A few days ago, Musk, who also boasted about Chinese car companies at Tesla's financial report, came to work again today.
Early this morning, Musk posted a tweet on X to tell everyoneThe first human trials of Neuralink have begun.
To add a popular science to poor memory, Neuralink is a company owned by Musk that researches brain-computer interfaces, and it was just approved for human trials in the first half of last year.
And it's only been more than half a year, and Neuralink's first product has been released, called ".telepathyTelepathy).
It is said that as long as you use your brain, you can make mobile phones, computers, mechanical arms, and other things at your disposal.
Anyway, the words of the top old horse in the technology circle, X exploded again.
The tweet had more than 20 million views in just a few hours, and in addition to fans and trolls in the comment area, the musicians also arrived at the battlefield as soon as possible and communicated with memes "friendly".
There is a comparison between Bill Gates's vaccine and Musk's brain-computer interface...
There is a beginning to conceive that the brain-computer interface was hacked.
In China, the topic of Musk's official announcement of the first brain-computer interface human trial, like SpaceX's rocket, directly rushed to the hot search of Zhihu and Weibo.
What immortality, mind control and mechanical ascension, netizens' brains can open as big as they want.
The happiest thing is that some netizens combined with the Polish national situation and issued a soul torture question: After installing this thing, shake your head, and your thinking will automatically be jumped to the shopping platform?
Anyway, under the overwhelming reports and discussions among everyone, the popularity of neuralink this time is enough.
But today, I still have to have a bad reviewPour cold water first
Because of the so-called consciousness upload and mind control, the current technology is not within reach for the time being. This telepathy is, at most, a one-way reading of neuronal signals, and external devices can't write information into the brain.
In addition, this human trial is mainly focused on the medical field.
According to Elon Musk, Neuralink's goal is to help people with disabilities regain mobility. It is said that with the help of brain-computer interfaces, they can even be faster and more flexible than normal people.
And the principle behind it, in fact, there are not many twists and turns. It is to use a chip to analyze the patient's neuron signals, and then convert these signals into some specific instructions.
For example, a patient with ALS has a "standing" signal in his head, and the signal is transmitted to the skeletal robot, which can assist the patient to stand up.
But from the past "on paper" to the first wave of human trials of Neuralink, it is actually quite a milestone for the brain-computer interface industry.
It can even be said that for this day,neuralink solves a lot of problems and opens up a lot of brains( both mental and physical ).
Previously, because of experiments on animals, Neuralink was also suspected of "animal cruelty".
According to Reuters, Neuralink killed about 1,500 animals, including sheep, pigs and monkeys, from the beginning of the trial.
Although there is no real hammer yet, the high risk coefficient of brain-computer interface testing is a fact.
In general, it can be divided into three types: invasive, semi-invasive and non-invasiveThe risk factor is highest for invasiveness.
What neuralink does is invasive, you have to put a chip in your brain, and the chip reads and analyzes your brain waves, and then sends those signals out.
It sounds cyberpunk, but it's a real physics "brainstorm".
After all, the process of putting chips into the brain, gotCraniotomy
When Neuralink submitted for approval last year, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) issued several soul torture questions: Is your brain-computer interface device safe? What's wrong with the lithium battery leaking in the brain? If you put the electrode in, how do you take it out? What to do if the wires move in your head...
Previously, Braingate, a company that makes invasive brain-computer interfaces, encountered a situation where electrodes were discarded in the brain.
It's not that the power is out, it's that the electrodes are entangled in glial cells...
Therefore, the consideration of the FDA is a practical problem that everyone has to face.
So how did neuralink overcome these problems? Like, how do you put a chip in your head?
After all, a craniotomy is not as simple as a double eyelid, you have to make a hole in the brain before putting the chip in.
Musk, the industrialization maniac, felt that he had to hand over a robot for this matter, so he moved out a surgical robot called "R1", including implanting chips, removing skulls and suturing wounds, and providing one-stop services.
There is no need to worry about safety, because before implantation, the R1 will use the imaging system to find a suitable location for the chip to ensure that the blood vessels are not poked.
The whole process can take up to 15 minutes.
As for the final effect, the first human trial of this "good recovery" has already given the answer for the time being.
Again, how to transmit signals and charge the chip after putting it in the brain is also where neuralink worries.
The original N1 not only had to open the cranial discharge electrode wires, but also installed a peripheral behind the ear to transmit signals.
It is estimated that Lao Ma also felt that this thing was unreliable, and soon launched Link V09 。Almost the size of a coin, this version obsolete the original "antenna".
After a few more iterations, now the new version of the ship of the N1 chip, looks like this.
Modules such as shells, batteries, and chips have been basically refurbished.
In order to collect more and clearer signals from neurons, this time, they also used flexible electrodes that can "flexibly fit" with nerve cells.
In general,The more electrode channels there are, the more neuronal signals can be collected.
But traditional "rigid" electrode Utah arrays have only 96 electrode channels.
If you want to collect as many nerve signals as possible, you need to cram a few more of these pinpoint-like Utah arrays.
This in turn can easily cause intracranial infection or rejection...
And this flexible electrode, its threads are only 4-6 microns each, which is thinner than a human hair.
Compared to the Utah array, which can only transmit signals from 96 electrode channels, the electrode channels are directly extended1024 pcs.
Therefore, the bad reviewer thinks that it is these technological innovations that have allowed Neuralink to win the turn of the FDA and get the number plate of human trials.
If what Musk said can be done, and telepathy can indeed become the cyber hands and feet or eyes of the disabled, then the "light of humanity" and the like are well deserved.
However, don't expect too much for now.
Because Neuralink's human experiments have improved a bit, but they are still a few steps away from real commercialization.
One is that Neuralink's human trials lasted for six years, and no one dared to pack a ticket for what would happen during this period.
In addition, the development of the entire brain-computer interface industry is far from being as mature as we imagined.
According to CNBC, medical device companies must go through many times of data collection and testing before they can get the FDA'sFinal approval,Neuralink is only allowed to be tested on humans.
With this pass, commercialization begins. But at present, no company has yet received this pass.
In addition to neuralink, there are also foreign competitors like Synchron and Paradiomics, which also study brain-computer interfaces.
Among them, Paradromics, which was established earlier than Neuralink, is still stuck in the animal testing stage.
According to foreign media, the approval has not yet been settled, and human trials will not be carried out until the first half of this year at the earliest.
Another company, Synchron, whose product can be implanted directly from the jugular vein, was approved for human trials as early as 21 years, and patients have already used this device to realize "idea posting" on Twitter.
But this plan, which is safer and better promoted than craniotomy, has not seen any big splash now.
Therefore, there are experts who are bold **,It will take at least another 10 years for Neuralink to commercialize its brain implants.
In addition, it is written.,A few new questions popped up in the mind of the bad reviewer.。。。
If the chip is updated in the future, do you have to give the brain a little bit of it? Does the brain-computer interface chip support OTA upgrades? After commercialization, will different versions of brain-computer chips such as Pro, Pro Max, and Ultra be launched?
There may be more and more similar questions in the future, so let's just say that we should remain cautiously optimistic, after all, it is a matter of the brain, but we must not be careless.