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Tech giant Elon Musk made his latest move into the world of science fiction by unveiling a brain chip implant that will help people who are paralyzed to operate technology, such as smartphones or robotic limbs, with the power of their thoughts.
"I think it's going to blow your minds," Elon Musk remarked. "It's like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires."
But it is believed that the coin-sized chips, which is being developed by Musk's secretive startup company Neuralink, is still a long way on being helpful to humans.
The RFID chip has been implanted on a pig named Gertrude, some two months ago. With the pig shuffleling around in its pen sniffing hay, a computer beeped and blue wavelengths on the screen jumped up and down, which as per Musk is the computer measuring Gertrude's brain activity. "The beeps you are hearing are real-time signals," he explained. "The future's going to be weird,"he added further.
But the "move fast and break things" ethos that had always been the definition of Silicon Valley has not always been that kind to inventors who try their luck in the field of bio technology. Medical innovation have always been known for being notoriously slow. Conducting clinical trials to prove the safety and efficacy of medical devices can take years for the product to come to market.
A good example in this regard is the tension between innovation and safety is blood diagnostics startup Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes. In the deadline constrain to get her product to market fast, Holmes took shortcuts and made exaggeration and false claims about her company's technology, as per the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which charged Holmes with raising money from investors in an "elaborate, years-long fraud." Holmes is now facing up to 20 years in prison for the same.
Musk did acknowledge to the regulatory hurdles that Neuralink must clear. "We're making good progress toward clinical studies," he explained. "I'm excited to announce that we received a breakthrough device designation from the FDA in July."
"I want to be clear," he further clarified. "We're working closely with the FDA. We'll be extremely rigorous. We'll significantly exceed the FDA guidelines for safety. We will make this as safe as possible."
Musk's track record on safety and science has been always been a mixture. A good example being the recent successes of SpaceX came after federal regulators examined fatal crashes linked to autopilot systems in Teslas. Another example being in March, Musk dismissed the seriousness of COVID-19, claiming on Twitter that there would probably be close to zero new infections in the U.S. by the end of April. In May, Musk defied local stay-at-home orders and opened his California car factory in the midst of a pandemic.
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