Elon Musk's Neuralink unveils brain-machine interface technology

Elon Musk-backed Neuralink has unveiled its brain-machine interface technology able, according to Musk, to be able to read the human mind.

The company is now calling for volunteers willing to have their skull drilled into in four places so that test implants can be inserted into their brains.

The start-up has been working on its wireless implantable devices for the past two years and hopes to start the trials before the end of 2020. The immediate goal is to develop implants that could enable paralysed people to perform some basic functions, such as controlling a computer with the power of their own thoughts.

At an event held on Tuesday night at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, Musk talked about the ambitions of his secretive start-up. The PayPal and Tesla entrepreneur also called on experts to apply to work in Neuralink.

"We want to have the best talent in the world," Musk said, according to the Financial Times.

He also revealed that the ultimate goal of Neuralink is to enable humans to achieve "a sort of symbiosis with artificial intelligence".

According to Musk, there is a risk of humans being overtaken by AI-equipped machines in future, but there is also a possibility for them to "go along for the ride" if the capabilities of the brain can be enhanced with computer connectivity, he suggested.

Neuralink claims that it has developed very small flexible "threads" - four to six microsmeters (µm) in width (less than the width of a human hair) - that can be inserted into the human brain to read the activity of neurons.

Reassuringly, perhaps, Musk added that such "threads" are less likely to cause brain damage than the materials currently used in brain-machine interfaces. Moreover, the company has also developed robotic machines, which can inject the threads into the brain, under the supervision of a neurosurgeon.

The "threads" implanted in the brain then wirelessly transmit signals that are received by a module mounted behind the ear.

So far, a custom chip able to transmit information through a wired connection (USB-C) has been developed, although the ultimate goal is to create a system than can work wirelessly.

Earlier in April, researchers at UC Berkeley and the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing in California suggested that advancement in the fields of information technology, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence could enable scientists to connect human brains with the internet "within decades".

The scientists added that the novel technology, dubbed a "human brain/cloud interface", would link synapses and neurons in the human brains to vast cloud networks in real time, giving people access to immense computing power and knowledge via thought alone.