Rage against the machine: Americans warn Elon Musk to ‘stop creating cyborgs’ after he revealed the first human has had Neuralink’s brain chip

Elon Musk has terrified even his most ardent fans after revealing that his technology start-up Neuralink has become the first to successfully implant a microchip in a human brain.

The world’s richest man said the operation took place on Sunday and that “initial results show promising detection of neuron spikes.”

The device, called “Telepathy,” will “enable control of your phone or computer, and through them, virtually any device, just by thinking,” he said.

But many of his 170 million followers on X, formerly Twitter, accused him of ‘mind control’, creating ‘cyborgs’ and even ‘playing God’.

“The negative potential of this makes me very uncomfortable,” one person wrote in a reply to his announcement.

“I’m getting terrified just thinking about it,” another added.

Musk said he hopes disabled users like Stephen Hawking can communicate “faster than an auctioneer.”

The first users are those who have lost the use of their limbs. Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer. That’s the goal.’

The company wants to implant microchips in the brains of paralyzed people so that they can move their bodies using their thoughts.

“I think the real problem here is that even your thoughts won’t be safe,” *TemplerTV tweeted.

“If they can decipher your thoughts for this, how long will it take for the FBI to get a search warrant for your thought crime?”

“What if someone else starts controlling you, and you can easily understand who I am talking about,” Sagar Pandey added, “scary.”

“Any technological progress must be based on bioethical principles, otherwise playing God always ends badly,” wrote Juan Manuel Gongora.

But others were more positive.

‘Well done Neuralink and Elon!! This could very well be an important moment in history,” one user wrote.

‘This is great news, we are expanding to the last two borders. Space and spirit, I can’t wait for the next company lecture. So excited!’ wrote another.

Neuralink announced in September that it would soon begin a human trial to evaluate the safety of its implant.

It comes less than a year after Neuralink received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to operate on humans, a crucial milestone for the startup.

Musk wrote on X on Monday evening: ‘The first human received an implant from @Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well. The first results show promising detection of neuron spikes.’

No details about the patient were given, but Ashlee Vance, who wrote a 2015 biography, “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future,” wrote in a Bloomberg report that the ideal candidate for Neuralink’s first human trial was “an adult under the age of 40 whose four limbs are paralyzed.”

Vance explained that it would take a “few hours” for a surgeon to perform a craniectomy and another 25 minutes for the chip to be inserted by a robot into the area of ​​the brain that controls the hands, wrists and forearms.

“The goal is to demonstrate that the device can safely collect useful data from that part of the patient’s brain, an important step in Neuralink’s efforts to convert a person’s thoughts into a series of commands that a computer can understand,” Vance added.

Vance said the implant would relay this information to a nearby laptop or tablet.

During the human trial, a robot developed by the company will surgically place the implants’ “ultra-fine” wires that help transmit signals in participants’ brains, the company said.

Vance, who said he had visited Neuralink’s facilities 10 times in three years, also revealed how Musk pushed his company to fend off the threat from similar brain-computer startups Synchron and Onward.

Both have already begun human trials, leading the billionaire to conclude last year that the two companies were “kicking our ass right now.”

In response, he allegedly told Neuralink to pick up the pace “as if the world was ending,” Vance said.

Reuters reported in June that the company was valued at as much as $5 billion based on private stock transactions.

However, Neuralink has been dogged by controversy in recent years, raising ethical concerns and skepticism among neuroscientists and other experts.

Safety concerns caused the company to struggle for a while to get the necessary approval for human trials, especially from the FDA.

Major issues involved the device’s lithium battery; the possibility of the implant wires migrating within the brain; and the challenge of safely removing the device without damaging brain tissue.

The FDA later granted its approval in May, but did not disclose how its initial concerns were resolved.

Despite the controversy, Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, has big ambitions for Neuralink. He says the company will facilitate rapid surgical insertions of its chip devices to treat conditions such as obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia.

It would also enable web browsing and telepathy.

But even if the device proves safe for human use, it could still potentially take more than a decade before Neuralink is cleared to market it, experts warn.

Experts say the brain implants will need to undergo extensive testing to overcome technical and ethical challenges if they are to become widely available.

Musk’s company – which was only founded in 2016 – has repeatedly overestimated the speed at which it is delivering on its promises.

Initially, Neuralink wanted to start inserting chips into people in 2020, and then push this back to 2022. The time will finally come in 2024.

There was also a word of caution from one of the company’s executives in response to Musk’s demands.

Referring to the fate of SpaceX’s first few rocket launches, Shivon Zilis, Neuralink special projects director and mother of two of Musk’s children, told Vance: “We can’t blow up the first three. That’s not an option here.’