Neuralink’s First Brain Implant Chip Patient Said He Was Assured No Monkeys Died During Trials Despite Some Suffering, Dying

Nolan Arbaugh, a 29-year-old who is paralyzed from the neck down after a diving accident, has made headlines in recent weeks for being the first human to have Elon Musk’s Neuralink implant chip inserted into his brain.

While the company has reportedly reached a major milestone in the development of digital devices that could help human cognition, there are serious concerns about the safety of the technology. One of the most pivotal concerns is how the technology is being used on animals during trials.

Neuralink has faced backlash after reports noted that monkeys had been dying or needing to be medically put to death after various testing phases of the brain implant chip. Benzinga reported that the “primates were part of experiments designed to assess the ability of Neuralink’s brain chips to enable control of technology through thought alone.”

Due to the alleged high mortality rates of monkeys, ethical questions have been raised about the development of the brain chip.

It appears Arbaugh was aware of the negative press Neuralink received before ultimately agreeing to move forward with the implant. “I read a lot of the negative stuff about this before the surgery — about all the terrible things that [the company was] putting the monkeys through and how awful it was, monkeys like picking out their implant and rubbing it on the ground and all sorts of stuff,” he said.

'Ethicists': 15 monkeys are more important than the hyperacceleration of all science and invention.

Reminder that professional ethics are a collection of maximally evil people https://t.co/abIHMT7nNW

— Brian Chau (@psychosort) September 9, 2023