What is Neuralink & How Will It Change Our Lives

Neuralink, a chip in your brain - how will that change the world?

What is Neuralink? It’s a chip of the size of a large coin that can be implemented in the brain with wires thinner than 1/10 our hair. It is capable of both recording brain activity and stimulating it. 

Although this sounds like sci-fi, it is not a new concept. Brain-computer interconnection is considered to be the next generation of human-computer interaction, and many companies have been working in the field for many years.For example, back in 2012, there were already demos showing paralyzed patients being able to control robotic arms.  I know having an implant in your brain sounds creepy most comments about Neuralink are along the lines of these:

“What can possibly go wrong?”

“Is it Black Mirror?”

“I love technology but this is mind control!”

Musk has mentioned before that the long-term goal is to achieve “symbiosis with artificial intelligence”, but the applications are far more than just preventing a world where humans are ruled by AI from happening.  

First Application: Medical

This is where the technology is going to be realized the soonest: help people who have lost the ability to move or sense because of spinal cord injury, to move again. It could also help curing neurological conditions like Alzheimer's, and dementia. Musk has even suggested in the past that it may help cure autism, but experts don’t agree with each other on whether autism is a disease, yet.  

Elon Musk said Neuralink implants have to be performed by surgical robots in order to be as precise as possible. So besides the brain chip itself, the surgical robot is ready to rock and roll, and the whole surgical procedure is already fully automated. You can imagine that in the near future, we don’t need brain surgeons any more, but we need a new breed of talent who understand both our organic brains and computer science. 

Musk wants to make it an affordable product for everyone: inclusive of the price of the procedure done by the surgical robot, the price will come down to a few thousand dollars. 

Second Application: Communications

We are already humanoid because we all have a supercomputer in the pocket. With our smartphones, we are theoretically connected with the whole world and have access to all the information available on the internet. Unless you live somewhere blocked by the great wall. With Neuralink, we can just slack each other directly without the phone, computer, or the software, because Neuralink could give you the telepathy ability. 

The thing is, not only can we communicate with each other directly just with thinking, we can command machines this way as well. With a thought, we can turn on the light, lower the temperature in the house without Alexa. Maybe even drive a car. 

And yes, there are obviously concerns here, but I will mention all the ethical questions and potential problems later in the video.

Third Application: Entertainment

Musk said on twitter, that with Neuralink, we can stream music directly to the brain. Which means we also expect to stream Netflix or movies. We can even just play games in our head. Basically, however you want to be digitally simulated or entertained, you can. Not only that, Musk foresees us being able to download our memories and playback memories. And of course, since you can upload your digital copy to the chip and download yourself to a robot body, it means you can live forever, or does it?

It’s not hard to imagine that in the future, people can basically purchase and then download happy feelings if that’s what they want. Or download the feeling of being full as a new diet. 

Yes, that obviously sounds like Brave New World. So now let’s look at some ethical issues and potential worries. 

Brain Hacking

The first one is brain hacking: by now everyone knows the most dangerous threats to the internet of things is cyber security. With Neuralinks, everyone’s brain basically becomes a node on the internet of brains, or the internet of cyborgs. Since the telepathy technology is not available yet, we don’t know how to prevent cyber attacks or hacking of the brain yet. Rest assured, the hackers are on it.

Affordability

The second point is that even Elon Musk said he wants to make it as affordable as possible, a few thousand dollars is not really affordable to most people on the planet. He also mentioned that those who don’t have an implant in the future may be left behind, making this another tool only the elites can fully utilize and enjoy. 

And if a robot runs around with an exact copy of you, who are you?