Elon Mask wants to computerize our brains ... Is it possible?

Elon Mask wants to change our brain. The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla launched the medical research company Neuralink in California, according to the Wall Street Journal. The purpose of this campaign is to create interfaces that allow people to directly connect to what Mask calls the "digital version of themselves" - electronic devices.

Elon's opinion

Mask previously talked about the modernization of human knowledge, so that people are not defeated by artificial intelligence.

Elon Mask talks about the possibility of creating interfaces for connecting the brain to the computer in the past few months. For example, at the Code Code conference in 2016, he announced the need to speed up the release of information. In other words, Mask believes that people incredibly quickly perceive information, but slowly bring it to their digital devices. At the World Government summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which took place in January, Musk called artificial intelligence dangerous, because against its background people may look "out of date." "Artificial intelligence will lead to a massive social challenge," he said at the conference.

Mask advocates universal base income or basic payment to unemployed people around the world to counter these challenges. But he also supports the idea of "merging biological intelligence with the machine".

"To some extent we are already cyborgs," Musk said at a conference in Dubai. - Think about the digital tools that you have: a phone, a computer, applications. You already have a digital level. "

"Neural Lace"

"Currently, people" communicate "with their devices with the help of fingers," said Mask. "A" high-intensity interface for the brain "will help achieve a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence that will make people more useful in a world controlled by artificial intelligence."

In science fiction, this idea is sometimes called "neural lace," that is, a network of electronic implants, which is supposedly required for such an interface.

Challenges

However, the creators of such an interface must overcome many problems. Until now, scientists have created several successful devices for implantation in the brain, designed to treat serious neurodegenerative conditions or neurological injuries. For example, deep stimulation of the brain - electrical impulses entering the brain - is sometimes used to slow the symptoms of Parkinson's disease when, for example, drugs do not work.

Several patients with spinal cord injuries have received implants that give them partial control over the prosthesis or even their own limbs. Nevertheless, from animal testing to experimental use in humans, no less than a decade has passed, according to an article in Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. Nevertheless, writes Gitis Baranauskas, a neurophysiologist from the Lithuanian University of Medical Sciences, the speed with which electronic systems transmit impulses from the brain to the limb and the prosthesis (or vice versa), far exceeds natural nerve impulses, especially in complex movements. Thus, the limitations in the transmission of information are not due to electronic technology, but because scientists still do not fully understand how neurons in the brain actually work.

Risks

In other words, much more research is needed before anything close to the "neural lace" becomes a reality. In addition, the interfaces that Mask offers, have their risks. It is one thing to accept a 1-3% risk of bleeding, stroke or brain infection when implanting the electrode in order to slow down a deadly disease such as parkinsonism. Another thing is to conduct an operation that is likely to be much more complicated so that people can better control their computers.