Neuralink shows a pig with a working brain implant
In a livestream, the company introduced "Gertrude," a pig whose brain activity was read in real time.
Archive entry. This article looks back at an event from August 28, 2020. It was drafted with AI assistance from public records and is being fact-checked. See our About page.
On August 28, 2020, Neuralink held a live demonstration of its technology. The star was a pig named Gertrude, which had a Neuralink device implanted in her brain, and a screen showed her neural activity as she explored her pen.
The company also showed pigs that had earlier been implanted and had the device removed, to argue that the implant was reversible.
The demo was the company's way of showing progress outside of a laboratory. Critics noted the result was an early step compared with the claims about human use that followed.
