Elon Musk, the owner of Neuralink, spoke about his hopes for the technology in the coming years. He says that people with chips will be able to do more than ordinary people: win games, store and load memory, etc.
During Lex Friedman’s podcast, Musk made many strange and radical statements about the possibilities of brain chipping. «Let’s give people superpowers», — says Musk. According to him, some of them can be realized in 2 years, while others will take 10-15 years.
Elon Musk suggests that Neuralink will have to speed up its brain to compete with artificial intelligence — so that AI doesn’t «get bored». The idea of «data rate» humans came to him when he was thinking about the security of artificial intelligence and possible obstacles to a positive convergence between humans and AI.
«Humans’ low data rates, particularly our low output rates, impair communication between humans and computers,» Musk says, and then makes an unexpected transition: «Let’s say you look at this plant or something else, and you think: «I’d really like to make this plant happy, but that doesn’t say much».
Musk insists that the main goal is to somehow increase the «human output rate», that is, the rate at which our brains send signals to the chip. He believes there is potential to increase it «by three, maybe six, maybe more orders of magnitude». Musk agrees with Friedman’s suggestion that hundreds of millions of people will have Neuralink within the next few decades.
Some of Elon Musk’s ideas will be difficult for some to accept:
«Let’s say you can download your memories so you don’t lose them. …Yes, we would be something else. Some kind of futuristic cyborg… it’s not too far away, about 10-15 years», — Musk says, in response to a question about how chips will change human experience.
In the conversation about efficiency, Musk touched on games as a related topic around Neuralink. Most games have clearly defined metrics and winning conditions that make it easy to compare. In the spring, Neuralink talked about Noland Arbaugh, the first patient with a chip in his head. The company noted the growth of his skills in computer games: «I beat my friends at games that I, as a paraplegic, should not be able to beat them at» — Arbeau said.
«We are fairly confident that within the next year or two, someone with a Neuralink implant will be able to outperform a professional gamer. Because the reaction time will be faster», — Musk says.
On the podcast, Elon Musk announced the second operation of implanting a Neuralink chip in a human. The new patient has a spinal cord injury, similar to the first one, who was paralyzed while diving.
«Everything seems to have gone very well with the second implant. There are a lot of signals, a lot of electrodes. It works very well».
Musk expects Neuralink to implant implants in eight more patients this year as part of clinical trials. In a conversation with Friedman, Elon Musk also spoke about his contact with Donald Trump regarding changes in business regulation. In his opinion, the rules in the United States are currently hindering innovation.