Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX boss, wants to hook up the human brain to a computer.
Although the details aren’t fleshed out yet, as it were, Musk evidently bought Neuralink, a California medical research start-up company to develop the technology.
While some might conclude this is science fiction, Musk has long warned that rapidly advancing artificial intelligence could destroy human life as smarter and more intuitive robots take over the world.
As an alternative to a disturbing future, perhaps he’s now decided to some degree that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
So-called neural lace technology could enable human-computer communication in Musk’s new project and apparently without the necessity of a physical interface.
“Neural lace involves implanting electrodes in the brain so people could upload or download their thoughts to or from a computer, according to the [Wall Street Journal] report. The product could allow humans to achieve higher levels of cognitive function,” Business Insider explained. Musk has promised that more details will be forthcoming soon.
At a Dubai conference In January, Musk championed a “high-bandwidth interface to the brain” through a merger of biological and digital intelligence.
“This would enable a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence and could make humans more useful in an AI-driven world, he said,” LiveScience reported.
When AI outpaces people as he anticipates it will do, humans will disturbingly be reduced to the intelligence level comparable to a house cat in comparison, Musk claims.
Neurosurgeons have embedded electrodes or chips to help those who suffer from dementia, epilepsy, and other serious conditions, but the procedure is risky under current medical science, however. Moreover, as one neuroscientist told The Verge, a healthy person may not be enthusiastic about “having a doctor crack open their skull.”
Musk, the visionary billionaire, has already launched an initiative calling for AI safety standards with the nonprofit organization OpenAI. (RELATED: Read more about artificial intelligence at Robotics.news.)
Facebook is reportedly working on a brain-computer interface as are other organizations and universities.
Back in 2015, Health Ranger Mike Adams, the founder of Natural News, warned that once AI technology develops into highly evolved, self-aware systems, the human race has a big Terminator problem. “Follow this along for just 4-5 generations and you get machines with demigod-level cognitive capabilities, and it won’t take but a microsecond for such a machine to conclude that humans are a threat to its own existence,” Adams wrote.
It may be a while before the full-on robot apocalypse occurs. On a far more mundane but perhaps instructive level, it’s already been established that automation in the fast-food industry and elsewhere generally renders the whole Fight for $15 movement by social justice activists ultimately meaningless. Moreover, earlier this year, a Japanese insurance firm replaced 34 office workers who processed medical claims with AI.
AI is also being deployed in the government civil service there on a trial basis to improve bureaucratic efficiency.