Elon Musk’s brain interface company Neuralink on Saturday showcased its updated device in a live stream event on YouTube.
The company created with the aim to achieve a "symbiosis with artificial intelligence” shared its progress at its live-streamed YouTube event.
Neuralink showcased a pig named Gertrude outfitted with its latest brain interface device.
The processor fitted in the pig’s brain was used to identify neural activity in the snout when Gertrude went looking for food. It could transmit wireless signals indicating neural activity in her snout. This activity was shown on a graph.
Updated from the device showcased last year, the coin-shaped brain device by Neuralink is much smaller with Musk calling it a “Fitbit for your skull.”
"It actually fits quite nicely in your skull. It could be under your hair and you wouldn't know,” he said.
Such a device could have multiple applications including helping with conditions such as dementia, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries.
The company is currently developing a device that contains over 3,000 electrodes attached to flexible threads thinner than a human hair and can monitor the activity of 1,000 brain neurons, as per a BBC report.
Musk has funded the company to bring in an age of what he calls "superhuman cognition," according to the report. The tech mogul is aiming to merge the human brain with AI.
"Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence," Musk had said at the Neuralink launch event in 2017 as quoted by the Verge.
"It's mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output,” he had said.