Elon Musk Wants To Merge Brains With Computers And Enable Telepathy!
It seems like nowadays, tech-news sound more and more like science fiction.
Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence have become increasingly popular and will boom even more in the future.
Many sci-fi novels and movies have already shown us a future of transhumanism - a future where humans enhance themselves through science and technology, essentially making technology a part of them to improve their skills and capabilities.
And now, it seems like no one other than Elon Musk plans to make this a reality!
Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, is already one of the most revolutionizing and futuristic Entrepreneurs of our time. He made electric cars commercial and plans to populate Mars, so only someone like him could plan something as big as merging human brains with computers!
The new company that Musk has founded is called Neuralink.
Their goal will be to link our brains to computers - to merge humans with technology. Ultimately, they want to make cloud-based Artificial Intelligence a part of the human brain. In the future, they're even planning to achieve "consensual telepathy" between humans.
What exactly is Neuralink's plan / goal?
The first step is to create a device to help people with certain brain injuries.
Neuralink wants to implant it into the brains of people who have suffered from a stroke for example, or who struggle with memory loss.
Musk stated that this technology should be ready within the next 4 years.
“It could help with people who are quadriplegics or paraplegics by providing a neural shunt from the motor cortex down to where the muscles are activated. It can help with people who, as they get older, have memory problems and can’t remember the names of their kids, through memory enhancement, which could allow them to function well to a much later time in life—the medically advantageous elements of this for dealing with mental disablement of one kind or another, which of course happens to all of us when we get old enough, are very significant."-Elon Musk about the first goal of Neuralink
The funds generated from this project will then be used for the 2nd step.
The ultimate plan will be to create a whole brain-computer interface.
Currently, there are two primary "layers" in our brains: the cortex, which manages complex thoughts, reasoning and more, and the limbic system, which is in charge of behaviour, emotions and long-term memory.
Musk's goal is to create an artificial third layer that will complement the other two.
He says that we kind of already have it - in form of smartphones, laptops etc. We just don't use them very efficiently.
So he thought, why not implant those features into our brains!
We already have a digital tertiary layer in a sense, in that you have your computer or your phone or your applications…The thing that people, I think, don’t appreciate right now is that they are already a cyborg…If you leave your phone behind, it’s like missing limb syndrome. I think people—they’re already kind of merged with their phone and their laptop and their applications and everything. -Elon Musk
He wants to make communication faster and more efficient by a form of telepathy:
Currently, we have to "compress" our thoughts by translating them into language, communicating it, and then our partner has to "decompress" the language again.
Musk's plan is to send the thought directly to the other person's brain through the implant.
This would mean a huge improvement for human communication, and would help the keep up with the rapid pace of AI development.
What are the challenges for this technology?
Musk has stated that this technology might be ready within the next 8-10 years, but there are still a lot of hurdles to overcome.
There are challenges with wireless power and biocompatibility, but the biggest problem is probably bandwith.
Currently, we're using a maximum of 200 electrodes on human brains. But for something as advanced as this, there would be about 1 million electrodes needed! So not only would Musk have to figure out how the brain could communicate with all of those at once, he'd also have to find an area to physically put them.
Musk has gathered a team of neurosurgeons, engineers, chip designers and professors to help him figure out solutions for these problems.
Another challenge will be regulatory approval - people are already very scared of Robots and AI taking over one day.
So it might be hard to get the public convinced about this sci-fi vision, as many people might be afraid that the implants can be hacked.
What do you think about this futuristic idea - brilliant improvement or unrealistic and dangerous?
Images: 1, 2, 3, Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
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© Sirwinchester
Telepathy is a normal attribute of any evolved being...to suggest that we need to implant a computer in our brain to develop telepathic powers is insane.
It is degrading to the natural order of things.
That's true, I know that every human has the ability within himself. We just need to clean ourselves, do research and make it possible again.
Of course it's not great to take the artificial route if we've already got it within us. The more robots and systems there are, the further we are from nature.
I guess the telepathy mentioned in this post should be specified as artificial, digital telepathy.
But were are already telepathic, and it has already been proven. Russell Targ, a cofounder of the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) investigation of psychic abilities in the 1970s and 1980s.
Yes true, every human has already got it within himself, it's just a matter of cleansing, knowledge and training to re-gain the ability.
Like mentioned above, the telepathy in this post is only regarding artificial digital telepathy.
A very nice and visually intweresting post 2sirwinchester ) Although i must say i am not at all for the merging of man and machine as it think it goes against the nature of things !! But i can see that for braindaamaged people this might be ofcourse very interesting. But i really feel that this limitless technology might bring the human race to a dangerous crossroads !! Nice post Upvoted.
Thank you, first of all!
Humans have always wanted to reach their limit and have always been curious to do something far from our normal reality.
Sooner or later we'll get back to our psychic powers, but the human is so impatient that he wants to achieve it with technology right away.
Well yes this is sadly true clearly !! But there is no quick fix for your soul and I truly believe this to be more the issue concerning this, but I know many here would disagree with me and find this possibility fascinating and worthwhile ! A clear sign of the times we live in right now !!
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I love the idea of this. It's the buzz of the sci fi world and it is the way ahead!
Yes, just like I said, tech news nowadays are starting to sound like sci fi novels! It's exciting but we'll see how far we can actually come in the near future!
Very interesting post, @sirwinchester ! "brilliant improvement or unrealistic and dangerous?", I don't know, I have to think about it because the first thought in my mind was "It's sci-fi!" ;)
Thanks for your comment - yes I guess that's not an easy question to answer, it sounds so abstract that we can hardly imagine it could become reality!
I think it's a great idea.
Actually it's an inevitable idea. It's gonna happen whether Ned Ludd want's it to or not.
Some kind of transhumanism is definitely going to happen within the next few decades. I'll be excited to see where technology will take us, and which improvements will be possible!
Could you imagine getting a course uploaded to your brain or even an education in seconds downloaded from the internet to your brain! Would hackers with bad intentions be able to hack your brain and send you memories that would link you to a crime? Lots of things to think about
That would be amazing, the amount of knowledge and skill we could get within seconds.. that would be incredible. And you're right, hackers will definitely be something to consider - if it would be possible, and how to prevent hacking.
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