Neuralink, Elon Musk's brain implant company, plans to begin a clinical trial in the U.S. in October. Its device is expected to convert thoughts into text, which could provide new ways for people with speech difficulties to communicate.
Neuralink, Elon Musk's brain implant company, plans to begin a clinical trial in the U.S. in October. Its device is expected to convert thoughts into text, which could provide new ways for people with speech difficulties to communicate.
Neuralink also has an ambitious goal: to implant the device into a healthy person by 2030, which is part of its long-term plan to create consumer technology, writes Bloomberg.
“We are now imagining a world where in about 3-4 years there will be a healthy person who will be implanted with Neuralink,” company president DJ Seo said at a meeting at the Korea Foundation for Advanced Research in Seoul this week.
According to Seo, Neuralink is looking to start a new clinical trial to read speech directly from the brain.
"If you imagine yourself saying something, we can decipher it," he said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted Neuralink an experimental device use authorization, allowing it to begin testing the unapproved device. The company is currently conducting five other clinical trials testing implants that control electronic devices such as computers or robotic arms.
Currently, there are no commercially available implants for patients that read speech directly from the brain.
Seo noted that such technologies would allow people to directly send queries to large AI language models, bypassing the keyboard.
“We believe there is a real opportunity to demonstrate the ability to interact with state-of-the-art AI or LLM models, achieving thought speeds that exceed speech speeds. This would potentially allow for feedback through the AirPods device, effectively closing the loop,” he noted.
