Elon Musk’s startup Neuralink has successfully implanted its brain-computer interface into a man named Brad Smith, who has ALS and is completely non-verbal, allowing him to communicate now using telepathy.
Smith released a video on X about his experience with Neuralink and how it works. The video is narrated using an AI-generated replica of Smith’s voice cloned from past recordings, and Smith uses the BCI to control the mouse on his MacBook Pro to perform the narration.
Smith cannot move anything but his eyes and relies on a ventilator to stay alive. Before Neuralink, he used an eye gaze control computer for communication, but Neuralink allows him to communicate much more fluidly.
In the video on X, Smith extensively highlights his current abilities using telepathy.
“I have spent the last few years with ideas and thoughts that I cannot share because it takes too much time to type it out,” Smith said in the video. “I can already communicate faster and in more ways than I could before, and we are still working on ways to get even faster.”
THE LARGER TREND
Neuralink’s brain-computer interface involves the placement of a small, cosmetically invisible implant in the area of a person’s brain that plans movements. The N1 implant is designed to interpret one’s neural activity to assist them in operating a computer or smartphone by simply intending to move.
The company announced in early 2024 that 29-year-old quadriplegic Noland Arbaugh became the first person to receive one of Neuralink’s BCI implants during the company’s PRIME study. The implant resulted in Arbaugh being able to play chess and video games hands-free.
In August, a second person, Alex, who had similar injuries to Arbaugh, was the second trial participant to receive the implant. Neuralink said in a statement that “with the Link, [Alex] has been improving his ability to play video games and began learning how to use computer-aided design (CAD) software to design 3D objects.”
In November, Neuralink announced it received approval from Health Canada to perform a clinical trial on its N1 brain implant and R1 robot.
The “Canadian Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface” (CAN-PRIME) study will be performed by the University Health Network (UHN) hospital at its Toronto Western Hospital.
CAN-PRIME will assess the safety of the company’s N1 implant and R1 surgical robot, used to place each of the 64 threads of the N1 implant into a patient’s brain.
That same month, the company announced on X that it received approval to launch a feasibility study, CONVOY, which will test its wireless BCI, or N1 implant, to control an investigational assistive robotic arm.
Neuralink also offers an experimental implant, Blindsight, which received FDA breakthrough device designation in September. The device implants a microelectrode array into the visual cortex of a person’s brain. The array then activates neurons, providing the individual with a visual image.
