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Just when you thought the year 2020 couldn’t be any stranger, billionaire Elon Musk has unveiled a group of mind-reading brain-implanted pigs.
During an event Friday afternoon at Neuralink’s headquarters in Fremont, California, Musk found himself hanging out with a Yucatan pig. Several of them had previously undergone a surgical procedure in which a robot inserted the latest version of the Neuralink computer implant into their brains. As a result, the brain activity of these enhanced pigs could be transmitted wirelessly to a nearby computer, allowing event spectators to watch the animals’ neurons fire as veterinarians stroke their muzzles.
Musk spoke enthusiastically at the event about the potential for technology to address brain injuries and other disorders. “Neurons are like wiring, and you need something electronic to solve an electronic problem,” he said.
During the presentation, Musk revealed new data points around his expectations for the technology and Neuralink as a company. First, he expects the implant procedure to start out quite expensive but to drop to “a few thousand dollars” over time. Once it can adapt to humans, it hopes they can update their devices as new models with more features appear. “You wouldn’t want version one of a phone and 10 years later everyone has version three or four,” he said. “It will be important to remove the device and update it over time.”
As for Neuralink himself, Musk expects the company to go from its current 100 employees to about 10,000. It’s that kind of ambition, coupled with theoretical future skills like putting music directly into a person’s mind, that could transform Neuralink from an expensive research project into a consumer electronics company, and one day justify the $ 158 million worth of it. capital invested so far, most of it from Musk.
For the four-year-old startup, this demo was meant to show that Neuralink’s brain-machine interface technology is progressing to a day when it could be safely deployed in humans, possibly helping people with a wide variety of conditions. debilitating while opening the door to a host of wild sci-fi settings. The event naturally turned into a free discussion of where this kind of research could go. Some Neuralink employees joined Musk on stage and spoke about his desire to get rid of pain, give people a super vision, and explore the nature of consciousness. “I believe that in the future you will be able to save and reproduce memories,” Musk said at the event.
But he acknowledged the inherent strangeness of such scenarios: “Obviously this is starting to sound like a Black Mirror episode,” he said. “Obviously, they are pretty good at predicting.”
The first major reveal of Neuralink’s plans and technology came in July 2019 during a similar event in San Francisco. At the time, Musk showed the first versions of the Neuralink implants and revealed that the company had already been conducting tests in mice and primates in which it could record and analyze the animals’ neural activity through tiny electrodes placed in their brains. This work was similar to what academic researchers and a small number of companies have been doing for decades. The goal of many of those projects is to use brain implants for miraculous feats such as restoring vision for the blind, helping people who have been paralyzed or have had a stroke communicate and heal mental health disorders. And in fact, people all over the world have received implants that help with these very things.
The main argument of Musk and other Neuralink employees is that the existing technology is too dangerous, cumbersome and limited for widespread use. Today’s most powerful implants require people to go through risky surgeries, and patients can often only experience the benefits of the technology while under the supervision of doctors and specialists. Beyond that, the lifespan of an implant can be short as the brain sees the device as an intruder, forming scar tissue around it that disrupts electrical signals. Neuralink, then, has tried to create a type of implant closer to a consumer electronics device, something that is much smaller and cheaper than existing products, has less impact on brain tissue and can process much more brain data.
For the past few months, Neuralink has been implanting pigs with a device that is 22.5 millimeters wide and 8 millimeters thick. The hardware has a computing chip on top with 64 tiny wires, or cables, hanging from it with sensors at the ends. During the procedure, the animals are taken to an operating room at the Fremont facility and anesthetized before a surgeon performs a craniotomy.
Once part of the skull has been removed, a robot begins to place the strings in specific parts of the brain so that the sensors are close to the neurons and can read clear signals of brain activity. This part of the sewing procedure takes approximately 30 minutes as the robot uses computer vision software, high-end cameras, and other technology to target the threads with exact precision. “Elon is unhappy with the length of the entire procedure,” Max Hodak, president of Neuralink, said in an interview.
In my encounter with a lovely sow named Gertrude, it was very difficult to see any evidence of the implant or the surgery. The animal’s wound had fully healed and it was hopping around a makeshift metal pen in Neuralink’s office, as were some of the other pigs that didn’t have implants. But, as I fed Gertrude a carrot and rubbed her snout, a huge computer screen behind her lit up with activity, displaying her firing neurons and responding to my touch. Then Gertrude farted, which I took as approval of our interaction.
But the controversial nature of animal testing and the celebrity of its founder have made Neuralink a magnet for criticism from animal rights activists. The company said that test subjects are cared for by animal husbandry experts and that it is limiting testing in primates.
In an attempt to prove the safety of its technology, Neuralink removed the implants from some animals and found that they return to their normal lives with no apparent ill effects, the company said. In some cases, Neuralink has managed to place two implants in a single animal, obtaining signals from both hemispheres of the brain at the same time. The company has also managed to not only read brain activity, but also send signals to the electrodes and stimulate the brain. All of this research has been conducted on Neuralink’s 50,000-square-foot campus, which includes facilities for robot assembly, chip and wire manufacturing, and animal husbandry.
At one point, Neuralink intended to use an implant and another device placed behind the ear to handle things like wireless communication. Now, however, you have bundled everything into one small device. “It’s simpler this way,” Hodak said. The implant’s battery lasts for approximately 24 hours, at which point it can be recharged wirelessly like a smartphone. Over time, Neuralink hopes to reduce the size of the device and, at the same time, improve its computing power.
Musk had previously said that Neuralink would like to conduct human trials starting this year. This, of course, would require regulatory approvals and assurances that the technology is secure. “The ambition of human trials this year is something we would love to do,” said Hodak. “Obviously it is something that cannot be rushed, and we can do it when we are ready. While we can’t sell this to you yet, it’s starting to feel more like a product, more concrete. Now we have a Fitbit for the brain. “
Hodak denied claims in a recent article in the health publication Stat News in which former Neuralink employees said the company could go to Russia or China, where regulators may be more lenient, for its human trials. “Not once have we discussed going to Russia or China,” Hodak said. The US Food and Drug Administration has granted Neuralink “breakthrough device status,” which means the agency will respond more quickly to company submissions than it would have previously, but does not constitute an approval for human testing. “We work hand in hand with the FDA,” Hodak said.
Musk has tried to emphasize the health benefits of this type of brain-machine interface technology. People with debilitating illnesses would be the most likely candidates to risk trying a brain implant first, as they could receive dramatic benefits. Someone who had a stroke and lost the ability to speak, for example, might just think what they want to say, and their words could be said aloud by a computer or written on a screen.
Of course, Musk also sees more futuristic applications for these implants, such as the ability to create a high-bandwidth link between humans and machines. To Matrix, you might be able to instantly download a language or learn martial arts, Musk suggested. The ultimate goal, at least for Musk, would be to help humans keep up with artificial intelligence. Musk captured this sentiment by describing Neuralink’s mission statement earlier this year: “If you can’t beat them, join them.”
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