Silicon Valley focuses on man-machine hybridization. After Bezos, Bill Gates also invests in Synchron, the company that manufactures brain implants to allow interaction between men and machines.
The interest of Silicon Valley tycoons continues for neural interfaces.
Synchron, the US neurotechnology company founded by a group of entrepreneurs in 2012, recently announced yet another round of funding, this time for 75 million dollars, which saw the participation of Bezos Expeditions, Gates Frontier and Arch Venture Partners.
Synchron has already raised over $40 million last year to develop its technology that allows microscopic electrodes to be connected to the brain from the surface of the brain’s motor cortex via the jugular vein. Now, Bill Gates too has, therefore, decided to invest in the company, also known as the direct competitor of Neuralink.
When we speak of Brain-computer interface (BCI), in fact, we immediately think of Neuralink, where the CEO of Tesla and Starlink, Elon Musk, invested over 100 million to launch the startup in 2016, whose mission is to hybridize man with machines. Neuralink has had a stormy path since its inception, with the dismissal of some key figures and the mysterious investments made by the same Musk in Synchron.
Neuralink, in fact, has often ended up in the headlines for scandals, inefficiencies and for alleged animal abuse during testing. In recent days, Neuralink has also been accused of illegally transporting dangerous pathogens.
Synchron, on the other hand, has achieved surprising results in the human-machine interface and has already obtained definitive approval from the Food and Drug Administration of the United States in 2021 for the green light to implant a device called Stentrode on some paralysis patients. Stentrode is not implanted directly into the brain but connected to it via blood vessels, with a procedure similar to that of inserting a stent. Once implanted, the interface will wirelessly sense and transmit information from the brain.
Thanks to this technology, Rodney Gorham, a software salesman originally from Australia, was able to overcome the difficulties that Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis caused him by progressively compromising his ability to speak and write.
The Neuralink chip, on the other hand, is implanted through an 8 mm hole in the skull and connected to the brain with threads thinner than a human hair, which can be "injected" with a 24 micron needle to detect the activity of neurons. The implant must take place under the guidance of a neurosurgeon, by the hand of a robot programmed to minimize the risk margin for health and brain function.
To legitimize this type of research, the aim is to make the public believe that neural devices are used exclusively to treat neurodegenerative pathologies or paralysis. But other more insidious goals have been revealed by the tycoons who invest in these researches, starting with Musk himself. Neuralink, for example, was born from Musk’s desire to hybridize man with machines to stem the danger of Artificial Intelligence, defined by the visionary entrepreneur as «the greatest threat to our existence ". According to Musk, over time robots could become smarter than us and end up supplanting us: AI can create "an immortal dictator" from whom "it is not possible to escape" and who, unlike human despots, would not age.
Obsessed with the idea of a possible "robot apocalypse", Musk thus focuses on human enhancement, the only way, in his opinion, to prevent and reject the risks of AI and on the other to guarantee a form of digital immortality: a goal, that of immortality, which he shares with Jeff Bezos who, in addition to having invested in Synchron, has also recently financed with three billion dollars Altos Labs. The ambitious project of this anti-aging company is to pursue biological reprogramming technology, with the aim of rejuvenating cells in the laboratory and prolonging human life.
Not only paralysis or neurodegenerative pathologies, even death, for the magnates of the Silicon Valley, is, quoting Peter Thiel, a "problem" to be solved. An ideology that pushes billionaires of the caliber of Peter Thiel, Larry Page, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Bryan Johnson, Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos to invest in human-machine hybridization and research about eternity. In the vain illusion of making Man immune to disease, decay and death.
Original article published on Money.it Italy 2023-02-21 10:00:00. Original title: Bill Gates investe in Synchron, rivale di Neuralink
