By Rohini Kundu & Team ATH
Imagine being able to control a car or your mobile phone with just your mind. This is no longer a fantasy found in science fiction books.
Elon Musk’s Neuralink is currently developing a brain chip that will help paralyzed people control everything with their minds.
But is that all? Some people hail this technology as revolutionary, while others express their concerns.
Here, we explore all about this new technology and what it means for us and learn about the PRIME study and one can register in themselves and particpate by logging in here
What is the Neuralink brain chip, and how does it work?
Billionaire Elon Musk took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce that his company, Neuralink, has introduced its first brain chip on a human subject.
Neuralink’s brain chip is a technology that can be inserted into a person’s brain, where it can stimulate and record brain activity.
Apparently, this technology can transform the lives of paralyzed people and has several near-term medical applications. People who can qualify are who have quadriplegia (limited function in all 4 limbs) due to spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and are at least 1-year post-injury (without improvement) and are at least 22 years old and have a consistent and reliable caregiver.
If this technology works, then it will improve the quality of life for many people, especially those living with lifelong total paralysis. Currently, around 5.4 million people are living with paralysis in the US alone.
Neuralink is developing two pieces of equipment. One is a coin-sized chip that will be embedded into a person’s skull. Wires 20 times thinner than human hair fan out from the chip into the brain.
These wires contain electrodes that can monitor brain activity and transmit data to a connected computer. The second part of the equipment is a robot.
This robot, designed by the Woke Studios, will use a stiff needle to put the wires into the person’s brain, much like a sewing machine.
Ethical concerns around a brain-computer interface
Needless to say, this apparently path breaking technology has brought in serious ethical concerns. Firstly, if this technology works too well, we will probably lose control of the final frontier of our privacy: our brains.
Our brains are the seats of our intimate thoughts and personal identities. What is for us to control if we can’t even control our brains?
The possibility of militaries, governments, and extremist organizations misusing this technology is so profound that we might need to reform human rights laws before making this technology mainstream.
Some experts feel that a technology like this could lead to “brainjacking”, where a hacker might hack into the chip and change its signals, which might lead you to become more compliant, depressed, or angry.
Concerns about Neuralink’s extreme approach of implanting the chip into a person’s brain have been expressed. Neuralink isn’t the only company exploring the possibility of merging the human brain with a computer.
Other companies like Blackrock Neurotech, Synchron, and Paradromics are also working in this space.
For instance, Synchron’s brain-computer interface (BCI) uses a stent to introduce sensors in the brain.
The technology is similar to what doctors use to keep arteries open in cardiac patients. Synchron’s BCI introduces a stent in the brain that unfurls like a flower, and sensors on it pick up signals from neurons.
Such technology has already helped paralyzed people send texts using their thoughts.
However, Neuralink has decided to go through a more invasive procedure where a surgical robot will implant threads directly into the brain.
The company says it will help maximize the bandwidth and help their BCI do more than all the other ones already available.
However, if your main intention is to help paralyzed people, isn’t it counterintuitive to perform a procedure on them that damages brain tissues?
This has raised significant ethical concerns around Neuralink’s brain chip. Former Neuralink employees have spoken out against the alleged mistreatment of pigs and monkeys used in the experiment.
Reports have surfaced where it has been found that the company implanted the wrong-sized chip into the brains of 25 out of 60 pigs, which resulted in their deaths.
Another report suggested that monkeys died of internal bleeding after the company implanted their brain chip into their brains.
Despite such grave allegations leveled at Neuralink, the company still got clearance from the FDA to perform human trials.
