Neuralink and Elon Musk Deep Dive (Medium)

Hello All,

I hope you are doing much better than I am today. I wrote this deep dive yesterday, and tried to post it...butttt it didn't work. My laptop then died and I lost all the material!

This took so much research to complete and I had to teach myself multiple new concepts to explain it in a simplistic yet entertaining manner. So here we go, round 2.

I chose to do Neuralink this time around because I think it is important for investors to understand what it is, and how it relates to the market with AI. Although Neuralink is not publicly traded, it could absolutly have some affect on Elon Musk and Tesla -- similar to how Twitter affected Tesla's share price in the early months of his purchase.

(In this article I will be referring to Neuralink as Neuralink or NL)

Elon Musk Biography

I. Early Musk.

A lot of investors and other everyday people are familiar with the name Elon Musk. Born to a South African Father and Canadian Mother, Elon demonstrated a noticable talent with computers where at the age of twelve he created his first videogame and sold it to a computer magazine. Incredible right? Well, that's just the beginning.

II. Education.

Whether you like Elon or not, most investors cannot deny his entrepreneualship or intellegence. Musk's university career began at Queens University in Canada, but later transferred to the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania in 1992 where he achieved a degree in physics and economics in 1997. Afterwards, Elon went on to enroll at Stanford University, although was admitted, Mr. Musk left the university after two days due to his belief that technology is where he needed to be full time. And what a good choice indeed!

III. Works

Prior to leaving Stanford, Elon invented Zip2 in 1995. A mapping and directory company used by newspapers. Elon eventually sold Zip2 for $307 million to Compaq in 1999. With his eyes set to the sky, thoughts exploding with new ideas for the furture and a light couple hundred million in his bank account, there was no stopping the mad man in his quest for innovation.

Elon now had some decent liquidity. Enough to look beyond what is possible on earth and set his sights further into the stars. This proved to be more than just a hobby, but one of Elons personal greatist achievements. SpaceX, founded in 2002, was now Elon's third ever company with the new goal of creating more affordable rockets. By 2008 however, SpaceX's reputation shot to the moon with NASA officially awarding the company and just like that, Musk had skin in the game.

I won't be going into Tesla in this article as it deserves a Deep Dive on its own. Sorry!

Why do we care?

However, most of these companies offer AI software or solutions of some sort. These are great achievements, but have you heard of physical AI? AI that you can listen to, AI that you can monitor, AI that you can feel, and most notably -- AI for the human brain? Maybe, but lets assume you haven't. What sort of device does something like this, and how will it impact humanity? Let's find out.

What is Neuralink?

What is Neuralink Developing?

II. Neuralink is creating a chip, N1, that processes and transmit neural signals to an end device, such as a computer or phone. They are also creating a robot to implant N1 into the brain due to the nature of its fragile components. this sort of chip is known as a BCI, or Brain-Computer Interface.

How does it work?

(This is the part where I spent most of my time researching, understanding and putting it into a way where we can all comprehend the fundamentals of how it works)

Neural Electrophysiological Recording.

III. Essentially what this is the process of recording the communication between neural : muscular : brain ratio. Electrophysiology itself involves measuring electrical potentials and current flows inside, outside and around the cell membrane.

Here is a brief graph that demonstrates what spinal cord Electrophysiology records.

What we can gather from this data is that depending on the contraction or expansion of the rodents spinal cord. Each letter represents different data recorded from optical stimulation (A), physical image of the implant (B) spontaneous activity induced by acute conditions (for example: confusion) (C) and much more.

The same works for Neuralink, but in the brain. The N1 chip is meant to decipher different actions, their outputs and the reasons for them.

TLDR: N1 will use Electrophysiological recording to decode neural signals and transmit it as data to a computer for research.

For example: I am typing right now. The way I am typing, the words I type, the order of words I type and the physical process of me typing is all unconsciously, subconsciously, and consciously influence by different parts of the brain transmitted through the medium of neurons. They depict or explain the words I chose to write the way I write them. What Nuralink will attempt to do is describe the ways in which I typed the words I chose to type, the communication between my brain and the act of typing, spontaneous actions I made along the way and other attributes as well.

