Elon Musk wants to put chips in our brains – but will anyone let him?

Elon Musk wants to implant a mind-reading chip in your brain. The question is, will anyone let him?

On Friday, Mr Musk’s Neuralink announced it had been granted approval for the first human trials of its brain implant, although it gave no more details about what that would entail.

The company has vowed to “create a generalised brain interface to restore autonomy to those with unmet medical needs, and unlock human potential”.

Undoubtedly the medical benefits could be vast, potentially allowing the blind to see and the paralysed to walk.

But it is the “unlock human potential” part of Neuralink’s mission statement that is making people twitchy. Once Mr Musk has healed the lame, he is planning to create humans 2.0.

Connecting brains to computers

The company has its sights on creating a symbiotic relationship between humans and technology by connecting brains to computers, allowing instant access to information or even communication with others through thoughts alone.

Critics already squeamish about Mr Musk’s growing influence over world events are unlikely to take kindly to his interference in their cerebral cortex.

It is this move from a medical to a consumer product that could be Neuralink’s downfall.

To start with, regulators will be unwilling to grant approval for a device that requires brain surgery for non-medical reasons. The risks of infections, tissue damage, brain bleeds, immune reactions and personality changes are high.

That’s before you even get to the ethical concerns of having technology that can peer into the private world of our thoughts.

Several universities have already shown it is possible to decode brainwaves, turning them into words or images or movement – but so far this has only been for medical reasons.

Just this week, Swiss scientists announced they had helped a paralysed man to walk again using a mind-reading device that instructs muscles to fire when he thinks about stepping.

Last July, the first participant was fitted with a mind-reading chip created by Synchron, a US bio-tech company backed by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.

The device sits in a blood vessel near the motor cortex of the brain, where it detects neurological signals and turns them into actions allowing people with severe paralysis to send texts and emails or access online banking, shopping and tele-healthcare.

Such brain chips could be revolutionary, opening up the world for people who have been trapped in their ailing bodies. They may even be available in a few years if trials are successful.

But the idea that humans will one day be fitted with chips that hook them up to the internet is firmly in the realm of science fiction.

Useless invention

For a start, the technology is nowhere near being capable of what Mr Musk eventually has in mind. The most that the implants can achieve currently is moving a cursor around the screen, or translating thoughts into movement or speech.

For any able-bodied person, it is a useless invention.

Dr Dean Burnett, honorary research associate at Cardiff University, said: “Ultimately, it is a case of people undergoing expensive and risky medical procedures, in order to do something that they can do very easily, with minimum effort and zero cost, with their own hands.”

There is of course always the “Musk factor”. The tech billionaire has an uncanny knack of pushing seemingly impossible projects forward, a bottomless revenue stream and a relentless refusal to give up on his pet projects.

This time I suspect it will be one pipedream too far and the consumer arm of Neuralink will end up being the Google Glass of its day. Cool, fun, but ultimately pointless.