KATE THOMPSON DAVY: Like Hyperloop, Neuralink’s brain implants might be another big idea going nowhere fast

The biggest news story in tech this week has, once again, begun life at the fingertips of serial entrepreneur and gazillionaire Elon Musk.

Musk set the news wires and social spaces alight on Monday with his post on X (formerly Twitter) claiming that his dream of connecting people and tech through the use of specialised brain implants had taken one step closer to reality.

He xweeted (or whatever the verb is): “The first human received an implant from @Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well. Initial results show promising neuron spike detection.”

Yet the scientific, medical and technology communities (and we rather rattled journos covering these beats) will be waiting before we pop the prosecco, waiting for the details this story so desperately needs.

Who is this Patient Hero? We don’t need their name so much as their vital stats. Also, what exactly does “recovering well” and “promising neuron spike detection” mean, medically?

Musk is going to have to be more specific here. Unlike the relative health of advertising revenue on X, these stakes are actual life and death, plus whatever side effects the small print covers.

Neuralink was founded by Musk and others in 2016, with the lofty goal of “creat[ing] a generalised brain interface to restore autonomy to those with unmet medical needs today and unlock human potential tomorrow”.

In 2023 Neuralink received approval from the US Food & Drug Administration to recruit for and conduct human trials, using a surgical robot to place a brain-computer interface (BCI) implant — including 1,024 electrodes on 64 tiny threads “each thinner than a human hair” — onto the region of the brain associated with “movement intention” (meaning literally thinking about moving something like a limb, digit, or a cursor on a screen).

The published purpose of the first study, which is expected to run for six years, is to evaluate the “safety and initial effectiveness of the N1 Implant (a BCI implant), the R1 Robot (a surgical robot), and N1 User App (BCI software) in enabling individuals with paralysis to control external devices”. The call for participants is live on the site neuralink.com, if you’re interested and fit the requirements.

Not first

Neurotechnology and the creation of implantable BCI is an emerging field in which every development feels groundbreaking, but it is always important to bring some context to any such big and shocking announcements, especially — with respect — when they come from Musk, who is top-tier at hyping his pet projects.

It is Neuralink’s first human recipient, but not the first in the field. Some companies in the neurotechnology field have been kicking this around for about 20 years, and there are academics and medical researchers too, of course. As the BBC reported, “Utah-based Blackrock Neurotech implanted its first of many brain-computer interfaces in 2004.

“Precision Neuroscience, formed by a Neuralink co-founder, also aims to help people with paralysis. And its implant resembles a very thin piece of tape that sits on the surface of the brain and can be implanted via a ‘cranial microslit’, which it says is a much simpler procedure.”

It’s a cool field, no doubt, if one that is both nascent and inherently risky — prompting me to clamber back up on my favourite platform of “Bloody hell, I hope the regulators are up to the task”.

Studies have shown impressive early results in monitoring and interpreting brain activity — having a computer “translate” (my words, not theirs) as a patient attempts to speak, or by recreating a song played to patients who had had electrodes implanted as part of epilepsy treatment.

Some hope to improve and extend the application of deep brain stimulation with a view to treating Parkinson’s disease and other neurological conditions. Some researchers are just keen to get a better idea of just how the incredible wet sparky lump in our skulls actually works, hoping that BCIs will provide a wealth of data to dig into — ideally in peer-reviewed journals of scientific repute.

Conspiracy theorists

Now, I’ve made it very clear in this column that I am a Muskeptic. He really is the most confounding of people, and seemingly immune to consequences. It’s infuriating to be attuned to my role in the problem (reporting on his many moves), while cautioning of the dangers of just such moment-by-moment reporting. Still, I am not sitting here wishing for failure.

Yes, there is a sociological element to this that I do find fascinating, in a kind of Schadenfreudesque way: there appears to be a large overlap between the Musk fanboys and vaccine conspiracy theorists, so I am dying to know what that mix of people will make of their revered Tech Bro Genius championing an actual genuine implant.

However, I did also lose my father to Alzheimer’s, an uncle to brain cancer, a beloved friend to epilepsy, and so on … So I’m not immune to the hope that AI tech and pioneering minds will mean huge leaps forward for medical science — as it did with the Covid-19 vaccines.

Musk may be the visionary his “stans” believe him to be, but it would be just swell if some measurable successes came along, and soon.

Musk’s self-driving cars are not in fact self-driving, and his vision of the efficient Hyperloop transport system has failed to deliver, unless you count the defunct 1km stretch near Las Vegas that is laying off staff and selling assets.

Hell, I’d settle for an “everything app” at this point. 

• Thompson Davy, a freelance journalist, is an impactAFRICA fellow and WanaData member.