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Not satisfied connecting toasters and toothbrushes to the internet, humanity is now looking to wire and digitize the next biological frontier: brains.
Elon’s latest presser
Considering it’s an Elon Musk joint, Neuralink has stayed surprisingly hush-hush since its 2017 founding. But it broke the silence Tuesday to share updates on its brain-computer interface (BCI), a device that could eventually connect brains to the internet.
- What it is (for now): A computer chip that wirelessly communicates with ultrafine, flexible electrodes that are inserted into the brain to monitor and decode neuron activity.
- How it gets there: This might sting...surgeons drill holes into the skull, and a custom-made “sewing machine-like” robot implants the device.
- Where it’s been: Neuralink researchers tested the BCI with 19 rats, but Musk gave the game away and revealed they’d also tested it on a monkey.
After an 87% success rate on the rodents, Neuralink wants to begin testing its device on human volunteers—most likely, people with quadriplegia—as soon as Q2 2020. It will require FDA approval.
The competition
Started by Columbia neuroscience PhDs, CTRL-labs is developing neural interface tech. Its selling point? A noninvasive, wearable armband that doesn't need to be drilled into your brain.
The “arm is the pipe of information from the brain to the world,” CTRL-labs Director of R&D Adam Berenzweig told me. CTRL-lab’s hardware taps into that pipe and uses machine learning software to decode the “brain’s 1s and 0s.” The next step: Translating these signals into outputs for virtual and augmented reality, gaming, robotics, clinical settings, and industrial design.
Zoom out
Brain-computer and neural interfaces sound like sci-fi, but with testing underway and $225 million in combined funding, Neuralink and CTRL-labs don’t think the tech is a pipe dream.
- In the near-future, Neuralink’s BCI could be for the mind what robotic prosthetic limbs or exoskeleton suits are for the body...and open up opportunities for people with disabilities to move, hear, speak, and see.
- And CTRL-labs? If it can miniaturize its prototype and create a popular mass market product, Berenzweig thinks the technology could be the next smartphone screen, redefining how we interact with machines and the digital world.