Elon Musk provided an update on another one of his products this week, saying that his company Neuralink is expected to begin human trials for its brain chip in about six months. But Trevor Noah will believe that when he sees it.
On Thursday night’s show, Noah pulled up footage of Musk at a recent presentation, in which he explained the chips, which are reportedly intended in part to help disabled people move and communicate again. In the clip, the Twitter CEO explained the process of the implants as “replacing a piece of skull with like, a smartwatch.”
And that alone gave Noah “a little pause.” The “Daily Show” host joked that, with a smartwatch on your wrist, you can pretty much just shake your arm and get the device back to proper functions. But with a microchip actually in your skull, Noah jokingly worried it might result in people acting like Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.
“When it messes up in my brain, then what?” Noah questioned. “All of a sudden I’m on Alex Jones praising Hitler for inventing the microphone? Is that what’s going to happen?”
Of course, that would only be if the chip ends up rolling out at all. As he continued, Noah laid out a laundry list of promises that Musk has made about his companies and products in the past, that definitely didn’t stick to his timeline.
“Now, if we had more time, we could talk about how Elon promised that his brain chip would be ready for human trials three years ago. Or how he promised Teslas would be self-driving by 2017. Or how he’d build a high-speed underground train by 2020. Or how he’d land on Mars by 2022,” Noah listed. “Basically, this guy is a dude in a strip club making it rain with IOUs.”
That said, assuming Musk’s brain chips do eventually come out, Noah said he probably wouldn’t feel secure enough to get one — specifically because it’s from the mind of Musk.
“A year ago, I would’ve been like ‘The Tesla guy? Maybe! Maybe,’” Noah said. “But now I’m like ‘The Twitter guy? Mm. I’ll pay him $8 to stay away.’”
You can watch the full segment from “The Daily Show” in the video above.
