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Elon Musk Launches Neuralink To Connect Brains With Computers (businessinsider.com)
At Recode's conference last year, Elon Musk said he would love to see someone do something about linking human brains with computers. With no other human being volunteering, Mr. Musk -- who founded PayPal and OpenAI, thought of Hyperloop, is working on a boring company, and runs SpaceX, TeslaX, SolarCity -- is now working on it. From a report on WSJ: Internal sources tell the WSJ that the company, called Neuralink, is developing "neural lace" technology that would allow people to communicate directly with machines without going through a physical interface. Neural lace involves implanting electrodes in the brain so people could upload or download their thoughts to or from a computer, according to the WSJ report. The product could allow humans to achieve higher levels of cognitive function. From WSJ's report (paywalled): The founder and chief executive of Tesla and Space Exploration Technologies Corp.has launched another company called Neuralink Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. Neuralink is pursuing what Mr. Musk calls "neural lace" technology, implanting tiny brain electrodes that may one day upload and download thoughts. Mr. Musk didn't respond to a request for comment. Max Hodak, who said he is a "member of the founding team," confirmed the company's existence and Mr. Musk's involvement.
We can't even secure our non-brain-connected computers, devices, vehicles, etc, from outside intrusion, why in the world would I want to open the door for someone to hack my brain through a computer? Thanks, but no thanks. I'll leave my brain standalone and air-gapped from computers and the internet. The last thing anyone needs is some script-kiddie deciding to brick someone's head for the lulz. Also this would potentially redefine what a 'botnet' is. Nope, nope, nope.
Kudos for starting, but it's a long long road from reading electrical signals from implanted electrodes to:
A) an implant that you would actually want to live with in normal life (relatively free of complications, side effects, long life, replaceable when it malfunctions, etc.)
B) a quality of communication that exceeds simple demonstration of concept low bandwidth gimmicks
These types of bio-electrical neural-computer interfaces are starting to bear fruit for the profoundly blind, deaf, and amputees - cases where they have nothing and anything is an infinite improvement. Moving from that (today's) stage to improvement over normal function will take decades of development, and investors who don't care for much resembling profits or ROI in the meantime. Patents they might file today will likely expire before the patented idea generates any profits.
Again, kudos for starting, we've already got the Hollywood take on what this tech might do, and we can tell from our (currently crude) cellphone interfaces to the web what a small sliver of the potential could be. It will be awesome when it gets here - but I might require major advances in life extension if I'm going to see it get "better than normal."
I read somewhere about a theory that Elon Musk is actually an alien stranded on Earth and he's trying to advance human civilization to the point where he can build a spaceship and return to his home. I'm beginning to believe it.