Blog Post #3: Discussing advances in Neuralink in monkeys
Did you know that Elon Musk’s Neuralink technology has been tested on monkeys? The ultimate goal is for this technology to be used to benefit humans, but Musk has decided to use monkeys as one of his first test subjects. Neuralink uses an implanted device in the monkeys to send brain signals out wirelessly to other devices, such as a computer. One experiment even involved a monkey playing the computer game “Pong” on a computer using only its mind. The monkey started out using a joystick, and its neural activity was mapped. Then, the data was used to allow the monkey to play the game with its mind, rather than the joystick. There have been deaths reported related to this experiment. It has been discovered that at least a dozen monkeys have died after having the Neuralink chip inserted. There are benefits seen with the experiment, such as allowing the brain to control an external system without the use of physical extremities. While these benefits are displays of large leaps in technology, it can also be argued that these benefits do not outweigh the fact that the lives of test subjects are at risk. This moral question is often presented during scientific experiments, but it is important that the researcher maintains a certain code of ethics while conducting experiments.