Elon Musk has said his start-up firm Neuralink has successfully implanted a computer chip into a human’s brain for the first time – and people are convinced they know who it is.
Neuralink aims to give those with paralysis the ability to control their devices, including their smartphone, using just their thoughts, and is currently being trialled to test the functionality of its interface and the surgical robot used to implant the chips.
Neuralink says the threads of its implant are so fine that they cannot be inserted by the human hand, so a specially designed and built Neuralink surgical robot carries out the procedure.
Mr Musk hinted at a positive start to the trial, posting to X, the social media platform he owns, that “initial test results show promising neuron spike detection” – in reference to the cells that use electrical and chemical signals to send information around the brain and to the rest of the body.
But the announcement prompted a somewhat unexpected reaction elsewhere on social media, as people humorously started to guess who the first patient could have been.