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In a live-streamed update on the tech company this week, Elon Musk revealed that Neuralink, of which he is CEO, plans to perform the second human implant trial sometime within “the next week or so.”
The surgery was originally meant to take place in June but the intended trial participant experienced some health problems which delayed the procedure.
The update, which consisted of Musk and other Neuralink executives live streaming on X, also mentioned Neuralink’s current sole human participant. Although the implant in Noland Arbaugh suffered a hardware failure when several small wires retracted, causing a reduced capacity of the device, it has been described by the company as “more or less very stable.”
Arland gave a rave review about the implant and described it as like having “an aim-bot” for gaming in his head.
Improved version of @Neuralink update
pic.twitter.com/zk3cdbMtEC— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2024
Making improvements to mitigate the risk of failure
Executive Dongjin ‘DJ’ Seo said during the live stream that “once you do the brain surgery it takes some time for the tissues to come in and anchor the threads in place, and once that happens, everything has been stable.”
After the detachment, Arbaugh saw some reduction in capacity through the device. However, Neuralink was able to make some software adjustments to increase its functionality, modifying the algorithm used by the device and restoring the lost capacity.
The team discussed new mitigation measures they will take to reduce the risk of this thread retraction occurring in future trials. “In upcoming implants, our plan is to sculpt the surface of the skull very intentionally to minimize the gap under the implant … that will put it closer to the brain and eliminate some of the tension on the threads,” said Neuralink’s head of neurosurgery, Matthew MacDougall.
Though there has only been one participant in the trial so far, with another planned soon, Musk stated during the Neuralink update that he hopes to see numbers in the high single digits by the end of the year.
After the live-streamed update, Musk went on to make some more outlandish claims in posts on X. He said during the update that the device would enable “people who have lost limbs will be able to move their new prosthetic limbs faster than they could have ever been able to before they lost the limb,” later adding in a post “I think cybernetic superpowers are likely in the future”.
He also stated that paralysis is a “tough problem, but ultimately solvable,” and that controlling epilepsy is “one of the future applications” of Neuralink. It is unclear at present what, if any, research has been done into these applications of the device.
