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Elon Musk wants to implant an AI interface in your brain

Electric cars, trips to Mars, solar everything, underground tunnels -- and now apparently brain-computer interfaces? Elon Musk has had another bright idea.
By Jessica Hall

Elon Musk has had another bright idea. Nobody can accuse Mr. Musk of a lack of intellectual diversity in his pursuits; his interests have ranged from glitzy solar roof tiles to cartoonishly fast cars, colonizing other planets, and domestic energy infrastructure. He's playing a long game. Someone who thinks in the future tense. And he clearly believes that AI is the future.

As AI advances, humans will have to find a comfortable coexistence with machines that learn, or risk winding up as a "house cat" to intelligence beyond ours. Toward that goal, and with a happy side effect of therapeutic benefits for certain brain disorders, Elon Musk has been funding a company called Neuralink that wants to implant an AI interface in your brain.

Elon Musk is arguably a genius and I'm not trying to throw shade on his ideas. But it is starting to look like he's got that clone of himself we all sometimes wish for, the one who runs around and does stuff on the to-do list, thereby doubling your power as a human. What kind of outrageous moon dust smoothies is this guy drinking, that he has the intellectual bandwidth to execute all these lofty ideas here in the meatsphere? What kind of brain trust does he have for administrative assistants? Elon, did you build yourself a Jarvis and not tell anyone?

A neural lace, threaded through a glass needle.

The company is currently working with a syringe-injectable, flexible, sub-micron-thickness substrates (note the regular grid in the ribbon pictured above) that can function as a component of implantable electronics. The mesh is so gossamer-soft that it doesn't irritate the brain's impossibly delicate cellular matrix, and its electrical properties mean that only the target part of the brain receives the electrical stimulus. With recent developments in flexible electronics and bio-inert materials, implantable brain-computer interfaces are coming closer and closer to reality every day.

It has to be stressed here that brain implants are not a casual undertaking. The people who resort to implanted electrodes and the like are people who have no other options. These are people who suffer from degenerative brain diseases, people with intractable problems that they can't solve by any other means than creating a hole in their braincase that incidentally gives the outside microbiome direct access to the brain. Just what you wanted: a hole in your head that only the most intrepid bacteria can get through. Those brain-eating amoeba are going to think these implants are so cool.

Neuralink has been registered in California as a medical research company as of last July, although to date it's had no public presence whatsoever. The injectable implants are their platform, and they're working on therapeutic applications for people with brain diseases. But the implants aren't just limited to treating problems. At last year's Vox Media Code Conference, Musk talked about his ideas(Opens in a new window) for the company's future in AI-enabled brain-computer interfaces. It's critically important to him that machine intelligence remains under our control and aligned with our goals, and to assure that outcome, Musk wants to implant an AI "layer" in peoples' brains. "If we can create a high-bandwidth neural interface with your digital self, then you’re no longer a house cat,” he said.

Neuralink isn't starting from scratch in this endeavor -- it'll start with established brain-computer interfaces (BCI). We have already advanced technology to the point that we can remotely control the motion of rats, allow locked-in ALS patients a "voice" (in early trials), pilot brain-controlled prostheses, and wire up prosthetic lower limbs that can be controlled directly by the brain as well. All of these technologies are, at best, in the early stages of commercialization and research, but Neuralink hopes to move beyond them in a matter of years. Musk told(Opens in a new window) Vanity Fair that we "are already cyborgs" and that he believes a meaningful brain interface is just 4-5 years away.

Am I the only one who has a distinct vision of a solar-shingled Wisteria Lane lookalike cyborg housing development on Mars? There would be battery-electric Tesla cars you can drive around on the Martian surface using only your mind. Remotes to control your upgraded spouse à la The Stepford Wives. Upgrading your cognitive AI interface firmware on Patch Tuesday only to find that there's a bug in the code that bricks your kids. These modern times.

My candle burns at both ends; it shall not last the night; but ah, my foes, and ah, my friends -- it gives a lovely light. -- Edna St. Vincent Millay

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