Neuralink is the latest venture from Elon Musk – the billionaire entrepreneur behind SpaceX and Tesla Inc. – that seeks to elevate the consciousness of mankind and evolve our species by implanting artificial intelligence directly into living human brains.
Originally developed to help patients recover from brain injuries, the start-up, Neuralink, was founded in 2015 by neuro-tech researchers Pedram Mohseni, a professor at Case Western Reserve University, and his scientific partner, Randolph Nudo of Kansas University Medical Centre, who, after little success, eventually sold the naming rights to Musk in 2016.
Since then, Neuralink has been working on the development of what it calls “neural lace technology” which consists of injecting AI electrodes into living human brains so that knowledge, ideas, information and thoughts can be instantly uploaded/downloaded to/from a computer via the cloud.
Theoretically, over time this technology could drastically increase the capabilities of humankind, enabling us to absorb information and learn new skills in seconds by simply uploading them into our brains. Likewise, our thoughts and ideas could be “backed up” directly onto a computer for later use to ensure that none of our memories are ever forgotten or lost.
As a person who regularly speaks out about the potential dangers AI could pose to the future of mankind, Musk believes that the development of Neuralink is crucial step towards ensuring that the human race is able to keep up with the computers of tomorrow and maintain its position as the world’s most intelligent life-form.
 “I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So, we need to be very careful. I’m increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish.”  – Elon Musk, during an interview at MIT.
Perhaps what is more concerning than this, however, is the idea that our brains would be connected to the web and, just like every other IoT device out there, would, at some level, be open to threats from cyber crime, viruses and hackers.
Having said that, very little is known about Neuralink as of yet which makes it difficult to determine whether or not its invention is a positive or negative contribution to society – but we’re very much looking forward to finding out more about it in the future.
