Neuralink, a company working to develop computer interfaces that can be implanted into human brains, inserted its first device into a patient on Sunday, its founder Elon Musk said.
Mr. Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said on Monday that the company's first product was called Telepathy and would allow a person to control a phone or computer “just by thinking.”
“First users will be those who no longer have the use of their limbs,” Musk said wrote in a series of posts on X, his social media platform. “Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer.”
Mr. Musk and Neuralink did not provide further details about who received the implant or whether it worked. Mr. Musk did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
In November 2022, Mr. Musk predicted that the company would begin human testing within six months. At that time, Neuralink demonstrated a product in a video that purportedly showed two monkeys moving computer cursors with their brains, a feat that had been demonstrated in humans more than 15 years earlier.
While Mr. Musk is often optimistic about predictions for his companies, some of which have yet to materialize, Neuralink received approval from the Food and Drug Administration to begin human trials last May.
The company's website currently states that the “initial clinical trial is open to recruiting individuals” who have limited or no use of both hands due to an injury to the cervical spine or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurological disease that affects nerve cells can.
“This study involves inserting a small, cosmetically invisible implant into a part of the brain that plans movements,” Neuralink’s website says. “The device is designed to interpret a person’s neural activity so they can operate a computer or smartphone simply by intending to move – no wires or physical movement required.”
At the Neuralink presentation in late 2022, Mr. Musk said the company's devices would eventually allow blind people to see or give “full-body functionality” to someone with a severed spinal cord. His claims at the time were met with skepticism by experts who argued that science was not yet that advanced.