BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) According to a source quoted by Reuters on the 5th, Neuralink, Musk’s "brain-computer interface" company, is facing a federal investigation in the United States. The reason may be that it violated the provisions of the animal welfare law during animal experiments.
According to reports, two people familiar with the matter revealed that at the request of the federal prosecutor, the inspector general of the US Department of Agriculture launched this investigation in recent months, focusing on whether the company violated the relevant provisions of the animal welfare law during the animal experiment.
According to dozens of Neuralink company documents and more than 20 current and former employees, CEO Musk asked to speed up the development process, which led the employees to repeat failed experiments, which increased the number of animals tested and killed.
As of now, Musk and other Neuralink executives have not responded to this.
According to records reviewed by Reuters and sources who have direct knowledge of the company’s animal experiment business, since 2018, Neuralink has killed about 1,500 animals, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys. Sources said the figure was only a rough estimate because the company did not accurately record the number of animals tested and killed.
Of course, the number of animal deaths does not necessarily indicate that Neuralink violated relevant laws and regulations. However, employees of Neuralink said that due to Musk’s request to speed up the research, the number of animal deaths was higher than needed.
Among them, four experiments involving 86 pigs and 2 monkeys can be confirmed that there are obvious human errors. Three anonymous staff members said that these mistakes weakened the research value of the experiment and led to a large number of repeated experiments, which killed more animals. People familiar with the matter blamed the mistake on the lack of preparation of testers working in high-pressure environment.
It is reported that Musk has been working hard to promote Neuralink’s chip access to the brain technology, which is expected to enable paralyzed patients to resume walking or treat other nervous system diseases. But recently, Musk has become more and more impatient. He has told employees many times, "Imagine a bomb tied to your head" so that you can act faster.
Musk hopes to start human clinical trials as soon as possible, but the company has not obtained a regulatory license after many attempts.