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Neuralink has implanted a chip in its first human brain. But it\u2019s pushing a needlessly risky approach, former employees say.<\/p>\n
Of all Elon Musk\u2019s exploits \u2014 the Tesla cars, the SpaceX rockets, the Twitter takeover, the plans to colonize Mars \u2014 his secretive brain chip company Neuralink may be the most dangerous.<\/p>\n
What is Neuralink for? In the short term, it\u2019s for helping people with paralysis. But that\u2019s not the whole answer. <\/p>\n
Launched in 2016, the company revealed in 2019 that it had created flexible \u201cthreads\u201d that can be implanted into a brain<\/a>, along with a sewing-machine-like robot to do the implanting. The idea is that these threads will read signals from a paralyzed patient\u2019s brain and transmit that data to an iPhone or computer, enabling the patient to control it with just their thoughts \u2014 no need to tap or type or swipe.<\/p>\n In 2023, the company announced it had won FDA approval to run its first clinical trial in humans<\/a>. It began recruiting<\/a> paralyzed volunteers to study whether the implant enables them to control external devices. <\/p>\n Now, Musk says<\/a> Neuralink has implanted a device in its first human subject in the trial. He hyped the device, dubbed Telepathy, writing on his social platform X<\/a>, \u201cImagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer. That is the goal.\u201d<\/p>\n If the technology works in humans, it could improve quality of life for millions of people. Approximately 5.4 million people<\/a> are living with paralysis in the US alone.<\/p>\n But helping paralyzed people is not Musk\u2019s end goal. That\u2019s just a step on the way to achieving a much wilder long-term ambition.<\/p>\n That ambition, in Musk\u2019s own words<\/a>, is \u201cto achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence.\u201d His goal is to develop a technology that helps humans \u201cmerg[e] with AI\u201d so that we won\u2019t be \u201cleft behind\u201d as AI becomes more sophisticated.<\/p>\n This fantastical vision is not the sort of thing for which the FDA greenlights human trials. But work on helping people with paralysis? That can get a warmer reception. And so it has.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s important to understand that this technology comes with staggering risks. Former Neuralink employees as well as experts in the field have alleged that the company pushed for an unnecessarily invasive, potentially dangerous approach to the implants that can damage the brain (and apparently has done so in animal test subjects<\/a>) to advance Musk\u2019s goal of merging with AI. <\/p>\n Neuralink did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n There are also ethical risks for society at large that go beyond just Neuralink. A number of companies are developing tech that plugs into human brains, which can decode what\u2019s going on in our minds<\/a> and has the potential to erode mental privacy and supercharge authoritarian surveillance. We have to prepare ourselves for what\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n Neuralink is a response to one big fear: that AI will take over the world.<\/p>\n This is a fear that\u2019s increasingly widespread among AI leaders, who worry that we may create machines that are smarter than humans and that have the ability to deceive us and ultimately seize control from us<\/a>.<\/p>\n In March 2023, many of them, including Musk, signed an open letter<\/a> calling for a six-month pause on developing AI systems more powerful than OpenAI\u2019s GPT-4. The letter<\/a> warned that \u201cAI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity\u201d and went on to ask: \u201cShould<\/em> we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should<\/em> we risk loss of control of our civilization?\u201d<\/p>\n Although Musk is not alone in warning about \u201ccivilizational risk\u201d<\/a> posed by AI systems, where he differs from others is in his plan for warding off the risk. The plan is basically: If you can\u2019t beat \u2019em, join \u2019em.<\/p>\n Musk foresees a world where AI systems that can communicate information at a trillion bits per second will look down their metaphorical noses at humans, who can only communicate at 39 bits per second<\/a>. To the AI systems, we\u2019d seem useless. Unless, perhaps, we became just like them.<\/p>\n A big part of that, in Musk\u2019s view, is being able to think and communicate at the speed of AI. \u201cIt\u2019s mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output,\u201d he said<\/a> in 2017. \u201cSome high bandwidth interface to the brain will be something that helps achieve a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence and maybe solves the control problem and the usefulness problem.\u201d<\/p>\n Fast forward a half-dozen years, and you can see that Musk is still obsessed with this notion of bandwidth \u2014 the rate at which computers can read out information from your brain. It is, in fact, the idea that drives Neuralink.