Tag: Neuralink

Impact Lab > Neuralink
Brain, brain hacking, brain-computer interfaces, Breakthrough Thinking

Neuralink Goes Global: Elon Musk’s Brain Chip Heads to the UK for High-Stakes Human Trials

The future just got a UK passport.

In a bold expansion beyond U.S. borders, Neuralink—the brain-computer interface (BCI) startup founded by Elon Musk—has launched its first European clinical trial. The UK has become ground zero for testing the next phase of mind-controlled technology, as seven British patients with severe paralysis prepare to have a coin-sized chip implanted directly into their brains.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t a sci-fi plot. It’s happening now.

Working alongside the University College London Hospitals and Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals, Neuralink is testing whether its N1 chip can allow paralyzed individuals to control digital devices with nothing but thought. Type an email? Open an app? Play a game? All without lifting a finger. For the right patient, this could be a leap from locked-in to logged-on.

Continue reading… “Neuralink Goes Global: Elon Musk’s Brain Chip Heads to the UK for High-Stakes Human Trials”
Biotech, brain hacking, brain-computer interfaces, Elon Musk, Science & Technology News

Elon Musk is one step closer to connecting a computer to your brain

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Neuralink has demonstrated a prototype of its brain-machine interface that currently works in pigs.

At a Friday event, Elon Musk revealed more details about his mysterious neuroscience company Neuralink and its plans to connect computers to human brains. While the development of this futuristic-sounding tech is still in its early stages, the presentation was expected to demonstrate the second version of a small, robotic device that inserts tiny electrode threads through the skull and into the brain. Musk said ahead of the event he would “show neurons firing in real-time. The matrix in the matrix.”

And he did just that. At the event, Musk showed off several pigs that had prototypes of the neural links implanted in their head, and machinery that was tracking those pigs’ brain activity in real time. The billionaire also announced the Food and Drug Administration had awarded the company a breakthrough device authorization, which can help expedite research on a medical device.

Like building underground car tunnels and sending private rockets to Mars, this Musk-backed endeavor is incredibly ambitious, but Neuralink builds on years of research into brain-machine interfaces. A brain-machine interface is technology that allows for a device, like a computer, to interact and communicate with a brain. Neuralink, in particular, aims to build an incredibly powerful brain-machine interface, a device with the power to handle lots of data, that can be inserted in a relatively simple surgery. Its short-term goal is to build a device that can help people with specific health conditions.

Continue reading… “Elon Musk is one step closer to connecting a computer to your brain”

AI, brain-computer interfaces, Elon Musk, Futurist, Machine Learning, Science & Technology News

Elon Musk claims AI will overtake humans in ‘less than five years’

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Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence are already capable of passing some Turing tests. ( AFP via Getty Images )

Existential threat posed by artificial intelligence is much closer than previously predicted, billionaire warns.

Elon Musk has warned that humans risk being overtaken by artificial intelligence within the next five years.

The prediction marks a significant revision of previous estimations of the so-called technological singularity, when machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence and accelerates at an incomprehensible rate.

Noted futurist Ray Kurzweil previously pegged this superintelligence tipping point at around 2045, citing exponential advances in technologies like robotics, computers and AI.

Continue reading… “Elon Musk claims AI will overtake humans in ‘less than five years’”

brain hacking, brain-computer interfaces, Elon Musk, Science & Technology News

Elon Musk claims his Neuralink chip will allow you to stream music directly to your brain

Brain-computer interface could also give people ‘enhanced abilities’

Elon Musk‘s mysterious Neuralink startup is working on a brain-computer interface that will allow wearers to stream music directly to their brain, the technology entrepreneur has claimed.

Mr Musk, who also heads SpaceX and Tesla, is set to reveal new information about the mysterious startup next month but has been slowly releasing details over Twitter in recent days.

Responding to computer scientist Austin Howard, Mr Musk confirmed that Neuralink’s technology would allow people to “listen to music directly from our chips.”

Continue reading… “Elon Musk claims his Neuralink chip will allow you to stream music directly to your brain”

brain hacking, facebook, privacy, Science & Technology News

Facebook is funding brain experiments to create a device that reads your mind

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Big tech firms are trying to read people’s thoughts, and no one’s ready for the consequences.

In 2017, Facebook announced that it wanted to create a headband that would let people type at a speed of 100 words per minute, just by thinking.

Now, a little over two years later, the social-media giant is revealing that it has been financing extensive university research on human volunteers.

Today, some of that research was described in a scientific paper from the University of California, San Francisco, where researchers have been developing “speech decoders” able to determine what people are trying to say by analyzing their brain signals.

Continue reading… “Facebook is funding brain experiments to create a device that reads your mind”

Biotech, brain-computer interfaces, Elon Musk, Science & Technology News

Elon Musk unveils Neuralink’s plans for brain-reading ‘threads’ and a robot to insert them

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Not for humans yet

The proposed future technology Neuralink intends to make, a module that sits outside the head and wirelessly receives information from threads embedded in the brain. Photo: Neuralink

Elon Musk’s Neuralink, the secretive company developing brain-machine interfaces, showed off some of the technology it has been developing to the public for the first time. The goal is to eventually begin implanting devices in paralyzed humans, allowing them to control phones or computers.

The first big advance is flexible “threads,” which are less likely to damage the brain than the materials currently used in brain-machine interfaces. These threads also create the possibility of transferring a higher volume of data, according to a white paper credited to “Elon Musk & Neuralink.” The abstract notes that the system could include “as many as 3,072 electrodes per array distributed across 96 threads.”

Continue reading… “Elon Musk unveils Neuralink’s plans for brain-reading ‘threads’ and a robot to insert them”

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