Table of Contents
Without a doubt, Elon Mask is the most daring, eccentric, intelligent, and possibly even dangerous inventor and entrepreneur of our time. His ideas change the world, admiring and scaring humanity at the same time. At the moment, this is the person who realizes the prophecies of science fiction writers like self-driving cars and space travel.
However, what if we say that Elon Musk plans to create cyborgs with the help of his new Neuralink startup? Let’s find out what is the essence of his idea in order to correctly assess the possible benefits and non-obvious risks.
How Elon Musk Perceives His Neuralink Idea
Do you know the secret of Elon’s thinking? He thinks like a computer. He perceives himself, his children, and other people as a computer algorithm. So, he talks about his children as part of his code, and in some ways he is right. He makes decisions using algorithmic thinking. That is why, the idea of ?? combining the brain and the computer into one does not seem strange to him – for him, it is like buying additional hardware to boost the performance of your device.
This is what Neuralink is based on. Elon Musk wants to connect the human brain to a computer using a special chip. At the moment, this development is in the testing phase, but it is expected that the first testing with human participants will be carried out this year.
Let’s find out about Elon Musk plans, and also think about the possible risks and benefits.
Neuralink: Possible Benefits
At the moment, this idea is described as an innovative panacea for many problems. Here are some of them.
Helping People With Nervous Diseases
Elon Musk launches a Neuralink to connect brains with computers primarily to enable paralyzed people to talk and control devices. His first goal is to mentally enter the text of the message on the smartphone. It is expected that this will simplify communication for people who cannot speak, hear, and move, as they will be able to broadcast their thoughts directly to the screen of a smartphone or computer. Thus, people will be able to communicate without even saying their thoughts out loud – this will be the first attempt to create an interaction close to telepathic.
With an embedded chip, it will be easier for these people to work online as well. A lot of companies, for example, writing services review websites, Pick the Writer or Writing Judge is already opened for people with disabilities, and it is expected that Neuralink will close the gap between healthy and impaired workers.
Recovery of Brain Function After Illness
However, the plans of the ingenious inventor do not end there. In one of his interviews, Elon said that using a chip implanted in the brain, it will be possible to repair damaged areas of the brain after a stroke, to help people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or memory loss due to trauma. All you need to do is upload the right information directly to the brain.
Improving Human Abilities
Continuing this idea, Elon Mask expects a neurochip to significantly improve a person’s abilities, including healthy people as well. Since this idea would be impossible without artificial intelligence, it is expected that people will gain the ability to analyze and process the same amount of information that can only be worked out by AI algorithms.
Instant Learning and Emotion Management
According to this logic, people will also get the opportunity of almost instant training. They will be able to obtain scientific knowledge from subject areas that are the most interesting and promising, learn foreign languages ??in a short time, and also manage their emotions.
It reminds the plot of “Profession” by Isaac Asimov. In this book, children had to go through the procedure of loading school knowledge into the brain, and on the day of adulthood, the program chose the most suitable profession for them.
Can we say that the predictions of science fiction writers come true? Apparently yes, and according to the promises of the Mask himself, we will see this in reality after five to ten years.
Possible Risks
However, those who are suspicious of Elon Musk’s inventions also have a reason for this. Like any other technology, his project involves risks that also need to be taken into account.
The Gap Between Those Who Can Afford It and Those Who Can’t
Most likely, the process of chipping will be quite expensive and this will increase the gap between the “supermen” who can afford it, and those who cannot leverage their human capabilities. Yes, of course, we can rely on Elon’s altruism, but! If he was motivated by a lofty goal only, then his Tesla cars were also more affordable and more people could join the conservation of the environment.
Health Risks
Elon Mask assures that the implantation of the chip will be painless and completely safe. Moreover, the company is also developing a robot that will conduct this surgery. In the future, Mask promises to come up with laser technology to implant the chip to avoid the need for anaesthesia.
However, he still needs to get FDA approval in order to start testing his inventions with people, and then release it to the market if the tests are successful.
Absolute Control and Monitoring
We are already living in a world where hiding your personal data is impossible. Every day, we create and leave huge traces of data that are used to monitor our actions (perhaps this is a plus for human rights bodies), sell us more and more products that we really do not need, and also steal our data for sale on the black market.
A microchip implanted in the brain will control not only what we do, but also what we think and what we feel. It’s like turning yourself inside out in front of the whole world. Is humanity ready for such openness, or do we still have little privacy rights?
Conclusion
If we analyze the history of mankind, we will see that all the greatest inventions that ultimately brought harm were advertised as exceptionally useful things. A simple example is a chemical weapon. As for Neuralink, this is a technology with potential and dangers at the same time. The only thing we can do is hope that Elon Musk will be able to use it really for the good. Or as a minimum, not to the detriment.
