Depressed About Trump Either Way? Then Let Elon Musk Manipulate Your Brain a Bit

Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios

Elon Musk gave the world a progress update on his brain-machine interface startup Neuralink, showcasing a small implant that can read and transmit the neural activity of a pig, Axios Future editor Bryan Walsh writes.  "The future is gonna be weird," Musk said, wearing a black mask with a Neuralink logo. (YouTube) Why it matters: The Neuralink implant still has yet to be tested in human beings, but it's part of a wave of brain-machine interface technologies that aim to address neurological diseases and injuries, and eventually directly link human brains to the internet. In an online event, Musk showed the Neuralink device — roughly the size of a quarter — implanted in a pig's brain, where it was able to read some neural signals in real time. While Musk had billed the event as a "product demo," Neuralink has yet to undergo clinical trials in human beings, though the company announced it had been granted FDA "breakthrough device status," which could speed efforts in humans. "It's like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires," said Musk.  Today some version of neural implants are already used by tens of thousands of people around the world, mostly to treat neurological disorders like epilepsy and Parkinson's. The next generation of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs)seek to translate brain signals into useful data or even use them to manipulate machines. In 2017, Facebook announced that it wanted to create a headband that would allow people to type with just their thoughts. The catch: For any of the more ambitious uses of BCI to become a reality, scientists will need to figure out how to implant connections in the brain that can last for a decade or longer. Most current versions corrode in a few years.