Elon Musk is one step closer to connecting a computer to your brain.
Neuralink is building a brain-machine interface as well as a little robot that installs the necessary wiring directly into your skull. Neuralink, the mysterious neuroscience company backed by Elon Musk, revealed more details about its plans to connect computers to human brains recently.
Musk explained that his off-the-radar neuroscience company Neuralink continues to push the boundaries of science with its latest model: the aim being not only for a smaller interface but for a vastly more powerful interlink.
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Image: Neuralink
In 2019, using tiny wired pathways or neural links implanted directly into the head , a discrete behind the ear ‘controller’ received the wired pathway signals wirelessly. Computers running proprietary software are able to track the brain activity in real time. The latest version, just announced is a coin size device that sits on top of your head and is wired to go directly into your brain.
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Cyber Frankensteins
This technology in a cruder form, has been used already to enable amputee control over prosthetic robotic limbs but the neural link was not hard wired or physically connected to the body.
Musk stressed the wide variety of spinal and neurological conditions — including seizures, paralysis, brain damage, and depression — that Neuralink technology could help treat. “These can all be solved with an implantable neural link,” said Musk. “The neurons are like wiring, and you kind of need an electronic thing to solve an electronic problem.”
However, this new hard wired development changes things- not only in terms of faster and more accurate tracking of brain impulses but in the implications of what may be possible using hard wire. How about human pilots directly wired into the flight and combat systems of an advanced flying craft? Or a neural link human network where brain impulses can be transmitted and received between linked in people? Or a monkey that can control an advanced computer? Oh wait, that last one actually happened….
For the Silo, Jarrod Barker.
