Elon Musk on Tuesday announced in a livestream that his neurotechnology startup, Neuralink, hoped to begin implanting devices into human brains as early as next year.
Musk has invested $100 million into the secretive company since its founding in 2016, according to The New York Times, and he says he hopes it will achieve “symbiosis with artificial intelligence.”
Musk said the Neuralink system would allow for a tiny chip, known as a brain-machine interface, to be implanted into the minds of willing subjects.
The chip would be designed to stimulate the brain’s neurons using tiny flexible threads of electrodes that would be inserted into the brain in a procedure Musk said would be as safe and painless as LASIK eye surgery.