Brain chips will replace cell phones in the future - Musk

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk predicts that cell phones will disappear in the future, replaced by chips implanted directly into the human brain.

In January, his biotech company, Neuralink, implanted a brain chip for the first time in 30-year-old Noland Arbaugh. The surgery involves placing a computer chip (the size of a coin) in the area of ​​the brain that controls thought and movement. The chip is used to "record brain signals and send them wirelessly to an app that analyzes movement needs."

Musk made his latest prediction on Tuesday in response to a message from a parody account on X, formerly known as Twitter, called Not Elon Musk. The first post: "Do you want to install a Neuralink interface in your brain, so you can control the new X phone with your thoughts?"

Musk replied, "In the future, there will be no cell phones, only Neuralinks."

Neuralink said in a press release last year that its Precision Robotic Implantable Brain-Computer Interface (PRIME) project aims to develop a "wireless implantable brain-computer interface" that will be the first to people to control computers using the cursor using them. thinking. . or keyboard. This later paved the way for revolutionary treatments for people with a range of physical disabilities, including paralysis and blindness, as well as conditions such as obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia.

In an interview with Joe Rogan in 2018, Musk said that Neuralink will one day allow people to talk without using a voice, and that a kind of "symbiosis" could be achieved. and common sense.

Last May, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first trial of chip integration.
A few weeks after the surgery at the end of January, Musk said that the person was "completely recovered with no adverse effects that we know of" and was able to move a computer mouse across the surface - just by thinking.

However, last May, Neuralink reported that he was experiencing a number of complications after the thin cable implanted in his brain became dislodged.
Instead, the FDA approved a second human trial, the Wall Street Journal reported last month. The next test, scheduled for June, will use a modified technique to implant the chip into the brain to prevent it from returning.

Eight people will participate in more tests before the end of the year, according to news reports.