As artificial intelligence continues to advance, the fear of human beings someday becoming inferior or even “obsolete” becomes more and more credible. Elon Musk has never been shy about his belief that artificial intelligence will pose a serious threat to humanity if the proper safeguards are not taken. Musk has also explained on numerous occasions that he believes humans will need to augment their own mental abilities if they want to be something more than a mere “house cat” to the machines of tomorrow.
With the latter in mind, a recent Wall Street Journal article broke the news that Musk has started a new company – Neuralink – with the eventual goal of creating a “neural lace,” a device that would be surgically connected to the human brain to allow a user to interact directly with computers. Musk has indicated in the past that a neural lace would be necessary to eliminate input bandwidth limitations that human beings face from having to use keyboards, mice, etc., to interact with and access information already available via the Internet and other technologies.
Though it is unlikely you will be able to sign up for surgery to obtain a neural lace anytime soon, in the near-term, Musk’s new company Neuralink will be exploring how brain interfaces might alleviate the symptoms of medical conditions such as epilepsy or severe depression.