Foreign media reported that in the next six months, an brain-computer interface experiment on the human body will be launched soon!
In the science fiction movie " Matrix ", humans connect network through brain-computer interfaces, and only the brain needs to "think" to issue instructions. The situation of manipulating the device is about to become a reality...
. The person who is ambitious to carry out this experiment is our old acquaintance - Eron Musk .
Boss Ma not only announced the human experiment of brain-computer interface, but also said that he planned to make one for himself...
The reason why he is so confident in brain-computer interface technology is because Musk company Neuralink has made a new technological breakthrough:
The monkey in the laboratory can type with a virtual keyboard through the brain-computer interface...
Speaking of which, Musk's Neuralink company has been established for more than six years.
This company founded in 2016 specializes in brain-computer interface technology.
Brain-computer interface technology simply puts it, it is to create a direct connection between the human or animal brain and external devices, and realize the information exchange between the brain and the device.
Ideally, when the brain-computer interface technology is mature, people do not need to do it. They can use their brains to think about it and can manipulate various devices and communicate online.
The latest practice is to implant a chip in the brain and connect a micro probe, which has thousands of electrodes on it.
electrode is connected to soft lines that are thinner than humans, which are used to detect the activities of thousands of brain neurons, and read and convert human brain waves into electronic signals, so as to connect the brain and external devices.
Over the past few years, Neuralink has indeed achieved some results.
For example, in 2020, Musk announced that the company had implanted chips in pig brains to read pig brain wave signals.
In 2021, Musk showed a monkey implanted with a brain-computer interface. This monkey can play a simple "brick-making" game through brain waves.
Although as soon as the news came out, Musk and Neuralink received overwhelming criticism, some accused him of abuse of animals, and some revealed that he had a reckless experiment and implanted chips on 23 monkeys, but 15 died.
But Musk was unmoved at all and insisted on continuing the brain-computer interface experiment on animals.
That's it. After another year of research, Neuralink recently made new achievements:
let monkeys type on virtual keyboards through brain-computer interface!
At a press conference on Wednesday, Musk personally showed the experimental results:
The video shows that the monkey Sake, who has implanted the brain-computer interface, sat in front of a computer screen.
Sake has been trained in advance and knows the spelling of some simple English commands. It only needs to be close to the computer, and the brain-computer interface device is connected to the computer because the chip is transmitted wirelessly.
At this time, Sake just needs to "want" to type a command, and the computer's virtual keyboard will type out the corresponding letters based on its brain waves. At this time, Sake is thinking about some snacks.
So its brain waves were transmitted to the virtual keyboard through the brain-computer interface, accurately typed the English letters, forming a standard instruction: "Can you please have snacks?" (Can i please have snacks)
After seeing the commands, the researchers took a tablet computer showing various snacks, and Sake chose the exporter without hesitation.
Then, the staff sent the truck, and Sake used the brain-computer interface to type the virtual keyboard to issue a command, got the truck it wanted, and the experiment was successfully completed.
After successfully displaying the monkey typing experiment, Musk then put forward his bigger plan:
In the next six months, a brain-computer interface experiment will be carried out on the human body.
And for this experiment, all the company's preparations have been put in place. After
, Musk showed a demonstration video of the human brain-computer interface implantation:
A dummy named "Alpha" lies on the hospital bed and is controlled by a robot named R1 to perform implantation surgery. In the marked area of its brain, electrodes are implanted to detect brain waves.
The operation began, and the long needle operated by R1 was seen, like a sewing machine needle, accurately stitched one stitch after another in the predetermined position of the "Alpha" pink brain, connected to the electrode probe. After the electrode is connected, connect the latest N1 wireless transmission chip to connect to the device, such as mobile phones or computers.
Theoretically, in Musk's idea, as long as the human body is implanted with the brain-computer interface device, the brain can directly control the phone, and there is no need to do anything.
Not only that, if this technology is successful, it can greatly improve the lives of people with disabilities.
For example, disabled people with spinal injuries only need to install a brain-computer interface to operate a wheelchair, manipulate prosthetics, and operate various equipment to assist them in their actions.
Disabled people who have lost their vision only need a camera device to transmit images to their brains through the brain-computer interface. Even if they don’t have eyes, they can use electronic cameras to "see" things.
Abdominal frozen human , when using the brain-computer interface, can use the brain to "typify" and communicate with the outside world.
Of course, all of this has established a brain-computer interface technology that has been successful in the human body and has fully realized the functions.
Currently, according to Musk, in order to obtain a human brain-computer interface experiment license, they are applying to the US Food and Drug Administration, which is expected to be achieved in the next six months.
Musk seemed confident about Neuralink's upcoming human brain-computer interface experiment and laughed and said he wanted to make one for himself...
Many media are cautious about this .
Perhaps in the future, brain-computer interface technology can really realize the scenes in science fiction films. People only need to "think" to control various devices.
It's just that when technology really develops into a box that some people imagine, it's a bit scary no matter how you look at it...
