For the Week 2 Resource Mining task, I have been most drawn to Neuralink, a neurotech company founded and funded by Elon Musk exploring human brain-computer interface (BCI) using neuroprosthetics. While I have long been a fan of Musk, the eccentric, tech-innovator, altruist billionaire, like many, I am disturbed by his more recent evil genius scientist, volatile world-dominator, unpredictable psycho vibe. I am not sure where this project sits on the scales of sanity which weigh the creedence of Musk’s brainchildren. Nevertheless, Neuralink has innovated the brain chip implantation that past generations have been warned of in 20th century fantasy horror sci-fi movies.
Despite Musk’s reputation, Neuralink’s recent successes include the first successful human transplant, Noland Arbaugh, a 29-year-old quadriplegic volunteer who, just 9 days after the accident that paralyzed him, was implanted with a quarter-sized chip that affords him to now control devices with his mind using a cursor. Despite a setback caused by the retraction of shallowly planted threads reducing responsivity, it was fixed with software updates. Neuralink’s second patient, scheduled for June 2024, as well as ten more who are projected to be implanted by the end of the year, in addition to an ongoing patient registry will proceed, this time with a deeper surgical brain location to avoid the challenges faced by Arbaugh.
Animal rights activists are amongst the greatest discouragers of the project, as Neuralink has been accused of having inevitably euthanized myriad of monkeys due to complications of early brain chip implant implementations. Musk denies the allegations although shortly after the accusations, a May 2023 Neuralink blogpost was written explaining the role of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at the company. While I dare not speculate on the timing of these events, their temporal correlation possibly indicates Neuralink backstepping on an ethical issue somehow unforeseen and digitally whitewashing an online narrative to represent one specific series of events and truths.