Neuralink

Neuralink Corp. is an American neurotechnology company that is developing implantable brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), based in Fremont, California as of 2022. Founded by Elon Musk and a team of seven scientists and engineers, Neuralink was launched in 2016 and was first publicly reported in March 2017. Since its founding, the company has hired several high-profile neuroscientists from various universities. By July 2019, it had received $158 million in funding (of which$100 million was from Musk) and was employing a staff of 90 employees. At that time, Neuralink announced that it was working on a "sewing machine-like" device capable of implanting very thin (4 to 6 μm in width) threads into the brain, and demonstrated a system that read information from a lab rat via 1,500 electrodes. They had anticipated starting experiments with humans in 2020, but have since moved that projection to 2023. As of May 2023, they have been approved for human trials in the United States. Neuralink was founded in 2016 by Elon Musk and a founding team of seven scientists and engineers. The group of initial hires consisted of experts in areas such as neuroscience, biochemistry and robotics. The trademark "Neuralink" was purchased from its previous owners in January 2017. In April 2017, Neuralink announced that it was aiming to make devices to treat serious brain diseases in the short-term, with the eventual goal of human enhancement, sometimes called transhumanism. Musk had said his interest in the idea partly stemmed from the science fiction concept of "neural lace" in the fictional universe in The Culture, a series of 10 novels by Iain M. Banks. Musk defined the neural lace as a "digital layer above the cortex" that would not necessarily imply extensive surgical insertion but ideally an implant through a vein or artery. He said the long-term goal is to achieve "symbiosis with artificial intelligence", which he perceives as an existential threat to humanity if it goes unchecked.