Take Musk’s claims with a grain of salt. For one thing, Neuralink is relatively new to the neurotech business, which is itself a somewhat novel area of exploration. Musk’s company was just getting started as brain technology seemed bound to boom. Neurotech Reports, an industry analyst, projected in 2016 that the $7.6 billion neurotech market could reach $12 billion by 2020 and Wired magazine called 2017, “a coming-out year for the brain machine interface (BMI).”

Another reason to be wary, Musk loves futurology. He’s ready for tomorrow. But whether his products are isn’t always clear. Max Hodak, president of Neuralink, who also spoke at the announcement, admitted that he wasn’t originally sure “this technology was a good idea.” He said, however, that Musk convinced him of its possibilities.

Even Musk knows that he has to take it a little slow. He insists that people have nothing to fear. “It’s not going to be suddenly Neuralink will have this neural lace and start taking over people’s brains,” Musk said. Rather, he hopes Neuralink will help humans “to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence.”

But all of that is still a long way off. Neuralink is still working on testing its BMI on rats and will need FDA approval to try it on humans. The company isn’t ready for that yet and Musk made it a point to say he hoped his presentation would help to attract talent to advance the experiment.

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