Is Elon Musk the right person to lead Nueralink?

Temple University’s Dr. Leah Croll joins TheStreet to discuss whether or not Elon Musk is the right person to be leading Neuralink into the future.

Transcript

00:00 And at the top of all these relationships, the legal community, the scientific community,

00:04 the neurological community, is a man who is at times very, he could be socially volatile,

00:11 he could be wildly unpredictable, he could be painted as brilliant, he could be painted

00:15 as a madman by others.

00:18 Is there hesitancy, I wonder, to entrust someone like Elon Musk of all people with something

00:23 so important and something like this?

00:25 Yeah, and by the way, in fairness to Elon Musk, there's hesitancy entrusting this to

00:32 anyone because we're talking about manipulating people's brains and changing their lives.

00:37 And so neurologists like myself in the years to come are really going to be on the lookout

00:42 for rigorous clinical trials.

00:44 The FDA will have a part in reviewing clinical trial data as well.

00:47 And what this will allow us to do is take a look at the patients who have gone through

00:51 these procedures, take a look at the data and analyze it in an objective way so that

00:55 we can come together as a community to understand whether or not this is a reasonable, safe

01:00 treatment to offer people.

01:02 Finally, Leah, what part of this conversation do you think is either being misrepresented

01:08 or is not being understood enough by those of us on the outside seeing the headlines,

01:15 talking about the headlines?

01:16 What do you want the general public to really know based on your many years of expertise?

01:22 So the big thing here is I see a lot of chatter on the internet about what the implications

01:27 could be in terms of using this technology to take healthy people and enhance their normal

01:32 function.

01:34 And that is an ethical can of worms, number one.

01:36 But number two, I don't want people to lose sight of the heart of this story, which is

01:41 that neurologic disease is absolutely devastating and life changing.

01:45 Anyone who's watching who has experienced it themselves or has a loved one who's gone

01:49 through it knows exactly what I'm talking about.

01:51 And I just want people to focus on the fact that this is science, technology, medicine,

01:56 innovation coming together to help people in just an immensely powerful way.

02:00 And that means a lot.

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