"The
first use of the technology will be to repair brain injuries
as a result of stroke or cutting out a cancer lesion, where
somebody's fundamentally lost a certain cognitive element,"
Musk told Tim Urban for an expansive
article on the site Wait Buy Why.
"It
could help with people who are quadriplegics or paraplegics
by providing a neural shunt from the motor cortex down to
where the muscles are activated," Musk said. "It can help
with people who, as they get older, have memory problems and
can't remember the names of their kids, through memory
enhancement, which could allow them to function well to a
much later time in lifeāthe medically advantageous elements
of this for dealing with mental disablement of one kind or
another, which of course happens to all of us when we get
old enough, are very significant."
Urban's
article, based on his conversations with Musk, did not touch
on animal testing.
The
letter from Birchall noted the company was looking to abide
by law with its research efforts.
"This
will follow the CNC/NIH Animal Biosafety Laboratory Level 1.
The use of rodents is exempt from the Animal Welfare Act,"
Birchall wrote.
The
Gizmodo report says an architect subsequently told the city
that the company was looking outside San Francisco to set up
a lab, and that Neuralink has begun sponsoring research at
the University of California, Davis. Ultimately Neuralink
did receive approval from California's state public health
department to keep and use animals at its San Francisco
headquarters.
It's
not certain that animal testing has begun, though. Neuralink
did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk
is known to violate all kinds of laws and ethics standards
when "no one is looking..."