Neuralink is a technology founded and developed by Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk. Elon says his main goal through all of his companies is to push humanity forward. Musk has a lot of supporters but also very vocal critics, who say Musk simply reinvents technology that already exists and is "living in a fantasy".
Musk says Neuralink will directly connect individuals with their phones, or computers. Musk, at a recent product update on Neuralink said, "In a lot of ways, it’s kind of like a Fitbit in your skull, with tiny wires", Musk, E. (2021). While neuroscience pioneer and BMI (brain-machine interface) expert Miguel Nicolelis, says the technology is "Totally bogus", and "for a science fiction movie, that's fine, but for Elon Musk to come out and say exactly the same thing is bogus", Nicolelis, M. (2021).
The device connects via the brain's neurons with tiny electrodes that are inserted into the brain by a neurosurgery robot that Neuralink is also developing to undertake the surgery required for implant the device. Some say that this robot is the most promising development coming out of Neuralink so far.
The Neuralink device, the Link, records brain activity through small electrodes implanted inside the brain. All the activities are then sent from the Link to the mobile device or computer connected to the link.
After connecting the Link to the mobile device or computer, the user will then be able to communicate with the device using the data being sent from the Link.
In the future, the functionality of the Link may be improved before release, or with over-the-air updates. Many of the current features being shown now are still being developed and tested, and still require time to fully develop.
This is a famous video, demonstrating the power of Neuralink. The test involves a monkey, which has been implanted with the Neuralink chip, moving a cursor around in a game with a controller. This, on the surface, seems fairly unextraordinary, as many monkeys before have been trained to play mind games. However, this specific monkey only believes he is controlling the game with the controller. In reality, the controller is unplugged, the only thing controlling the cursor is the input the Neuralink chip in it's brain is recieving. The impulses the monkeys brain is outputting is being sent to the Neuralink, which subsequently, is then outputting the signals to a computer. The computer then translates these digitised impuleses into the cursor movement on the screen. In this case, there is an external computer deciphering the Neuralink output, but the final goal is to be able to perform all of this on a mobile device, or even on the chip itself.