Elon Musk Startup of Implanting Brain Chips into Humans Rejected

Elon Musk’s interest in the AI field for making a sustainable future may be integrating dangerous ideas for human life.

A few years back, Musk announced a new brain-computer interface startup named “Neuralink” in 2016. It will implant coin-sized chips in human brains by surgical robots allowing people to perform anything using only their minds.

According to its seven current and former employees, the company tried to receive approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for conducting human trials last year. Still, the approval was also rejected last year.

The reason for rejection by the FDA states it poses a high risk to human life and dozens of flaws that Neuralink must address before trial tests in the US.

It adds that there were several safety issues, like the possibility of moving the brain chip’s wires into other brain areas of the subject, and the chip could overheat, leading to tissue damage. Also, the major concern was how the implanted chip would be removed without damaging the brain.

Despite restrictions, Neuralink has conducted tests on animals like pigs and monkeys rather than on humans till now. Musk uploaded a demo video of a monkey with a chip implanted in its brain for “telepathically typing” last year.

After that, an animal rights organization claimed that the startup had spread hazardous pathogens in the environment by transferring removed chips from animal test subjects’ brains without following federal regulations.

In response, the US Department of Transportation announced the investigation of Musk’s startup.