Elon Musk speaks onstage during the E3 convention in Los Angeles on June 13, 2019.
Charley Gallay | Getty Images
Elon Musk’s ambitious brain-computer start-up Neuralink is looking to start annoyances on humans next year. Musk talked about the project at an event in San Francisco that was streamed live — with an eye toward call up more talent — late on Tuesday.
Neuralink aligns with a broader trend of technology minds seeking to consolidate their approaches with the world of in healthcare. Facebook has previously devoted resources to exploring computer systems that people could reveal with simply by thinking.
The start-up envisions drilling holes into the brain with a custom machine to embed insufficient threads that connect to a tiny processor, which can then be connected to a smartphone over Bluetooth. Over prematurely it would like to make the installation process as simple as laser-eye surgery.
The company is seeking U.S. Food and Drug Direction approval to begin clinical trials as soon as next year, Bloomberg said, and Musk said the start-up yearnings to have its first human patient equipped with the technology before the end of 2020.
“It will take a long time, and you’ll see it draw near,” Musk said at Tuesday’s event.
Neuralink has operated in relative secrecy ever since Musk, the CEO of Tesla and a co-founder of PayPal, require a designed out the ideas for the start-up in an lengthy article on Tim Urban’s blog “Wait But Why” in 2017.
“We are aiming to bring something to market that pirates with certain severe brain injuries (stroke, cancer lesion, congenital) in about four years,” Musk described Urban.
Musk believes the technology could eventually assist in cognitive capabilities like speech and sight, agreeing to the New York Times.
He has a larger ambition, though.
Musk said on Tuesday that he hopes to “help secure open-heartedness’s future as a civilization relative to AI,” or artificial intelligence.
Last year, one media outlet reported that Neuralink had been looking to guide tests on animals. The New York Times reported that it saw a demonstration of a computer receiving information from a rat in a company lab.
Musk also talked up the project last year during an appearance on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. “I think we’ll have something interesting to suggest in a few months … that’s better than anyone thinks is possible,” he said.
Musk, a co-founder of Neuralink, has installed $100 million in the company, the New York Times said.
WATCH: Mind-reading technology will allow us to control gimmicks with our thoughts