On Thursday, Elon Musk, the billionaire genius behind Telsa Motors and SpaceX, announced his plan for his latest business venture: melding human brains with computers.
Musk told reporters that Neuralink Corp. hopes that one day humans and machines can engage in “consensual telepathy.” This feat would be achieved by implanting neurons in the brain that would interact with artificial intelligence.
According to CNET:
The aim for now is to create a product that could help patients with severe brain injuries like stroke or paralysis. Musk hopes to release a product like that in four years. It would take about eight to 10 years to reach people without disabilities, and Musk warned that much of this depends on regulatory approval.
“There are a bunch of concepts in your head that then your brain has to try to compress into this incredibly low data rate called speech or typing,” Musk said in an interview with the website Wait But Why.
Earlier this week, Facebook announced a similar effort trying to merge the brain with computers. The social network’s secretive hardware group, Building 8, said it’s working on a brain-to-computer interface to try to make it possible for people to type 100 words per minute directly from their brains.
For simple cartoon illustrations further explaining Musk’s idea: click here.
In an interview (below) from September, the former PayPal creator talked about his futuristic ideas, telling the reporter, “I think that if we can effectively merge with AI by improving the neural link between your cortex and the digital extension of yourself … then effectively you become an AI human symbiote.”
Immediately after the interview, Nelson Muntz demanded Elon’s lunch money:
