CONCERNING TURNS IN TECHNOLOGY? - Elon Musk Announces a 'Neuralink'

Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, partially transformed into Locutus of Borg in episode 'The Best of Both Worlds: Part II.' Originally broadcast on September 23, 1990.CBS Photo Archive | Getty Images

Source: CNBC

Published: September 7, 2018

By: Todd Haselton

Elon Musk smoked pot and drank whiskey on the Joe Rogan podcastand said he's going to soon announce a new "Neuralink" product that can make anyone superhuman.

 
"I think we'll have something interesting to announce in a few months ... that's better than anyone thinks is possible," the TeslaCEO said on "Joe Rogan Experience." "Best case scenario, we effectively merge with AI."

Musk, whose enterprises include a company called Neuralink, says his new technology will be able to seamlessly combine humans with computers, giving us a shot at becoming "symbiotic" with artificial intelligence.

Musk argued that since we're already practically attached to our phones, we're already cyborgs. We're just not as smart as we could be because the data link between the information we can get from our phones to our brains isn't as fast as it could be.

Source: CNBC; Elon Musk

"It will enable anyone who wants to have superhuman cognition," Musk said. "Anyone who wants."

Rogan asked how much different these cyborg humans would be than regular humans, and how radically improved they might be.

"How much smarter are you with a phone or computer or without? You're vastly smarter, actually," Musk said. "You can answer any question pretty much instantly. You can remember flawlessly. Your phone can remember videos [and] pictures perfectly. Your phone is already an extension of you. 

You're already a cyborg. Most people don't realize you're already a cyborg. It's just that the data rate ... it's slow, very slow. It's like a tiny straw of information flow between your biological self and your digital self. We need to make that tiny straw like a giant river, a huge, high-bandwidth interface."

 
Musk, who spoke about Neuralink before he smoked pot on the podcast, said this sort of technology could eventually allow humans to create a snapshot of themselves that can live on if our bodies die.

"If your biological self dies, you can upload into a new unit. Literally," Musk said.