Electric cars, solar panels, a car in space, and now…well, hard to say what it is, exactly, but Elon Musk is doing some very interesting experiments with pigs.
For now, he’s put a chip in a pig’s brain, and it can monitor its brain waves, which centers light up to which stimuli, etc… but it’s not really about the pigs. If they survive the experiment (as appears to be the case) then it’s a success.
The goal is to develop a neural human-machine interface. From the BBC article:
Mr Musk argues such chips could eventually be used to help cure conditions such as dementia, Parkinson’s disease and spinal cord injuries.
But the long-term ambition is to usher in an age of what Mr Musk calls “superhuman cognition”, in part to combat artificial intelligence so powerful he says it could destroy the human race.
Of course, it could also be a form of AI, a human machine hybrid, and maybe that could also end the human race.
But, I’m kind of optimistic. The ultimate application of this is immortality. When our bodies get old and worn out, we can just transfer all of our mental patterns into a computer, which can be installed in an android. It won’t be the same as flesh and blood, but considering the alternative…
So, good possibilities, bad possibilities, like any technology. This is something to keep an eye on.
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