There’s no shortage of ambition with Elon Musk. Digging tunnels, solar roof shingles, Mars expeditions, and more have been on the receiving end of his giant checkbook. And now, he’s trying to build cyborgs too.
Musk has announced the founding of Neuralink, a company that’s largely a sketch at this point. But once Musk gets it going, it will explore brain-computer interfaces with the ultimate goal of creating brain implants that allow humans to interact directly with software and keep pace with artificial intelligence. You might remember that Musk is, among other things, convinced that artificial intelligence may quickly surpass human endeavor, rendering us irrelevant and possibly killing us off in the process. There’s reason to be skeptical of this, not least because AI always seems to be just on the verge of happening before it doesn’t.
Besides, even if Musk is just being a bit too much of a Terminator fanboy, brain implants have use well beyond making us all able to yell at TurboTax without opening our mouths. Brain implants have enormous promise to improve quality of life for people with neurological injury or disease, and even psychological concerns, like depression. So even if Neuralink’s ultimate goal doesn’t make any sense, it’ll likely do a lot of good.
(via The Verge)