Implanting electronic chips Is Elon Musk planning to occupy the human brain?
American billionaire Elon Musk continues to raise controversy, whether with his products or statements, perhaps the latest of which was the announcement that his technology company, "Neuralink", which he founded in 2016, hopes to start implanting electronic chips inside the human brain within the next year.
During a face-to-face interview at the CEO Council Summit in the American Wall Street Journal last Monday, American billionaire and entrepreneur Elon Musk revealed that his technology company, Neuralink, hopes to start implanting electronic chips in human brains as of next year. He added: "The company works really well with monkeys, and we're actually doing a lot of testing, just to make sure it's very safe and reliable, and the chip can be removed from the brain safely."
As soon as Musk’s recent statements spread, which included the phrase, “I know this increasingly looks like an episode of the Black Mirror series,” the door to questions was opened wide across social media, and followers were divided into two parts. The other section in support of Musk is that "Neuralink", with this step, will have brought about an unprecedented technological revolution in linking the brain and the machine.
But what some people overlook is that Elon Musk is a very smart entrepreneur who knows well that half of the deal lies in attracting the public’s attention, and for this you find that he is good at creating and employing “trends” on social media by coming up with strange ideas and statements every while in order to draw the public’s attention to what Do.
What is Neuralink working on?
Since its founding in 2016, Neuralink has been working on developing a chip that is slightly larger than a coin and connected to a large number of extremely fine electrodes, to connect the human brain with a machine, by implanting chips into the brains of paralyzed people, allowing them to control computers and smartphones, where the slides are designed to give people the ability to easily communicate by writing text or synthesising speech, as well as browsing the web or expressing their creativity through photography, art and writing applications.
According to Musk, not only does the chip work directly between the brain and everyday technology, but it expands into other promising possibilities, from helping the paralyzed, to collecting vital data that will warn of heart attacks and strokes before they occur, to treating a wide range of neurological disorders. And restore some sensory and motor functions.
In a recent tweet, Musk wrote, "Progress will accelerate when we have devices in humans next year. It's hard to have accurate conversations with monkeys," which brings to mind his previous statements about the extent to which these chips are able to perform operations such as telepathy and control through the brain. as well as storing memories.
What does Elon Musk want?
Since Elon Musk presented the latest findings of his company, Neuralink, in mid-2019, followers on social media have been divided into two teams, one in favor and the other in opposition to what Musk and his company are doing. The world of "transhumanism", while the other team accuses him of transcending moral barriers and plotting to occupy the brains of humanity in the manner of the "Terminator" films.
For his part, Musk believes that this technology will integrate human minds with machines in a way that allows the development of an advanced human weapon to counter the control of artificial intelligence in the future, in addition to expanding how humans interact with each other, with the world and even with themselves.
In this context, Musk said, "Neuralink suddenly won't be able to have the neural ligament and start controlling people's brains." Ultimately, he wants to coexist with AI, since humans will be left behind against AI in the future. Hence, he wants to create technology that allows for integration with artificial intelligence.
Previous experiences
What Elon Musk is talking about is not new, but it is another step in the development of neurotechnology that began in the seventies of the last century, which also aimed to connect man with machine, which was emphasized by X Hodak, President of "Neuralink", in the presentation On July 16, 2019 he said: "Neuralink did not come out of nowhere, there is a long history of academic research. We are here in the greatest sense, building on the shoulders of giants."
If we go back in time, we find cochlear implants, through which an external microphone collects sounds and then processes them and transmits them as electrical signals to the auditory nerve behind the ear, which translates these signals into sounds, thus enabling the deaf to hear again. There are similar experiments today that employ cameras in the same way so that the blind can see.