Elon Musk-led Neuralink’s “Show & Tell” event took on Wednesday evening after a delay of a month.
What Happened: The event was originally slated for Halloween (Oct. 31). On Wednesday, Musk, who also leads Twitter, SpaceX, and Tesla, tweeted ahead of the commencement to prepare the ground for the upcoming “Show & Tell.”
Musk presented the “Show & Tell” showcase himself on Wednesday, saying the goal of the company was to create a “whole brain interface.”
The entrepreneur said he was confident that the company would be able to address many injury-related problems.
Pointing to the inconspicuousness of Neuralink’s device, Musk joked that he could have a device implanted and no one would know about it.
In less than six months, Neuralink will have its first device in a human, according to Musk.
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Musk said the company was not “cavalier” in putting devices into animals and testing is done beforehand. He said Neuralink’s testing is “confirmatory and not exploratory.”
Pager, the Pong-playing macaque has been “upgraded,” said Musk, and the troop of monkeys has expanded to six.
Another Monkey, Sake, was shown typing telepathically on a computer. Musk pointed out that the animal couldn’t actually spell, adding that animal welfare was taken care of.
He said the Neuralink device could be upgraded and reversed, calling them a “fundamental requirement.”
The first application for Neuralink in humans is to restore vision, Musk said, adding that he was confident it would work on someone who did not have the gift of sight from the beginning.
The other application was in the motor cortex. Musk said individuals inflicted with nervous system diseases, much like the late British theoretical astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, would be able to operate a phone faster than before.
Musk said Neuralink could restore “full body functionality” to someone who has a severed spinal cord.
Why It Matters: Neuralink is Musk’s brain-chip company. Last year, the firm showcased a macaque playing a video game using its thoughts.
The startup has faced allegations of animal cruelty, to which it has responded that Neuralink is not “unique in this regard.”
However, Neuralink has been pipped by an Australian startup that placed the first brain-computer device into a U.S. patient in July. Neuralink has yet to receive a regulatory go-ahead for performing the same procedure.
In July, Neuralink raised $205 million from Alphabet Inc GOOGL GOOG search unit Google in a Series C-funding round led by Vy Capital.
Read Next: Mark Zuckerberg Calls Out Elon Musk's Neuralink: 'You Want The Mature Version Of That'
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