Might make your desk job a bit easier (Picture: Reuters)
Elon Musk has claimed the first human patient implanted with his wireless Neuralink brain chip can move a computer cursor ‘just by thinking’.
‘Progress is good, and the patient seems to have made a full recovery, with neural effects that we are aware of,’ Musk said in a Spaces event X.
‘Patient is able to move a mouse around the screen by just thinking.’
Musk said Neuralink, a company working to develop a brain-nervous system interface that can be poked into human brains, is now trying to get as many mouse button clicks as possible from the patient.
Neuralink wedged its first product, called Telepathy, in a person last month.
Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, said Telepathy’s initial users will be those with paralysis.
This video grab made from the online Neuralink livestream shows the Neuralink disk implant held by Elon Musk (Picture: AFP)
The dream, Musk says, is to help make phone and computer control possible outside of a lab setting. (Similar earlier tests have involved people being connected to a computer with a cord.)
It’s hoped users will be able to control electronic devices ‘just by thinking’.
The company does not have approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to sell the device but was given the green light for human trials after agency officials evaluated its safety risks.
In 2022, animal rights groups alleged Neuralink ‘mutilated monkey brains’, while the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine non-profit accused it of conducting ‘invasive and deadly’ experiments on primates.
Volunteers for the first human clinical trials are ‘open’, Neuralink says, for people with limited or no use of both hands due to a cervical spine injury or a neurological disorder that affects nerve cells called neurological disorder that affects nerve cells
‘This study involves placing a small, cosmetically invisible implant in a part of the brain that plans movements,’ Neuralink’s website reads.
Neuralink has, however, been hit with criticism for alleged animal mistreatment during earlier trials (Picture: Angga Budhiyanto/ZUMA Press Wire)
‘The device is designed to interpret a person’s neural activity, so they can operate a computer or smartphone by simply intending to move – no wires or physical movement are required.’
Subjects in the company’s PRIME study - short for Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface – have a coin-sized chip surgically inserted by a robot in a part of the brain that controls movement intention.
The tiny computer, called N1, ‘decodes’ a patient’s brain activity. Overtime, the software associates particular neurons firing off with the person imagining themselves doing the task – it then makes this a reality for them.
Experts say that the technology is still rather far off and won’t be on the market for a good few years. Long-term studies are needed to ensure the devices are not only safe but ethical too.
Musk has not provided further comment on the news since, but shared a meme about ‘extra slutty olive oil’.
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