Elon Musk has confirmed that he will be CEO of Neuralink, a company dedicated to directly linking computers with human brains.
In an interview published in Wait But Why, Musk confirmed plans for the company to work on implants that would help overcome brain injuries and disease.
Neuralink would make brain interfaces that would eventually replace the need for human language. In the meantime, Musk aims to bring to market a product that would help with severe brain injuries in around four years.
After that, Musk wants to go further and enhance humans with cybernetic implants. In the interview, Musk said that people were "already digitally superhuman".
"The thing that would change is the interface having a high-bandwidth interface to your digital enhancements," he said.
"The thing is that today, the interface all necks down to this tiny straw, which is, particularly in terms of output, it's like poking things with your meat sticks, or using words either speaking or tapping things with fingers.
"And in fact, output has gone backwards. It used to be, in your most frequent form, output would be 10-finger typing. Now, it's like, two-thumb typing. That's crazy slow communication. We should be able to improve that by many orders of magnitude with a direct neural interface," added Musk.
Turning humans into cyborgs would take a lot longer and require regulatory approval, according to Musk.
29/03/2017: Elon Musk's Neuralink wants to merge humans and AI
The medical research company would use technology to improve human memory
Elon Musk wants to hook up human brains with computers to help humans operate better, working with artificial intelligence to directly communicate with machines.
Tesla and SpaceX's founder has come up with Neuralink, which was registered as a medical research company last year. It will use the power of AI and software to help humans improve their memories, as well as offering up a number of other brain enhancements.
Musk responded to a a report by the Wall Street Journal, which suggested Musk's new company would be something totally different to his other ventures. The news is surprising given the tech leader has previously worridea about how AI could be dangerous if it becomes too intelligent.
Although he didn't reveal much about his plans with Neuralink, he referred to the WSJ's article on Twitter and said more information would be coming soon.
"Long Neuralink piece coming out on @waitbutwhy in about a week. Difficult to dedicate the time, but existential risk is too high not to," Elon Musk wrote.
He also chatted to some of his Twitter followers about Neural Lace, which refers to the idea of humans installing hardware in their brains that would grow with the brain, triggering chemicals just by thinking about something.
Musk previously hinted at the possibility of connecting human brains with computers, telling attendees at a technology summit in Dubai: "Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence...it's mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output."
Picture: Bigstock