<\/p>\n The Neuralink device is a brain implant, outfitted with 1,024 electrodes, that can pick up signals from a whole lot of neurons. The more electrodes you\u2019ve got, the more neurons you can listen in on, and the more data you\u2019ll get. Plus, the closer you can get to those neurons, the higher quality your data will be.<\/p>\n And the Neuralink device gets very <\/em>close to the neurons. The company\u2019s procedure for implanting it requires drilling a hole in the skull and penetrating the brain.<\/p>\n But there are less extreme ways to go about this. Other companies are proving it. Let\u2019s break down what they\u2019re doing \u2014 and why Musk feels the need to do something different.<\/p>\n Neuralink isn\u2019t the only company exploring brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for restoring people\u2019s physical capabilities. Other companies like Synchron<\/a>, Blackrock Neurotech<\/a>, Paradromics<\/a>, and Precision Neuroscience<\/a> are also working in this space. So is the US military<\/a>.<\/p>\n In recent years, a lot of the research that\u2019s made headlines has focused on brain implants that would translate paralyzed people\u2019s thoughts into speech<\/a>. Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s Meta, for example, is working on BCIs that could pick up thoughts directly from your neurons and translate them into words<\/a> in real time. (In the long term, the company says<\/a> it aims to give everyone the ability to control keyboards, augmented reality glasses, and more, using just their thoughts.) <\/p>\n Earlier success in the BCI field focused not on speech, but on movement. In 2006, Matthew Nagle, a man with spinal cord paralysis, received a brain implant<\/a> that allowed him to control a computer cursor. Soon Nagle was playing Pong using only his mind.<\/p>\n Nagle\u2019s brain implant, developed by the research consortium BrainGate<\/a>, contained a \u201cUtah\u201d array, a cluster of 100 spiky electrodes<\/a> that is surgically embedded into the brain. That\u2019s only around one-tenth of the electrodes in Neuralink\u2019s device. But it still enabled a paralyzed person to move a cursor, check email, adjust the volume or channel on a TV, and control a robotic limb. Since then, others with paralysis have achieved similar feats<\/a> with BCI technology.<\/p>\n While early technologies like the Utah array protruded awkwardly from the skull, newer BCIs are invisible to the outside observer once they\u2019re implanted, and some are much less invasive.<\/p>\n Synchron\u2019s BCI, for example, builds on stent technology that\u2019s been around since the 1980s. A stent is a metal scaffold that you can introduce into a blood vessel; it can be safely left there for decades (and has been in many cardiac patients, keeping their arteries open). Synchron uses a catheter to send a stent up into a blood vessel in the motor cortex of the brain. Once there, the stent unfurls like a flower, and sensors on it pick up signals from neurons. This has already enabled several paralyzed people to tweet and text with their thoughts<\/a>.<\/p>\n No open brain surgery necessary. No drilling holes in the skull.<\/p>\n Musk himself has said that BCIs wouldn\u2019t necessarily require open brain surgery, in a telling five-minute video at Recode\u2019s Code Conference in 2016<\/a>. \u201cYou could go through the veins and arteries, because that provides a complete roadway to all of your neurons,\u201d he said. \u201cYou could insert something basically into the jugular and…\u201d<\/p>\n After the audience laughed nervously, he added, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t involve chopping your skull off or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n In Neuralink\u2019s early years, before the company had settled on its current approach \u2014 which does <\/em>involve drilling into the skull \u2014 one of its research teams allegedly looked into the tamer intravascular approach, four former Neuralink employees told me. This team explored the option of delivering a device to the brain through an artery and demonstrated that it was feasible.<\/p>\n But by 2019, Neuralink had rejected this option, choosing instead to go with the more invasive surgical robot that implants threads directly into the brain.<\/p>\n Why? If the intravascular approach can restore key functioning to paralyzed patients, and also avoids some of the safety risks that come with crossing the blood-brain barrier, such as inflammation and scar tissue buildup in the brain, why opt for something more invasive than necessary? <\/p>\n The company isn\u2019t saying. But according to Hirobumi Watanabe, who led Neuralink\u2019s intravascular research team in 2018, the main reason was the company\u2019s obsession with maximizing bandwidth.<\/p>\n \u201cThe goal of Neuralink is to go for more electrodes, more bandwidth,\u201d Watanabe said, \u201cso that this interface can do way more than what other technologies can do.