Elon Musk intends to realize an age-old idea rooted in science fiction and establish it as the norm. Neural connection between the human brain and computers has always been one of the first things that came to mind when fantasizing what the future may look like. If Neuralink becomes a fortunate reality, the bridge between humans and computers will curtail substantially and science fiction will be fiction no longer.
The Technology
Elon Musk established Neuralink as a company with the initial goal to use technology to aid in grievous conditions such as paralysis and ultimately shift into human augmentation. Neuralink had been kept hush-hush while Elon was busy with either his scheme to colonize Mars or promoting his new flamethrower but in the July of 2019, a presentation was held at the California Academy of Sciences about what the Neuralink is and how it will be implemented through surgery and implantation of hardware. Brain-Machine Interfaces or BMIs can potentially be purposed to restore sensory and motor functions in the treatment of neurological disorders but they have not been widely adopted yet because of their limited capabilities while Neuralink presents a more scalable high-bandwidth BMI system. Musk based the technology on his hopes that Neuralink will assist & heal people with brain or spine disorders and his fear of AI ending up hostile to humans. Neuralink is built upon a long history of research and advancements on brain-computer interfaces.
The Details
The surgical procedure to implement Neuralink in a host consists of drilling a hole 8 millimeters into the brain to implant a (4mmx4mm) chip and further adjoint wiring. A wireless device called “the Link” will be placed behind on ear which will act as a power source and communication hub. Threads, each carrying as many as 32 electrodes are required to be inserted so that it can take raw readings of the electrical activity of surrounding neurons in the brain, compress the data and stream it back and forth from the external hardware. The electrodes can also work the other way as they can be used to stimulate brain activity by charging neurons with electrical impulses. This threading procedure can be dangerous and will be performed by a surgical robot which will individually insert each thread with micron precision to avoid damaging the encompassing vessels and other sensitive brain regions. Neuralink scientists hope to use lasers for the surgery in the future as an alternative to drilling holes in the skull and to make the procedure as painless as possible. Although starting small, Musk proposed it will be safe to embed at least 10 of these chips in a single brain further in development. Currently, the device can only handle data through a USB-C cable but the goal is to ultimately make it wireless using N1 sensors. The Link will be controllable using an iPhone app which also provides software updates and bug fixes without the need to tamper with the chip.
Conclusion
Musk’s grand plan may be to meld man and machine together so than humanity isn’t left behind by the growing AI technology, but many have already voiced this as “an unholy matrimony”. Turbo boosting our intelligence with chips will reach a point where it will be suicide for the brain, one says, while the more regular man fears the aggressive evolution of the AI to overtake and dominate our minds similar to the stories that have come before. Others have pointed out genuine concerns such as the “threads” containing salt mix fluid which can degrade and damage plastics and their longevity within the brain. The entertainment media doesn’t help this either as most science fiction TV or movies involving AI usually end in apocalyptical scenarios while happy endings are a rarity. While Musk certainly has a record of his projects being in “development hell” like the Hyperloop or the controversial miniature submarine, Neuralink can possibly be his most useful product yet. Though initially tested on a rat, Musk hopes to move to human testing by 2020. This technology, if successful with further advancements in the future could create a new breed of “augmented humans”, an evolved combination of man and machine and despite Musk’s good intentions and safety precautions, fears about A.I. becoming predominant in this symbiotic relationship has and will always remain.
