Elon Musk willing to implant Neuralink in his children

As Elon Musk’s neurotechnology company prepares for human trials to start, the billionaire said he has no problem implanting a Neuralink chip in his children.

Neuralink advancements

During an event last week, at the company headquarters in California, Musk said Neuralink is working on two additional projects to target implants for other body parts.

While the Neuralink brain chip is a brain-computer interface meant to treat brain injuries, the company is also working on an implant for the spinal cord to treat paralysis.

WATCH: Musk’s confidence in Neuralink implants

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Musk said he is so confident in the chip’s abilities, he would be comfortable getting an implant himself or getting it implanted in one of his children.

According to Musk, Neuralink submitted “most of [the] paperwork to the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration)”, and he’s expecting human trials to start within six months.

“We’ve been working hard to be ready for our first human (implant), and obviously we want to be extremely careful and certain that it will work well before putting a device in a human,” Musk added.

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Other Neuralink projects

An ocular implant is also in the works, which would potentially improve or restore human vision.

During an earlier presentation, Musk said the Neuralink chip “would initially enable someone who has almost no ability to operate their muscles… to operate their phone faster than someone who has working hands”.

Musk said the Neuralilnk team was “confident that it is possible to restore full body functionality to someone who has a severed spinal cord”.

Musk said he is confident Neuralink – an implantable brain-computer interface which was tested on a chimpanzee back in 2021 – “is ready for humans”.

Real-world uses

While it’s fun to see a monkey playing computer games with its mind, the real-world applications of Neuralink’s scientific breakthroughs may stretch much further.

According to Musk, the goal is to assist someone living with paralysis:

“First @Neuralink product will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs.”

He adds that later versions of the device will “be able to shunt signals from Neuralinks in the brain to Neuralinks in body motor/sensory neuron clusters, thus enabling, for example, paraplegics to walk again”.

“Our goal is to enable a person with paralysis to use a computer or phone with their brain activity alone. Because they wouldn’t be able to move a joystick, they would calibrate the decoder by imagining hand movements to targets.”

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