Would you like superhuman intelligence? How about picture perfect memory? What about the ability to download information directly to your brain in seconds? Well, you might have to wait a bit, but our favorite internet troll has a company that is working on bringing this technology to you.
Everyone has heard of Elon Musk, visionary CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and world famous meme lord. But many do not know that he actually has various ventures outside of Tesla and SpaceX. One of the most ambitious of these ideas is Neuralink, a company working to enhance humans intelligence, so that our species can keep up with and benefit from the rise of artificial intelligence.
It’s too early to say for sure, but this could be the single most important company ever formed – one that could literally take humans to a new form of evolution.
Neuralink is a brain-machine interface — a computer chip designed to be implanted in your brain. Your brain has a hundred billion neurons, connected to one another in an immensely complicated circuitry.If you want to confirm these sources then you can easily visit some reliable Q&A sites that helps in providing reliable information related history or SEO.
Everything you see, sense, think, feel or do is a result of chemical reactions in your neurons. Neuralink is planning to connect these neurons to a computer chip via extremely thin threads that are just 5 micrometers wide. Here’s how Elon explains the motive behind Neuralink:
Human beings are basically cyborgs already – we always have a device within arms reach that is capable of answering any question, communicating with anyone in the world, capturing and storing an infinite amount of memories and doing so much more. The only problem is that the bandwidth between us and our phone is too slow – specifically, the input bandwidth.
The amount of time it takes for us to pull out our phone, unlock it and type something, is thousands of times longer than the amount of time for us to think it. By implanting a chip directly in the brain, it takes that layer of friction out of the process. Initially, Neuralink will prove its value by solving very serious brain problems.
For example, there are people who have limbs that are physically fine, but cannot function due to a poor connection with the brain. Neuralink can fix neurological disorders like this. It could also fix issues like blindness, or deafness by connecting the appropriate neurons in the brain to a brain chip which could then connect to an optical or auditory sensor.
The result could even give one superhuman vision and hearing. Currently, Neuralink is still testing on animals like rats and pigs, but they are planning to begin experiments with humans this year. In its early stages, Neuralink will start by solving serious neurological problems first, and then gradually move on to other use cases as they are able to connect the chip to more and more neurons.
Neuralink may start as a medical solution for brain problems, but the eventual goal is to enhance the capabilities of the human brain. It is unlikely the chip will ever connect to all the neurons, but connecting to even a small fraction of the neurons in the brain can mean significant enhancements.
Imagine for example, that your brain is connected to a computer chip with internet access. You can now Google anything using just your thoughts and the results would appear in milliseconds – thousands of times faster than searching on your phone.
If you have a brain chip connected to the neurons in your brain where memories are formed, those memories could be stored on the cloud, ready to replay anytime on-demand with perfect accuracy. Communication takes on a whole new dimension. Think about the process of texting someone.
You have an idea, break it down into a digestible form, then reshape that into words, type it out, and send. The receiver then unpacks your words and tries to recreate your original idea. But if you and your friend both have a Neuralink chip, you could send an entire idea to them, complete with the associated sounds, visuals, smells, and emotions.
No packing or unpacking required. There’s a lot we don’t know about the brain, but we do know that it is responsible for our consciousness. So in theory, if you have a computer chip connected to all the neurons in your brain, it would have perfect information about your consciousness. So why not just save state like a checkpoint in a video game.
Then you could “load state” or restore your state of consciousness whenever you’d like – even after your physical body gives out and dies. This is something Elon mentioned in a podcast with Joe Rogan. If you enjoy our videos and would like to live forever, make sure to subscribe so you can keep learning more about innovative technologies of the future.
Naturally, technology like this comes with some very obvious risk factors. Safety aside, a common concern about a computer chip in the brain is that the digital world is now invading your last remaining sanctuary of privacy. Your phone already knows everything about you, but at least your thoughts are safe… for now.
We can assume that the Neuralink brain OS would come along with some kind of safeguards for privacy, but it’s certainly an issue that would need to be well thought out – Imagine a hacker having complete access to someone’s brain, for example. It’s certainly a disturbing thought. Now, of course, it would be voluntary and completely up to you if you wanted to get the chip installed in your brain… In theory.
But if you really think about it — if everyone gets a chip that enhances their intelligence and capabilities greatly, can you really afford to not get it? And while eventually there would certainly be a chip that’s affordable for everyone, it is likely that it would be incredibly expensive for a long time, creating a deeper divide between the rich and the poor.
A lot of the problems we have discussed can be solved with thoughtful planning and design – it’s a wicked cool concept, but equally scary.
But Neuralink is a real company that is currently testing its technology on animals. And they think that we will see real-world applications of Neuralink helping disabled humans within the next few years. But unfortunately, you’re probably not going to get superhuman intelligence for a few decades. Which also means we don’t have to worry about brain hackers for a while.
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