Elon Musk says Neuralink brain implant is nearing human trials

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Elon Musk says his brain computer interface (BCI) company Neuralink is almost ready to start human trials, possibly by the middle of 2023.  

At an event that appeared to be another recruitment drive for Neuralink, Musk – chief of Tesla, Space X, and owner of Twitter – said the BCI startup could put one of its devices in a person's head in six months' time, meaning at some point in 2023. 

Musk previously hoped to have done that by 2020. 

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Since 2017, the firm has been working on an interface to connect computers to brains, and in the mean time the startup has been testing its prototype hardware implant on monkeys. 

Also: If we put computers in our brains, strange things might happen to our minds

Neuralink is just one company exploring BCI computing, an emerging field made possible by medical technologies that make use of EEG and MRI to reveal the physical workings of the brain in action. It's highlighted the possibility of directly connecting a human brain to computers. Scientists have explored BCI for people suffering severe muscle control diseases like ALS (Lou Gerig's or motor neurone disease) by transforming thoughts into text. That's one goal of Nueralink, but Musk has also said BCI holds potential to help humans keep pace with artificial intelligence.   

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