Cartoon of the Week: Elon Musk to connect our brain with computers
Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla, is about to help humans merge with computers. Known for being overambitious, the billionaire announced a new venture called Neuralink earlier this week.
Neuralink is a California-based medical research company meant to explore how to physically merge computers and humans’ brains. Its initial focus will be to help people who have symptoms of chronic conditions, such as epilepsy and depression.
No, it’s not a sci-fi movie, just Musk keeping his eyes on a very distant horizon by playing with artificial intelligence (AI) in his spare time. As if colonising Mars wasn’t enough, the digital pioneer is looking for innovative ways to speed up the output speed of the brain far beyond the few bytes of seconds it’s capable of now.
We all know the trend nowadays is to fearing an AI apocalypse. But ‘fear’ is not a word that Musk would use. The man is already preparing us for the rise of AI so we don’t become inferior to it.
At a Tesla launch in Dubai, he spoke about the need for humans to become cyborgs if we wish to survive the rise of AI.
‘Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence’, CNBC reported him as saying at the time. ‘It’s mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output.’
And since he is always years, if not decades, ahead of the curve, he’s already seeing the day coming where medical science can wire up our brains so they process information more quickly.
His goal is to improve the interface between humans and machines so we can interact more efficiently and not just stick to a touch-oriented control or a typical voice control.
The only way to do this is by uploading our thoughts, memories and experiences to a computer through ‘neural lace’ technology and tiny brain electrodes.
I’m eager to see what our lives will look like in the future. Imagine for a second hanging out with your new robot best friend, chilling with a digital version of yourself or your biological intelligence having a debate with your machine intelligence.
Stay tuned for more fun cartoons!