Elon Musk, one of the most recognized entrepreneurs of our time, is contributing to what may be the greatest technological advancement of out time. We are entering an age in which artificial intelligence increases it's capability at an alarming rate (you can thank Moore's Law for that one). It's safe to say that the Information Age's greatest creation, the internet will be surpassed by the advancements of AI.
The Limits of the Brain
The human brain, is limited to by the physical realm. It can only take so much information at one time. Now do get me wrong, the human brain is extraordinary in what it's capable of doing. It's complexity has allowed us to develop language and form what we know today as the theory of mind.
However, we can all agree that areas such as memory and problem solving, that can be improved upon. This led humans to the creation of the computer, a machine that could could store and process information in an instant. What Musk proposes is a machine (more than likely a chip) that could retrieve information for us, so that we could learn, interpret and share information faster.
The Communication Issue
One does not need to take a class in Intercultural Communication to realize that it is difficult to communicate with people that do not come from the same background. The hardest part of trying to navigate in a foriegn country, is trying to communicate in a language that is not your own. The advancement of neuralink would allow us to communicate without the need for language barriers.
Even more exciting is the idea that we will be able to communicate between ourselves more efficiently because there is no obfuscation between interlocutors. We would finally have a chance to convey emotions and thought on a deeper level than ever before.
The Problems
Of course, there are going to be components of Neuralink that are quite scary. As Tim Urban explains in Neuralink and the Brain's Magical Future (of which most of this post is based on), the main problems include hacks, crashes and trolls. Now we could bypass the troll part easily, but the crashing and hacking part, well that's just a little bit more serious. The greatest difficulty would be testing this new creation and developing a product that is either:
- Not prone to crash/hack (No dip sherlock)
- Able to detect and a troubleshoot a crash/hack almost instantaneously
So it looks like we still have a couple more questions to answer before we assume our proper role as masters of the universe.
Conclusion
So many questions...where do I begin? I really want to know when this technology is going to come to be, let alone be open to the mainstream public. What what be the consequences, whether good or bad, of us having this type of technology? Will we be able to unite as a whole species due a deeper understanding of each other, or will we be further divided by it?
http://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html