Sopuruchi Onwuka, with agency reports

Health concerns have trailed the introduction of the controversial Neuralink chips associated with more controversial Elon Musk into the human brain, even as more competitors enter the fray for chipped humans.

The Oracle Today reports that as the race to implant smart chip directly into human brain stem forms the center of new technology race, discerning analysts point cautiously at some monkeys that earlier received the chips.

According to reports reviewed by The Oracle Today, some 21 percent of the monkeys which Neuralink acquired from the California National Primate Research Center at the University of California, Davis, to form subjects early brain implants in 2019 and 2020 did not survive the experiment.

And with the high fatality risks in monkeys, Neuralink succeeded in implanting a chip into its first human brain on Sunday, sparking off a new technology race in which China has set a timeline to develop its own “brain-computer interface” as early as 2025.

China lists a “brain-computer interface” as one of its “innovative iconic products,” and aims to “make breakthroughs in key technologies and core devices such as brain-computer fusion, brain-like chips, and brain-computing neural models,” the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has stated.

These early announcements offer a glimpse into, potentially, the greatest international technology battle of the next decade. “Brain-inspired intelligence,” also known as generative AI, is cited several times as potentially being compatible with these new technologies

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology says it would like to develop several easy-to-use brain-interface products. The ministry notes brain technology could be used in driverless driving, virtual reality, and medical rehabilitation..

Last year, the Chinese government opened a 60-person laboratory focused entirely on brain-machine interfaces. The lab is primarily focused on turning its research into practical applications that could compete with Elon Musk’s Neuralink, according to the South China Morning Post.

Researchers in China also developed a computer device that connects to human brain through the inner ear. The device does not require a chip implant, like Neuralink, but can still provide “full-bandwidth data streaming” to the brain, reports The Independent.

Neuralink’s development of inserting a chip into a human brain is a significant one, but the technology is still in its infancy. Musk’s company believes that brain-computer interfaces could help people with disabilities.

Neuralink asked people with paralysis, deafness, or vision loss to be the first to participate in its study on brain chip implants.

The brain is the data center that tech companies have been after for the last two decades. With social media algorithms and internet tracking, such as cookies, tech has slowly been gaining an understanding of the human emotions.

With brain-computer interfaces, the biological barrier between a personand Big Tech would be ultimately erased. Tech would have unfettered access to human thoughts, and could potentially learn everything there is about a person.

But people find the new wave of technology pioneered by a controversial billionaire and one of the world’s controversial countries very terrifying; especially when results of early experiments with primates are revisited.

Musk declared on X that initial results show promising neuron spike detection after Neuralink implanted its wares in an unidentified human subject who was “recovering well.” But there’s been substantial controversy surrounding the brain-computer interface (BCI) company, including the way it handled its primate test subjects.

Last May, Neuralink announced on the Musk-owned social network that it had been granted Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to test its implants on humans, and a few months later said the agency was allowing it to begin recruiting for subjects.

Amid those announcements, however, were some jarring and grotesque reports about the fates that befell some of the company’s animal test subjects.

In a September report that dropped just a day after Neuralink announced that it was recruiting for its human trials, Wired reported that as many as a dozen of the rhesus macaques the company experimented upon suffered all manner of freakish symptoms, including brain swelling, partial paralysis, and self-harming behavior. Eventually, many of the monkeys had to be put down.

In one 2019 incident, a chip that was being implanted into one of the macaques’s brains “broke off” during the procedure. After the monkey woke up from its botched surgery, it scratched at the site of the implant, made itself bleed, and partially dislodged it. The wound, as it turned out, was infected, but because the implant blocked any treatment options, the macaque was euthanized.

Another 2019 experiment subject was witnessed pressing her head to the ground following implantation and picking at her surgery wound until it bled, eventually losing her coordination. She too was euthanized.

All told, some 21 percent of the company’s monkeys reportedly died because of brain implant issues.

It bears noting that these primates, which Neuralink acquired from the California National Primate Research Center at the University of California, Davis, were subjects early in the company’s history, with most of the experiments in question occurring in 2019 and 2020.

Nevertheless, information about the grisly details of those early trials appears not to have been shared with Neuralink’s investors.

As such, there has been pressure placed upon the Securities and Exchange Commission — a longtime foe of Musk’s, which has looked into various scandals at both Tesla and SpaceX — to investigate whether the company and its notorious owner misled investors by hushing up the macabre macaque situation.

While it remains unclear whether the SEC has opened a probe into Neuralink or plans to do so, it wouldn’t be the first time a federal agency has looked into its testing practices.

At the end of 2022, Reuters revealed that the US Department of Agriculture had opened an investigation into whether the firm violated the Animal Welfare Act. By July of 2023, however, the agency seemed to have closed its probe, saying that it found no evidence of animal research rule violations save for a 2019 incident that Neuralink itself reported.

In the world of experimental treatments and devices, animal trials often unfortunately do come with a death toll. Where Neuralink allegedly went wrong was failing to disclose all of that upfront to the public before asking for money — and before recruiting willing Musk stans to do risky brain surgery on them.