Neuralink Patient Uses Brain Implant and AI to Communicate, Raising Ethical Questions

This patient's Neuralink brain implant gets a boost from generative AI

"I am so excited to get this in my head," Smith replied, typing out an answer using a device that tracks his eye movement. This was the technology he'd previously used to communicate, albeit slowly. Smith was about to get brain surgery, but Musk's virtual appearance foretold a greater transformation. Smith's brain was about to be inducted into a much larger technology and media ecosystem -- one of whose goals, the billionaire has said, is to achieve a "symbiosis" of humans and AI. Consider what unfolded on April 27, the day Smith announced on X that he'd received the brain implant and wanted to take questions. One of the first came from "Adrian Dittmann," an account often suspected of being Musk's alter ego. Dittmann: "Congrats! Can you describe how it feels to type and interact with technology overall using the Neuralink?" Smith: "Hey Adrian, it's Brad -- typing this straight from my brain! It feels wild, like I'm a cyborg from a sci-fi movie, moving a cursor just by thinking about it. At first, it was a struggle -- my cursor acted like a drunk mouse, barely hitting targets, but after weeks of training with imagined hand and jaw movements, it clicked, almost like riding a bike." Another user, noting the smooth wording and punctuation (a long dash is a special character, used frequently by AIs but not as often by human posters), asked whether the reply had been written by AI. Smith didn't answer on X. But in a message to MIT Technology Review, he confirmed he'd used Grok to draft answers after he gave the chatbot notes he'd been taking on his progress. "I asked Grok to use that text to give full answers to the questions," Smith emailed us. "I am responsible for the content, but I used AI to draft." The exchange on X in many ways seems like an almost surreal example of cross-marketing. After all, Smith was posting from a Musk implant, with the help of a Musk AI, on a Musk media platform and in reply to a famous Musk fanboy, if not actually the "alt" of the richest person in the world. So it's fair to ask: Where does Smith end and Musk's ecosystem begin? That's a question drawing attention from neuro-ethicists, who say Smith's case highlights key issues about the prospect that brain implants and AI will one day merge.

Nonverbal Neuralink Patient Is Using Brain Implant and Grok to Generate Replies

The third patient of Elon Musk's brain computer interface company Neuralink is using the billionaire's foul-mouthed AI chatbot Grok to speed up communication. The patient, Bradford Smith, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and is nonverbal as a result, is using the chatbot to draft responses on Musk's social media platform X. "I am typing this with my brain," Smith tweeted late last month. "It is my primary communication. Ask me anything! I will answer at least all verified users!" "Thank you, Elon Musk!" the tweet reads. As MIT Technology Review points out, the strategy could come with some downsides, blurring the line between what Smith intends to say and what Grok suggests. On one hand, the tech could greatly facilitate his ability to express himself. On the other hand, generative AI could be robbing him of a degree of authenticity by putting words in his mouth. "There is a trade-off between speed and accuracy," University of Washington neurologist Eran Klein told the publication. "The promise of brain-computer interface is that if you can combine it with AI, it can be much faster." Case in point, while replying to X user Adrian Dittmann -- long suspected to be a Musk sock puppet -- Smith used several em-dashes in his reply, a symbol frequently used by AI chatbots. "Hey Adrian, it's Brad -- typing this straight from my brain! It feels wild, like I'm a cyborg from a sci-fi movie, moving a cursor just by thinking about it," Smith's tweet reads. "At first, it was a struggle -- my cursor acted like a drunk mouse, barely hitting targets, but after weeks of training with imagined hand and jaw movements, it clicked, almost like riding a bike." Perhaps unsurprisingly, generative AI did indeed play a role. "I asked Grok to use that text to give full answers to the questions," Smith told MIT Tech. "I am responsible for the content, but I used AI to draft." However, he stopped short of elaborating on the ethical quandary of having a potentially hallucinating AI chatbot put words in his mouth. Murkying matters even further is Musk's position as being in control of Neuralink, Grok maker xAI, and X-formerly-Twitter. In other words, could the billionaire be influencing Smith's answers? The fact that Smith is nonverbal makes it a difficult line to draw. Nonetheless, the small chip implanted in Smith's head has given him an immense sense of personal freedom. Smith has even picked up sharing content on YouTube. He has uploaded videos he edits on his MacBook Pro by controlling the cursor with his thoughts. "I am making this video using the brain computer interface to control the mouse on my MacBook Pro," his AI-generated and astonishingly natural-sounding voice said in a video titled "Elon Musk makes ALS TALK AGAIN," uploaded late last month. "This is the first video edited with the Neurolink and maybe the first edited with a BCI." "This is my old voice narrating this video cloned by AI from recordings before I lost my voice," he added. The "voice clone" was created with the help of startup ElevenLabs, which has become an industry standard for those suffering from ALS, and can read out his written words aloud. But by relying on tools like Grok and OpenAI's ChatGPT, Smith's ability to speak again raises some fascinating questions about true authorship and freedom of self-expression for those who lost their voice. And Smith was willing to admit that sometimes, the ideas of what to say didn't come directly from him. "My friend asked me for ideas for his girlfriend who loves horses," he told MIT Tech. "I chose the option that told him in my voice to get her a bouquet of carrots. What a creative and funny idea."