It seems that businessman Elon Musk has plenty of hours in the day. He does not have enough to dedicate himself to the development of vehicles in Tesla, prepare his space projects in SpaceX and search for memes on Twitter, that he has decided to undertake a new project. It’s called Neuralink, and although it was founded in 2016, it’s only now that it’s caught the attention of locals and outsiders alike, after Musk has started giving details about the project.
The first advances have made it clear that Musk is committed to achieving a milestone in the world of artificial intelligence, and that is that the primary objective of the project is to provoke the fusion between the human brain and computers.
As if it were a science fiction project, the entrepreneur intends to create a chip to implant it in brain tissue in order to integrate with technology and, among other things, we can listen to music directly in our brain. But not only that, but Musk also intends that the chip can help in health issues, measuring, for example, the hormonal levels of each person for future diagnoses that allow them to anticipate serious diseases such as cancer or Parkinson’s disease, cure congenital injuries, correct serious brain damage and even “block” parts of the brain to treat illnesses such as depression or cure addictions.
According to the first technical sketches, the chip would actually be a “neural cord” consisting of small brain electrodes capable of sharing information from a computer system with our brain. With this connection, Musk aims to develop the cognitive capacities of human beings. According to the businessman, the implantation of the chip “will not be painful”, and the process will resemble the processes of laser eye surgery.
The project is in its infancy, but Musk has already turned to Twitter to search for engineers and mobile tech buffs interested (no prior experience in the field of neuroscience needed) in Neuralink development who want to work for him.
If you’ve solved hard problems with phones / wearables (sealing, signal processing, inductive charging, power mgmt, etc), please consider working at [email protected]
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2020
No prior neuroscience background is required. This is primarily an electrical/electronic (chip design)/mechanical/software engineering problem for the Link itself & the surgical robot.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2020
At the moment, no launch is expected in the next four years, but the future is promising, and although some experts have publicized their concerns on a moral level, the first tests on animals have already been done. The businessman has promised to share more information on August 28.