Brain Chips to Replace Cell Phones in Future – Musk

Move over, cell phones! The future's calling, and it's in your brain! Tech mogul Elon Musk has gazed into his crystal ball (or maybe it was a Neuralink prototype) and declared that brain chips will make cell phones as outdated as rotary dials and MySpace pages.

Musk's Neuralink biotech company has been hard at work turning science fiction into science fact. Just last January, they implanted a brain chip in 30-year-old quadriplegic Noland Arbaugh. This chip, about the size of a coin (no need to check the couch cushions), was delicately placed in the brain's "move-it-or-lose-it" region. The chip records and transmits brain signals wirelessly to an app that decodes movement intentions, all while staying fashionably compact. No antennas sticking out, we promise.

Musk revealed his vision of a phone-free future in a tweet (sorry, I mean a post on "X") responding to a parody account named Not Elon Musk. The tweet asked, "Would you install a Neuralink interface on your brain to control your new X phone by thinking?" Musk, in his usual style, replied that "in the future, there will be no phones, just Neuralinks." Goodbye pocket dialing, hello brain dialing!

Neuralink's press release last year sounded like something out of a superhero origin story. Their Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface (PRIME) program aims to develop a "fully implantable, wireless brain-computer interface" that could turn people into real-life telepaths, or at least help them control a computer cursor with their thoughts. It's like magic, but with more wires and less Hogwarts.

The potential benefits are enormous: revolutionary treatments for paralysis, blindness, obesity, autism, depression, schizophrenia, and more. It's like a Swiss Army knife for your brain. During a 2018 interview with Joe Rogan, Musk even suggested that Neuralink could one day allow humans to communicate without using words. Imagine the blissful silence of Thanksgiving dinners!

In a historic move, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first chip implantation trial last May. Several weeks after the procedure, Musk reported that Arbaugh had made a "full recovery with no ill effects that we are aware of." The man could move a computer mouse around the screen "by just thinking." Talk about mind-blowing!

However, like any good sci-fi plot, there were a few bumps along the way. In May, Neuralink admitted that some tiny wires implanted in the brain had a mind of their own and got dislodged. But no worries, the FDA still gave the thumbs-up for a second human trial. This time, they're planning to implant the chip deeper into the brain to keep it from playing hide-and-seek.

The next experiment, slated for June, promises to be even more intriguing. According to the Wall Street Journal, another eight people are expected to take part in these futuristic brain chip trials by the end of the year. So, stay tuned for more updates – who knows, maybe soon we'll all be browsing the web with our brains, saving our thumbs for more important tasks, like opening pickle jars or giving a thumbs-up in real life.