One of the new and promising technologies that we have heard about is the Neuralink. It is a brain-chip interface that is meant to treat paraplegics, but has potential to resolve a number of mental and physical ailments. There is some controversy around the invasiveness of the device and how it affects the privacy of the user. The main reason for this device is said to help paraplegics but one day it is said to be available to the public as a way of linking your brain to your devices.

What is the Neuralink?

The goal of this device is to solve important brain and spine problems with a seamlessly implanted device [1]. Back in 2019 the original architecture of the device was a link behind your ear. Over the next year they have already made major advancements. Now the device is just a singular disk, about the size of a large coin. In the video you can see what the device looks like. It sits flush with your skull, it has 1024 channels per link, megabit wireless data rate, and an all day battery life. Getting the link implanted would take less than an hour, and can be done without general anesthesia. In the video below, Elon Musk shows a demonstration of the device implanted in pigs. He shows us three pigs, one without the implant, one that used to have the implant but it was taken out, and a third who currently has an implant. All three pigs looked healthy and were functioning as pigs do. For the third pig, we can see that when the pig touches something in her snout it sends a signal to the device which is displayed on the screen along with a little noise. Along with that they showed a pig on a treadmill and they showed how they could predict its movement before it moved with quite an impressive accuracy.

In the question and answer portion of the video, one of the audience members asked what the practical use for this device would be and Elon replied that if you can predict what someone wants to do with their spine, you could add another implant in the spine which allows them to gain full mobility back. The next question that was asked is, could you store your memories and replay them later. Elon answered, “yes, you could actually store your memories and upload them as a backup and restore the memories”.

Author's Views

There are a lot of different things that could come from this technology and from the video we can already see that there will be a lot of more things to expect in the future. For any one who has seen the show Black Mirror, Elon states in the video that they predicted it very closely. That even beyond controlling your devices, you could replay your memories and even upload them to a robot or another body. We are watching tv shows now that have this kind of technology and to think that in the coming years it could be turned into a reality is an incredible thing to think about. This is why we are talking about it now, so that when the time comes we are all prepared to accept and handle this technology.

Looking at the past few decades, we can see an exponential increase in the technological advancements made available to the general public. Many people can remember back to when they had a car phone, and now we are carrying small screens that are more powerful than the computers that sent us to the moon in our pockets. With Neuralink, it’s reasonable to imagine that brain-chip devices are going to be available within our lifetime. It’s often hard to keep up with how fast things are moving, but we are seeing new technology such as self-driving cars that seem to appear out of thin air. So many powerful technologies are emerging and becoming widely available for integration into our daily lives, so it is important to imagine how your lifestyle may change within the next couple decades.

Neuralink Presentation

Conclusion

Technology is growing at unbelievable rates, implementing itself into our lives faster than ever with more and more daily uses in the world around us. This video of Neuralink makes it obvious that the previous statement is one of fact. We can see that within a year, Neuralink’s brain chip has gotten smaller and massively more impressive. If it takes one year for something of this caliber to improve on an exponential scale, you can imagine how smaller technologies are making their way into our daily lives, transforming society right before our eyes. It won’t take long for this kind of technology to be available to the masses, so it’s important to keep up with the ever changing world we live in.

Takeaways

• The Neuralink is a revolutionionary piece of technology that has the potential to change how we live our everyday lives.
• We need to be aware of the new technology so that we know what we need to adapt to
• We continue to see more and more life altering technology come out every year, so it's important that we are open to embracing new tech

Further Reading

• Neuralink Official Website

References

• [1] Home,” Neuralink. [Online]. Available: https://neuralink.com/. [Accessed: 18-Mar-2021].