Elon Musk's AI Chips Implants To The Brain Will 'Solve' Autism, Schizophrenia

Elon Musk is out to “solve” autism and schizophrenia. However, it will not be through any kind of revolutionary drug or treatment or even surgery of any kind. No, Elon Musk is looking to plant AI chips in the brain to bring a solution to these conditions.

Appearing in the recent “Artificial Intelligence” podcast with MIT research scientist Lex Fridman, Musk talked about how his neurotechnology company Neuralink is planning to “solve” autism and schizophrenia with the AI brain implants that they are developing.

"So Neuralink, I think at first will solve a lot of brain-related diseases,” Musk said in the podcast. “So could be anything from like autism, schizophrenia, memory loss at certain points in age. Parents can't remember their kids' names and that kind of thing.”

As to what he meant by “solving” these conditions, he did not go into more details anymore. However, he did explain the basic process of how they plan to do this “solving.”

“To be able to do this, you have to be able to interface with the neurons at a detail level,” he added. “And you need to be able to fire the right neurons, read the right neurons and then effectively create a circuit to replace what’s broken with silicon, which will end up having the same functionality.”

Autism is not characterized as a disease but rather a severe mental disorder. The UK National Autistic Society describes it as something that is “not an illness or disease and cannot be 'cured'. Often people feel being autistic is a fundamental aspect of their identity.”

Schizophrenia, on the other hand, is a mental condition that usually appears during late adolescent to early adulthood. It has no known cure as well but the condition is manageable through therapy and medications.

Neuralink Corporation, one of Elon Musk’s many companies, was founded way back in 2016. Initially, the existence and operations of the company were kept a secret from the general public. It was not until 2017 when the public was first informed of its existence.