\u201d<\/p>\n After all, Musk has suggested that a seamless merge with machines could enable us to do everything from enhancing our memory<\/a> to uploading our minds and living forever<\/a> \u2014 staples of Silicon Valley\u2019s transhumanist fantasies<\/a>. Which perhaps helps make sense of the company\u2019s dual mission<\/a>: to \u201ccreate a generalized brain interface to restore autonomy to those with unmet medical needs today and unlock human potential tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNeuralink is explicitly aiming at producing general-purpose neural interfaces,\u201d the Munich-based neuroethicist Marcello Ienca<\/a> told me. \u201cTo my knowledge, they are the only company that is currently planning clinical trials for implantable medical neural interfaces while making public statements about future nonmedical applications of neural implants for cognitive enhancement. To create a general-purpose technology, you need to create a seamless interface between humans and computers, enabling enhanced cognitive and sensory abilities. Achieving this vision may indeed require more invasive methods to achieve higher bandwidth and precision.\u201d<\/p>\n Watanabe believes Neuralink prioritized maximizing bandwidth because that serves Musk\u2019s goal of creating a generalized BCI that lets us merge with AI and develop all sorts of new capacities. \u201cThat\u2019s what Elon Musk is saying, so that\u2019s what the company has to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The intravascular approach didn\u2019t seem like it could deliver as much bandwidth as the invasive approach. Staying in the blood vessels may be safer, but the downside is that you don\u2019t have access to as many neurons. \u201cThat\u2019s the biggest reason they did not go for this approach,\u201d Watanabe said. \u201cIt\u2019s rather sad.\u201d He added that he believed Neuralink was too quick to abandon the minimally invasive approach. \u201cWe could have pushed this project forward.\u201d<\/p>\n For Tom Oxley, the CEO of Synchron, this raises a big question. \u201cThe question is, does a clash emerge between the short-term goal of patient-oriented clinical health outcomes and the long-term goal of AI symbiosis?\u201d he told me. \u201cI think the answer is probably yes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt matters what you\u2019re designing for and if you have a patient problem in mind,\u201d Oxley added. Synchron could theoretically build toward increasing bandwidth by miniaturizing its tech and going into deeper branches of the blood vessels; research<\/a> shows this is viable. \u201cBut,\u201d he said, \u201cwe chose a point at which we think we have enough signal to solve a problem for a patient.\u201d<\/p>\n Ben Rapoport, a neurosurgeon who left Neuralink to found Precision Neuroscience, emphasized that any time you\u2019ve got electrodes penetrating the brain, you\u2019re doing some damage to brain tissue. And that\u2019s unnecessary if your goal is helping paralyzed patients.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think that trade-off is required for the kind of neuroprosthetic function that we need to restore speech and motor function to patients with stroke and spinal cord injury,\u201d Rapoport told me. \u201cOne of our guiding philosophies is that building a high-fidelity brain-computer interface system can be accomplished without damaging the brain.\u201d<\/p>\n To prove that you don\u2019t need Muskian invasiveness to achieve high bandwidth, Precision has designed a thin film that coats the surface of the brain with 1,024 electrodes \u2014 the same number of electrodes in Neuralink\u2019s implant \u2014 that deliver signals similar to Neuralink\u2019s. The film has to be inserted through a slit in the skull, but the advantage is that it sits on the brain\u2019s surface without penetrating it. Rapoport calls this the \u201cGoldilocks solution,\u201d and it\u2019s already been implanted<\/a> in a handful of patients, recording their brain activity at high resolution.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s key to do a very, very safe procedure that doesn\u2019t damage the brain and that is minimally invasive in nature,\u201d Rapoport said. \u201cAnd furthermore, that as we scale up the bandwidth of the system, the risk to the patient should not increase.\u201d<\/p>\n This makes sense if your most cherished ambition is to help patients improve their lives as much as possible without courting undue risk. But Musk, we know, has other ambitions.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat Neuralink doesn\u2019t seem to be very interested in is that while a more invasive approach might offer advantages in terms of bandwidth, it raises greater ethical and safety concerns,\u201d Ienca told me. \u201cAt least, I haven\u2019t heard any public statement in which they indicate how they intend to address the greater privacy, safety, and mental integrity risks generated by their approach. This is strange because according to international research ethics guidelines it wouldn\u2019t be ethical to use a more invasive technology if the same performance can be achieved using less invasive methods.\u201d<\/p>\n More invasive methods, by their nature, can do real damage to the brain \u2014 as Neuralink\u2019s experiments on animals have shown.<\/p>\nWhy Elon Musk wants to merge human brains with AI<\/h3>\n
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\n <\/figure>\nThere are other ways to make a brain-computer interface. Why is Neuralink choosing the most extreme one?<\/h3>\n