AUS
NZ
UK
CA
USA
FRA
GER
ESP
ITA
NLD
PRT
SWE
GRC
IND
POL
BRA
ZAF
RUS
CHN
UAE
Source: Aleksandra Sova, Shutterstock
Summary
- Investors are scouring the internet to learn more about Tesla Inc founder Elon Musk’s company Neuralink since the entrepreneur sent out some interest tweets about its latest development last week.
- On Friday, April 9, Mr Musk retweeted a video clip posted on Neuralink’s account where a monkey is playing “pong with his mind”.
- The company at large works on the development of brain-machine interfaces focused on helping neurological ailments.
Investors are scouring the internet to learn more about Tesla Inc founder Elon Musk’s company Neuralink since the entrepreneur sent out some interest tweets about its latest development last week. Like Mr Musk’s other tech company SpaceX, Neuralink too is not a public enterprise yet but there are a few things investors may find interesting about this startup. Let’s find out.
Why is Neuralink Trending?
A brain-machine interface developer founded in 2016, Neuralink hit the trending sections after founder Elon Musk put out a few interesting tweets about it last week.
On Friday, April 9, Mr Musk retweeted a video clip posted on Neuralink’s account where a monkey is playing “pong with his mind”.
According to the video clip, the nine-year-old primate named Pager had two Neuralink devices implanted in his brain about six weeks ago and has since learned to use a joystick to move play the virtual game in exchange for a banana smoothie.
You may be wondering, if the monkey is using the joystick, how is this him “playing with his mind”? Well, the joystick is said to be unplugged.
The brain implant in Pager’s head, dubbed as “the Link”, reportedly record Pager’s neuron activity and feed the information to a decoder algorithm, which then links his hand movement to the cursor on the computer screen. Once adjusted, the cursor was actually said to moving as per Pager’s mind activity and not the movement of the joystick.
Elon Musk further claimed that the first Neuralink product will focus on helping people with paralysis to use a smartphone, which they will be able to operate with their minds “faster than someone using thumbs”. He added that later versions will focus on having Neuralink devices implanted in the brain send signals to the chips in motor/sensory neuron clusters, which would help paraplegics be able to walk again.
Source: Pixabay
The Tesla founder even confirmed that human trials for Neuralink chips are expected start later this year.
In February 2021, Mr Musk had tweeted about some job openings at Neuralink in the area of brain and spine-related injuries and human and artificial intelligence symbiosis. The company at large works on the development of brain-machine interfaces focused on helping neurological ailments such as Alzheimer's disease, spinal and brain injuries, etc using artificial intelligence technology.
While the company remain fairly new and privately help, buying its shares on the public market is not quite possible at the moment. But that is not stopping Neuralink from gathering attention in the stock market biosphere.
