Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk's brain implant company Neuralink is beginning the recruitment phase for its first clinical trial on humans.
The trial, dubbed the Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface Study, seeks to implant machinery into the part of the brain that controls movement intention and ultimately give quadriplegics the ability to operate keyboards and a computer by using their minds.
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"The PRIME Study [is] a groundbreaking investigational medical device trial for our fully-implantable, wireless brain-computer interface," the company said in a statement Tuesday. "[The study] aims to evaluate the safety of our implant (N1) and surgical robot (R1) and assess the initial functionality of our BCI for enabling people with paralysis to control external devices with their thoughts."
The device is expected to transmit the user's intentions through brain signals to an app that would then decipher the intentions.
Musk has said that his long-term goal with Neuralink is to bridge the gap between artificial intelligence and humans to mitigate the threat posed by the technology. Musk said the human trial process will go very slowly at first in order to limit the existential risk to humans posed by artificial intelligence.
“This ultimately has the potential to restore full body movement,” Musk posted on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday. “In the long term, Neuralink hopes to play a role in AI risk and civilizational risk reduction by improving human to AI (and human to human) bandwidth by several orders of magnitude. Imagine if Stephen Hawking had had this.”
The first human patient will soon receive a Neuralink device. This ultimately has the potential to restore full body movement.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 20, 2023
In the long term, Neuralink hopes to play a role in AI risk civilizational risk reduction by improving human to AI (and human to human) bandwidth by… https://t.co/DzqoYI27Ng
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The study is looking for volunteers who are paralyzed in both arms and legs due to a cervical spinal cord injury, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Applicants must also be at least 22 years of age, have been paralyzed for at least one year with no sign of improvement, and have a reliable caregiver.
Participants would be compensated for study-related costs, such as travel to and from the study site. The trial received approval by the Food and Drug Administration in May.