Brain chips become more intelligent. Neuralink’s Elon Musk gets the competition star-news.press/wp

A copy of this article originally appeared in a weekend newsletter for quartz members only. Quartz members get access to exclusive newsletters and more. Subscribe here.

After more than five decades of research, brain implants have evolved quietly of experimental waste confined to search laboratories in performance tools that already change life.

Seven people now have the brain chip in Neuralink, allowing them to control computers, design 3D parts, and even continue to work despite severe paralysis. Meanwhile, competitors such as Paradromics have achieved the first human transplant, and researchers at the University of California Davis have created a system that translates ideas directly into speech in only 10 milliliters. The progress was great, even if technology was still facing great obstacles before it could fulfill its ambitious promises.

The shift is the most obvious in life Noland ArbuThe first patient from Elon Musk’s Neuralink. Paralysis from the shoulders down in a diving accident, the 31 -year -old first used his brain implant primarily for games. But he has now moved beyond entertainment, focusing on emails, editing websites, searching, banking services, and other daily tasks – mainly rebuilding his independence through digital means.

“I constantly find ways to improve my life and provide myself financially,” and it is recently Pcmag said.

This development reflects from the grandmother to the broader maturity of the technology of the Brain computer interface (BCI). Mike, the fourth Neuralink patient who only goes in his first name, became his first person Full -time function for technologyWork as a wiping from home using a computer design program. Alex, a former machine spare part, now designs 3D ingredients despite the loss of his functions of his arms.

While Neuralink receives the most attention – with the help of Musk promotional ingenuity and The last $ 650 million financing round – It is barely alone in this field. The company faces intense competition from many competitors, each of which takes different technological curricula that can determine those who reach the market first.

Crane I completed the first human transplant last monthPlacing a major milestone to start operating in Austin, which features a brain slide with it 1600 pillars compared to Neuralink’s 1,024. The exact nerve science, which was postponed by former Neuralink Ben Rapoport, follows a less invasive approach with thin films sitting on the surface of the brain rather than penetrating it. receive Reducing the FDA for limited use earlier this year.

Synchron, who has already planted 10 people with his devices, avoids the skull completely, and the poles are connected to the blood vessels. With the support of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, it will be soon The first BCI with the Bluetooth connection for Apple devices.

Recent developments indicate that technology reaches its step. UC Davis speech synthesis It represents a fundamental shift From the previous approach. Instead of translating brain signals into a text and then collecting speech-a process that created great delays-the UC Davis system converts ideas directly into sounds with a time of 10 milliliters.

Meanwhile, researchers in Carnegie Mellon have fulfilled In real time controlling individual mechanical fingers Using nonG technology, wearing a cover that reads brain signals through the skull. This indicates that future brain facades may not require surgery at all for certain applications.

Despite the remarkable progress, great obstacles remain before BCIS become prevailing medical devices. The Speech System at the University of California Davis, despite the promising, still has a 43.75 % error rate in open copy tests – an improvement in the patient’s natural speech, but away from perfect communication.

In addition to accuracy improvements, companies must also solve cybersecurity and privacy challenges, and protect nervous data that can represent the most intimate information that humans generate while ensuring reliably dismantling AI algorithms across various patients and cases.

However, industry executives are increasingly confident in progress from clinical trials to marketing. Many companies expect to bring first generation products to marketing within two to three years, and to target people with spinal cord injuries or Als. These devices are likely to provide smartphones and computer control, access to productivity programs and basic communication capabilities.

The first market may be small, with a focus on people with severe movement disabilities. But the effects of most likely will extend beyond that group. Even if he was the first to get Neuralink, Arbau said everyone who wants It will be at the end BCI. Like CRISPR Genetics Editing before, brain implants are preparing to challenge basic assumptions about human ability and forcing society to deal with questions related to cognitive reinforcement and what it means to be a human being.

Currently, technology is something more modest but deep: the independence of people who lost physical control over their bodies. Arbau and others who test these devices today are pioneers as it may become a much greater transformation of human ability.