Requirements for Neuralink human test candidates

“Elon Musk’s controversial biotechnology startup Neuralink opened up recruitment for its first human clinical trial Tuesday…” — CNN

“…veterinary records, first made public last year, […] contain gruesome portrayals of suffering reportedly endured by as many as a dozen of Neuralink’s primate subjects, all of whom needed to be euthanized.” — Wired

So, you heard about our animal-killing microchip invented by the guy who makes cars that explode, and you’d like to have it inserted into your brain. That’s terrific. We just need to review three primary qualification requirements before we get started.

First, though this may seem obvious, you must have a brain. Do you have a brain? We have been hard-pressed to find candidates who meet this initial criteria. So far anyone with a brain does not want to be part of our first-ever human trials for a microchip that forced us to euthanize a bunch of monkeys. Who knew!

We briefly asked candidates to prove that they have a brain by declining to participate in our study, but that put us in a bit of a catch-22. We are now accepting a simple vocal or handwritten, “Yes, I swear I have a brain.”

Second, you must agree not to take legal action against us regarding the results of the trials in which you participate. Those results may include, but are not limited to: brain exploding; head exploding but brain still intact; slipping into a permanent daydream in which everything around you is a feed of content and ads from Twitter / X; suddenly harboring extremely anti-union sentiments; playing into horrible conspiracy theories; naming your children random assortments of numbers and letters; brain exploding twice.

And third, by committing to these trials, any thought that passes through your mind while an active host of our microchip belongs to us. All your daydreams and ideas will be our intellectual property, in perpetuity. And you will not have a say in who gets cast to play you in the movie about your sick and twisted little life. (We will, for the most part, only be optioning the sick and twisted stuff — nothing else sells these days!)

If you meet the above requirements, and you are interested in becoming a test subject, please stay where you are. We are on our way.

“How will you know what I’m thinking and where I live?” you might ask.

Well, we already inserted microchips into everyone’s brains a few years ago so that we could wait and see who’s been thinking about letting us put these new microchips into their brains. Thank you for your cooperation. Don’t move too much before we get there, or your brain might explode.

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