Another example: Neuralink, in its basic of form, will record and feed back to a computer why / how I ma I mad e a Ima I am making I made a, the way, i, I made this sentance the way I made it. (Point is, I could have typed that sentence in an incomprehensible amount of ways including typos, corrections, pauses, commas, and so so so much more. The N1 will listen to the communication between my brain, cells and muscles to try and decode them back to a computer for establish patterns for research purposes)

The BCI os also capable of reading and writing from millions of neurons in the brain and translating everything inbetween to computers.

There are other applications that N1 will record or preform, however its limits are almost boundless and writing about them would take way too long haha.

(Please do your own research)

What will this achieve / What is the purpose?

IV. Medicine.

In April 2021, Musk remarked that "First @Neuralink product will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs". Neuralink's capacity, as we have a brief understanding now, can theoretically treat neurological disorders, and could also improve cognitive skills such as memory, attention and response. It is also speculated that N1 could assist learning more about Alzheimer's and other cognitive disorders.

Neuralink Controversies

I. It should go without saying that planting a chip in the brain of any life form will come with backlash. Animal cruelty concerns have been the focus of attention especially since Elons initial testing began with Monkeys and Pigs. It is understood to a certain extent than Humans evolved from primates, which explains why Elon chose monkeys. However, animal rights groups claimed that elon was mistreating monkeys and subjecting them to "extreme suffering" while testing out the brain implants. Elon, in total, used 23 monkeys which were experimented upon from 2017 to 2020.

Neuralink Today

I. Despite the claims of activists, Elon recently was approved by the FDA to conduct the first experiments on Humans. This news came out after market close where Tesla gained a bit, but it was not until the next day where the stock shot up. FDA approval for anything is a major catalyst, but it is not clear whether the move came from the FDA's go ahead, or good news the following day. I am leaning that it had to do with good news the following day since pre-market did not move too much. The goal Elon with his implant is to sync up the human brain with AI which could lead to ones ability to control prosthetic limbs, computers and other devices through thoughts.

Market

I. Tesla and Neuralink are separate companies. Yes, they are both owned by Elon Musk, but a lot of investors right now seem to not correlate Tesla price to Neuralink advancements. Will this continue to be the case? Probably not. I can see that if Neuralink makes any sort of breakthrough, investors may flood into Tesla due to Elon's reputation. We have seen how Twitter affected the Tesla price, so a historical breakthrough might do the same.

FDA

I. Although Neuralink was recently awarded the FDA's approval to study on humans, there are some concerns. These include surgery, side affects, power supply, wire migration, removal, and many more which we just do not know about yet. Whether there is a safe way to get the chip in, what side affects may occur, whether or not the power from the BCI is safe from overheating or short circuiting, fixing any wire assembly that may not be perfectly in place, or the process of removing a chip once it has been installed into a human brain are all questions that cannot be seen at this moment and will come with complications.

Conclusion

I. This took me sooo long to do research for, explain, and write in a manner that I think a majority of us can comprehend. There is a ton of biological, chemical and medical studies conducted about Electrophysiological Recording and the different techniques used to achieve the same goal. So thank you for reading and all of your support.

II. Neuralink is an AI company, and different than the rest. The amount of research that can be studied by the N1 in human brains is endless, and could lead to some serious revolutionary discoveries.

III. Will Neuralink influence the price of Tesla? I think it can. When the FDA approves of anything, there is usually a large market reaction. However, I think right now investors of Tesla are not focused, or do not recognize, the potential that Neuralink can have. Maybe eventually, Tesla will have a feature where you can control settings, or even driving, with your brain. Would this make tesla a buy? Not sure. The market right now is rallying. If I was to place a trade on Tesla, I might wait for a pullback, but eventually I think Neuralink will influence the price.

To be clear, my intentions are looking at the fundamentals of Neuralink. I could be wrong in parts of my understandings and I always encourage readers to do your own research. There could be other negatives or positives about Neuralink that I have missed, but for the most part these are my thoughts and ideas based on research and case studies on Neuralink. How you choose to act, and perceive this information including future profits and losses is entirely up to you.

Thank you again for reading this article, it was fun to make and I learned so much about what Neuralink is, what it is capable of, and how it works fundamentally. Your support is greatly appreciated, and motivates me to continue doing Deep Dives into different companies and ideas! I hope this information is consistent and informative.