Elon Musk Wants to Read Your Brain
The tech entrepreneur’s startup Neuralink wants to implant a brain-computer interface in people as soon as next year
Elon Musk says he wants to merge your brain with a computer. But by his own admission, the idea of allowing people to control their smartphone or connect directly to the internet with their thoughts is many years away. “It will take a long time,” Musk said at an event for his brain-computer interface startup Neuralink Tuesday night in San Francisco.
Nonetheless, Musk claimed that Neuralink could be ready to test its technology in human beings who are paralyzed as early as next year. In a much-hyped presentation that was half neuroscience conference, half Silicon Valley spectacle, the San Francisco-based company, which Musk has invested $100 million in, revealed that it has developed tiny, thread-like implants far thinner than a human hair that are capable of recording neuron activity.
A brain-computer interface is meant to provide a direct pathway of communication between the brain and an external device. These interfaces use electrodes to “read” brain signals, plus a computer that translates these signals into commands, which carry out a desired action on a computer program or device.
