Per Editor: Li Zedong
Brain-computer interface technology is seen by Musk as a way for humans to achieve "immortality", however, this technology needs a living "test product" before it can be formally applied.
According to CbN reported on February 15, the US animal protection organization PCRM (Committee of Responsible Medical Practitioners) filed a lawsuit last week against Neuralink, the brain-computer interface company of Musk, the world's richest man, accusing it of "abusing" monkeys.
Neuralink issued its latest response to this: "All new medical devices must be tested on animals and then on humans. This is a rule that Neuralink cannot escape, and all experiments comply with applicable federal law. ”
According to PCRM, Neuralink conducted experiments on at least 23 monkeys between 2017 and 2020, and said that during the experiment, the company performed extremely invasive skull implants on monkeys that caused the animals to suffer extremely. According to media reports, only 7 monkeys were eventually transferred to Neuralink's animal house and survived.
In response, Neuralink detailed the causes of death in several monkeys, saying that many of them were already in poor health before the trial was conducted and were about to be euthanized.
The 2017-2020 experiments the lawsuit targeted were conducted at the University of California, Davis, which has a center dedicated to primates.
PCRM found a document of more than 700 pages describing the experiments, including autopsy reports, some of which led to infections in monkeys and others that caused monkeys to self-harm and seizures. The organization believes that these situations are caused by a lack of care and animal cruelty.
In response, Neuralink said that from 2020, the company will transfer these monkeys to its own animal house to improve the quality of life of the monkeys. The company statement said: "We are absolutely committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible. ”
According to CCTV, in April 2021, Neuralink published a video of monkeys playing video games with their own minds on social media. At the time, Musk said the long-term goal of the technology was to allow paralyzed people to use their phones through their minds.
It is understood that the monkey in this video is a 9-year-old macaque monkey who has always been named Pag, and was implanted with a brain-computer interface before the video was filmed.
Initially, the research team taught Pag to play games using a joystick and rewarded it with a banana shake fed through a metal straw. At this stage, the brain-computer device records which neurons are activated, modeling the relationship between Pag's neural activity and the expected direction of movement, enabling a "brain-computer connection." The researchers then disconnected the joystick from the computer, and without the joystick, Pag controlled the cursor with only its mind and continued to play the game of ping-pong.
As a new technology, brain-computer interface has emerged some new research and applications in recent years. As early as 2016, Musk founded this company dedicated to the study of brain-computer interfaces.
The so-called "brain-computer interface" is to use the current to interact with the computer and brain cells by implanting tiny electrodes in the brain. In 2019, Musk released his first product, which is based on the principle of drilling holes in the skull with a laser, and then avoiding the cerebral blood vessels and implanting a line into the brain.
In August 2020, to verify the effects of the brain-computer interface, researchers implanted devices in the bodies of three pigs, and Musk showed viewers the real-time transmission of piglet brain activity during the live broadcast.
Musk said that the brain-computer interface is connected to neurons in the pig's nose, so when it sniffs around and touches an object with its nose, it sends out neural signals.
Musk said that in the future, brain-computer interface technology can help solve the limitations of the human body, such as helping people with quadriplegics use mobile phones or even walk again.
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