Elon Musk’s company, Neuralink, is facing much controversial backlash. “A year after being cleared for the test, billionaire Elon Musk’s Neuralink has implanted its wireless brain chip in a human for the first time” states aljazeera.com.

      Musk’s company started out by developing the brain implant to help patients who are paralyzed and to help them communicate by a computer device. This was made to help people with a “spinal cord injury or Lou Gehrig’s disease” states mddionline.com. But, facilities in California and Texas started animal testing on monkeys, alongside other animals.

      Starting in 2016, Neuralink started as “a device the size of a coin is surgically implanted in the skull, with ultra-thin wires going into the brain and developing a brain-computer interface (BCI),” states aljazeera.com.

      They started out testing back in March of 2017 on animals, and, “Although Neuralink says no monkeys died as a result of their implants, there have been reports of issues with the implants on monkeys, including paralysis, seizures and brain swelling,” states aljazeera.com. There is a major risk in play when it comes to not only animal testing, but also the fact that we are implanting and surgically placing something on human and animal brains.

      We don’t know how this could affect humans, and this could be causing animals more damage than we realize, as “animal tests do not reliably predict results in human beings” states procon.org. We could be testing on these animals expecting results, but instead, we are potentially hurting more people if these surgeries go wrong and cause elevated damage.

       Trials on humans were approved in May 2023, with the estimated cost to be “$10,500,” according to standard.co.uk. The “U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors found problems with record keeping and quality controls for animal experiments,” states cnbc.com. They continued stating this happened less than a month after approval to be testing on humans.

      According to pewresearch.org, “63% of Americans said in the 2021 survey that the widespread use of brain chips would be ‘meddling with nature and crosses a line we should not cross.’” A much smaller share (35%) said their views were better described by the statement “as humans, we are always trying to better ourselves[,] and this is no different.”

      While we always are craving to improve the world and make things better for everyone, there is so much risk involved if we think of this idea years ahead. Everyone will have chips in their brains, and they will be able to think about things they want to do without having to physically do it. What is this going to do to the average person? We already claim so much harm in social media; what will happen when we start including technology inside of us?