“Mr. Musk doesn’t understand a bit of neuroscience and what is the brain,” Miguel Nicolelis tells Inverse, adding, “he barely knows where it�

Elon Musk’s Neuralink is "bad science fiction," brain science pioneer says

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2021-05-27 22:00:02

“Mr. Musk doesn’t understand a bit of neuroscience and what is the brain,” Miguel Nicolelis tells Inverse, adding, “he barely knows where it’s located.”

Nicolelis runs the Nicolelis Lab at Duke University. He’s a pioneer in neuroscience, specifically in the field of brain-computer interfaces (BCI), essentially connecting a brain to a machine via some kind of device, such as a brain implant.

Perhaps the most infamous player in the BCI space right now is Neuralink, a neurotechnology company founded by Musk and others. Neuralink recently released a video of a monkey implanted with a Neuralink BCI playing a bootleg version of Pong with its mind. It took the internet by storm.

Nicolelis also says Neuralink is taking credit for the work he and other BCI researchers have conducted for decades. “[Musk] sells things that have been invented before and he tries to say that he’s done some amazing thing.”

Max Hodak — the co-founder of Neuralink who recently left the company — was a former student in Nicolelis’s lab, along with two other unnamed Neuralink employees, he says.