Musk says that Neuralink implants are near prepared for human testing

Image of a hand holding a small metal disk.

Enlarge / Elon Musk exhibits the most recent model of his firm’s implants. (credit score: Neuralink)

On Friday, Elon Musk gave an replace on what’s in all probability his third-most outstanding firm: Neuralink. Neuralink had been fairly low profile (particularly compared to Tesla and SpaceX) previous to this time final 12 months, which is when Musk first went into element concerning the firm’s objectives and progress. And the objectives have been hanging: a mass-market mind implant that might be put in by a robotic through same-day surgical procedure.

With this 12 months’s replace, little has modified concerning the total plan, however loads of little particulars have been tweaked within the intervening 12 months. And progress has been made, in that Musk launched his viewers to a bunch of pigs who have been already carrying what he steered was model 0.9 of his implants, with human testing set to comply with shortly.

Designs on the mind

One of many massive variations between this 12 months and final is the general design of the implant and its supporting {hardware}. The unique purpose had been to maintain the surgical procedure easy partly by minimizing the dimensions of the outlet that wanted to be made within the cranium. This meant a small-diameter implant that would not essentially be positioned close to the neurons it interacted with and would require a connection to separate {hardware} positioned behind the ear. All of this added to the extent of complication and would essentially require operating some wires throughout the floor of the mind.

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