Alongside any therapeutic applications, Musks goal is to advance human intelligence with the chip.
He sees it sitting on top of the limbic system, the more primitive part of the brain, and the cortex, the cerebral part, as a third layer that augments their intelligence.
Mr Musk, who has warned about the dangers of artificial intelligence, said this would mean symbiosis with AI.
Even in a benign AI scenario we will be left behind. With a high bandwidth brain-machine interface we will go along with the ride, we will have the option of merging with AI, he said.
The company said earlier this year that he hopes human trials of Neuralink technology will take place later this year, pending US regulatory approval
Matthew MacDougall, Neuralink’s head neurosurgeon, said: “Our first trial involves patients with spinal cord injury – paraplegia, tetraplegia. We plan to enrol a small number of patients. You could solve blindness, paralysis.”
He added that the company wanted to get the price of a brain implant for humans down to a few thousand dollars “inclusive of the automated surgery”, making it similar to the cost of laser eye surgery.
