Facebook acquires CTRL-labs, will brain control technology become a reality?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he wants to research brain-controlled wearable and implantable technology, and Facebook's recent acquisition of CTRL-labs is a step in that direction. 

"The ultimate goal is to make it so that you can think about and control something in virtual or augmented reality," Zuckerberg said in a conversation with Dr. Joe DeRisi and Dr. Steve Quake of the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub, an international research center in the San Francisco Bay Area backed by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Facebook agreed last month to buy CTRL-Labs for between $500 million and $1 billion, making it one of the social network's largest acquisitions. The company is working on a wristband that would allow people to control devices based on signals from their spinal cord. Once the deal is completed, CTRL-labs will join Facebook Reality Labs, which is working on developing augmented reality smart glasses.

Zuckerberg's chat with Drees and Quick was part of a series of discussions the Facebook CEO is having about the future of technology and society, and throughout the conversation they touched on the challenges and advantages of using implantable technology to read human neurons.

Quick said implants involve health risks, while Drees noted that implants could decode real-time internal speech, which could help people with limited physical or speech abilities after a stroke, for example.

“You can’t get this kind of detailed, real-time information from readings taken from the surface of the body,” Drees said. “You actually have to go deep into the skull and touch the neurons.”

Zuckerberg said that, assuming people have motor neurons, they could eventually use devices such as the CTRL-labs wristband to control their thoughts. But those with physical limitations would likely need implants to do so, he said.

"I have enough neural capacity in my motor neurons to control my other hand, and it just takes a certain amount of training to pick up those signals from my wrist," Zuckerberg said. "But if your ability to translate what's going on in your brain into movement is limited, then you need to implant something."

Facebook has been working on brain computing technology since 2016 as part of the company's Building 8 division, a skunkworks lab designed to advance the company's development of consumer hardware products.

Facebook provided an update on its brain computing work in July, saying that research conducted with the University of California, San Francisco showed signs of progress but was still a long way from commercialization.