would begin human testing within six months. At the time, Neuralink demonstrated a product in a video that reportedly showed two monkeys moving computer cursors with their brains, a feat that had already been shown to be possible in humans more than 15 years earlier.
Although Musk is often optimistic about the predictions for his companies, some of which have yet to come true, Neuralink was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration last May to begin human trials.
The company's website currently states that the “initial clinical trial is open for recruitment” for people with limited or no use of both hands due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurological condition that affects nerve cells.
“This study involves placing a small, cosmetically invisible implant in a part of the brain that plans movements,” says Neuralink website is reading. “The device is designed to interpret a person's neural activity so that he or she can control a computer or smartphone simply by willing to move – no wires or physical movements are required.”
During the Neuralink presentation in late 2022, Mr Musk said the company's devices would eventually allow blind people to see or give “full body functionality” to someone with a severed spinal cord. His claims at the time aroused skepticism among experts who argued that science still had so far to progress.