Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors companies, founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company that aims to connect the human brain and computer interfaces in 2016. The Neuralink project of Elon Musk, one of the most spoken names in the world with his innovative ideas in recent years, is quite remarkable. Although this project arouses excitement at first, the fact that the intervention will be made directly to the human brain naturally brings along discussions of risk. Musk is trying to address concerns by saying that they are working very hard for Neuralink implant safety and are in constant contact with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Neuralink company aims to develop technological solutions for paralyzed people first, and then those who struggle with diseases such as ALS, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, memory loss and vision-hearing loss with the chips to be placed in the brain. Musk claims that Neuralink, which is defined as making sense of brain signals with electrodes connected to wires thinner than hair, will not even need to speak if it succeeds, and that people will not need to learn a foreign language soon. Drawing attention to the dangers of artificial intelligence by saying that he sees the future of humanity in the combination of artificial intelligence and the human brain, Musk emphasizes at every opportunity that artificial intelligence technology can be the end of humanity. He defends the view that integration will be achieved with the superior intelligence that will emerge as a result of the combination of the human brain and artificial intelligence, and only in this way can humanity be saved from the danger of artificial intelligence.
Computer-based systems that perceive, analyze and transmit the signals of the desired action are called brain-computer interface (interface) or brain-machine interface. Neuralink company, which aims to develop high-bandwidth brain-machine interfaces, claims that thanks to this project, people can control physical movements and computers with only thought power. For example, Stephen Hawking, a patient with ALS, had to write with eye movements to speak on the computer specially designed for him. According to Neuralink's claim, the considered speech can be read directly from the brain and transformed into computer sound without any other processing. It is planned to stimulate neurons and nerves by placing the design, which consists of four wires one-fourth the thickness of the hair and a coin-sized chip called Link, behind the ear. Musk adds that the chip can be inserted with a simple surgical procedure without the need for hospitalization, but they also need a perfect robot to place the electrodes precisely without touching the blood vessels in the brain. Aiming to combine the human brain and computer with Neuralink, Musk announced that the Neuralink chip, which connects the brain and the computer, received positive results from the experiments on pigs and monkeys and that they will start human experiments by the end of 2021 at the latest.
Becoming able to control a computer or a machine solely with the power of thought is an imaginative claim. For example, if it is said that when you want to write on the computer or phone screen, it will be sufficient to think of the word you will write without using the keyboard. Similarly, the claim that humans can control computers, machines, or bionic organs called neural prostheses only with the power of the mind was fantastic ideas we only encountered in science fiction movies and books so far. Such projects have not started with Elon Musk, who dreams of establishing an Earth-like settlement on Mars. It is known that scientists and engineers have been conducting research and experiments for years in this area called the brain-machine interface, which covers many branches of science such as neurobiology, artificial intelligence and robotics. However, although they have made some progress in this regard, it is a fact that they are at the very beginning of the road. The reason for the little progress is that the mystery of the human brain, which has an extremely complex structure and a specific way of working, has not yet been solved to a large extent. It is also always a strong possibility that this complex structure of the brain will never be fully resolved, so rather than defending or exaggeratedly opposing such projects, it is best to follow a balanced attitude.