‘Neuralink’ vs. Imago Dei: What Catholic Anthropology Has to Say About Musk’s Tech and AI
Started in 2016, the company builds and surgically inserts brain-computer interfaces that let people control a computer or device just by thinking.
Andrew LikoudisNewsSeptember 5, 2025
It’s straight out of a sci-fi movie.
Except it’s Elon Musk’s latest Neuralink demo: touting whole-brain data streams that could let humans communicate “thousands, perhaps millions of times faster” and even restore motion to the paralyzed and sight to the blind.
Last year, Neuralink became the first company to implant a brain chip in a human patient. In July, the company announced it now has seven clinical-trial patients with ALS and paralyzing spine injuries equipped with the coin-sized implant, allowing them to type, browse and play chess on their devices, merely by way of thought — benchmarks Musk considered rudimentary in comparison to the ambitious milestones he plans to pass prior to commercial rollout of the technology by 2028.
Musk’s latest “Neuralink Update, Summer 2025” and his vision of realizing “a fundamental change to what it means to be a human” poses challenging anthropological questions for the Catholic Church to answer as the technology marches forward. Pope Leo XIV, building upon the work of his papal predecessors, already has begun to formulate a response to the advances of artificial intelligence, stressing that any technological advancement must be evaluated “in light of the integral development of the human person and society.”
“AI, especially Generative AI, has opened new horizons on many different levels, including enhancing research in healthcare and scientific discovery,” the Pope said in a message to participants of this summer’s AI conference at the Vatican. Yet he acknowledged AI “also raises troubling questions on its possible repercussions on humanity’s openness to truth and beauty, on our distinctive ability to grasp and process reality.”
Neuralink’s Demo
Neuralink, started by Musk in 2016, builds and surgically inserts brain-computer interfaces that let people control a computer or device just by thinking. Since 2016, the device, considered useful for its medical utilities, has quickly advanced, and the company envisions a future in which thought-guided computing becomes an integrated aspect of daily life.
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