When you hear the name Elon Musk, the first thing that would probably come to your mind would be Tesla -- the company that makes the world's most popular electric car or SpaceX -- the company is revolutionising space travel.?
Reuters
However, Elon has a third company that many might not have heard of -- Neuralink, that is researching on creating brain implants to help people with neurological problems live a better life, and in a recent podcast with renowned podcaster Lex Fridman, he claimed that Neuralink is the key to solving brain diseases.?
Elon said in a statement, "So Neuralink I think, at first, will solve a lot of brain-related diseases. So, could be anything from, like, autism, schizophrenia, memory loss - like, everyone experiences memory loss at certain points in age. Parents can't remember their kids' names and that kind of thing."
Internet, on the other hand, wasn't happy with some comments made by Musk pertaining to Autism and calling it a disease. Debates have shed light on considering Autism a disorder and it is something that should be treated as a person's identity instead of a condition in a need to be fixed.
In case you didn't know, Musk has previously described the work Neuralink is doing as a "direct cortical interface". The idea is that, instead of humans using input and output devices to borrow a computer's processing power, it would be better to have a device that directly bridges the gap between our minds and their processors. That way, it turns us into superior versions of ourselves, with the computing power of a PC to augment our own brains.
Representative Image: Reuters
A recent paper revealed by Neuralink described testing a sort of needle-like device that implants a flexible polymer electrode into a rat's brain, capable of reading and interpreting the brain signals.?
While the device is far away from being tried on humans, Elon seems strongly positive about the project and had stated in a previous report that the technology could be as simple as conducting a laser-eye surgery.