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Is Musk's Neuralink Recent Progress Gonna Be A Sign Of Breakthrough Or Another Fake Hype?

AInvestWednesday, Feb 21, 2024 2:42 am ET
1min read

Remember last month when Elon Musk announced that his brain-computer interface company Neuralink had implanted the chip into a human body for the first time? Yesterday, Musk just announced the latest progress.

Musk revealed in a live broadcast on social media platform X: Progress is good, the patient seems to have made a full recovery ... and is able to control the mouse, move the mouse around the screen just by thinking. Musk also mentioned that they are trying to get the subject to click the mouse button as much as possible.

According to previous information, Neuralink's first product under development will be called Telepathy. When functioning properly, this brain-computer chip will help patients with serious degenerative diseases like ALS control electronic devices simply by thinking and communicating with the outside world by typing or accessing social media.

Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer. That is the goal.

In fact, Musk's vision goes beyond that, as the billionaire hopes to use Neuralink's products to treat obesity, autism, depression, and schizophrenia in the future.

However, behind Musk's attracting announcement, the real situation of patients and products is still unknown. The last official news from Neuralink dates back to December 2022, when they showcased a monkey typing with its thoughts using a mind-machine interface at a technical display event called 'Show and Tell'.

During a certain segment in 'Show and Tell', a monkey named Sake used its mind to control a virtual keyboard and slowly typed in the words 'Welcome to Show and Tell'.

However, despite lacking convincing evidence to support the progress it has claimed, Neuralink's valuation reached $5 billion last year, and the potential market of brain implant devices is evidently beyond this. Since 2014, with the maturity of technology and the market accepting related products, more new companies continue to enter this industry every year, including giants like Google, Microsoft, Alibaba, and Baidu.

According to McKinsey's forecast, the global brain-machine interface industry will generate economic value between $70 billion and $200 billion in the next 10 to 20 years. Meanwhile, in addition to Musk's Neuralink, companies such as Synchron, Precision Neuroscience, Paradromics, and Blackrock Neurotech are all rushing to develop similar systems.

Precision Neuroscience conducted its first clinical research involving humans last year. As early as 2021, Synchron helped a patient who had a chip implanted to a tweet from CEO Tom Oxley's Twitter, but there has also not been other official information disclosed about this since then.

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