What is Neuralink and why is it Unique?

Neuralink was founded in 2016 by Elon Musk and a group of neuroscientists and robotics engineers, with the aim of developing chips that are implanted inside the brain to capture the electrical nerve signals it emits and send them to a computer to analyze them and understand their meaning to help patients suffering from paralysis to move arms and electronic tools.

New Idea

The idea was not new. Such devices are called brain-computer interfaces (BCI), and work on developing them began in the 1960s. BlackRock Neurotech was able to implant its first chip in the brain of a paralyzed patient in 2004.

But What made Neuralink stand out was its association with Elon Musk, who marketed it as a tool to connect humans with technology and expand human intelligence. He did not market it as a tool to help people with mobility disabilities only. So it created a lot of hype and interest, as it was linked to what we saw in science fiction films such as The Matrix, and in the eyes of many it became a technology of the future capable not only of reading thoughts, but also of transferring information from the computer directly to the brain.

How does Neuralink work?

On the technical level, Neuralink was distinguished by the design of its new device, which consists of fine…