Neuralink, an Elon Musk-owned company that develops brain chip technology, has attracted controversy once more. Animal trials of the brain chips have been linked to the deaths of 15 monkeys used in experimentation, with only seven said to have survived.
These allegations come from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), which says it has discovered this through over 700 pages of documents acquired through the University of California Davis. The apparent deaths span 2017 to 2020, which if true, would explain why human experimentation was pushed back two years from its projected date.
The allegations come from reports in Business Insider and the New York Post. The sources say that monkeys used in animal trials of the Neuralink chips - which are apparently threaded into their brains - undergo "extreme suffering". Both physical and neurological side effects are reported, ranging from brain haemorrhaging to self-harming behaviour. In one instance, a monkey was found to have missing fingers and toes, "possibly from self-mutilation or some other unspecified trauma". Others are reported to have died of infection as a result of poor care after the chip was inserted.
This report is a far cry from a video shared last year, which portayed a monkey calmly playing Pong. The company claims that the game was being played with the chip, without the need for a controller and using brain activity alone.
Human trials were originally said to start in 2020, but this was pushed back to 2022. Recent reports say that the company is still going ahead with these plans, and has already started hiring for the experimentation.
Musk has, unsurprisingly, made no shortage of promises when it comes to what the Neuralink chip will be capable of. Last month, he pledged that users would be able to replay memories, and scroll through social media without lifting a finger. Further still, he says that the chip should be able to restore full-body functionality in a user with a spinal cord injury.
Musk and Neuralink are yet to respond to these recent allegations, and it's not known if the reports will delay human trials.