Elon Musk launches brain electrode company Neuralink

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has launched a start-up company that develops technology connecting human brains to computers. Neuralink, the start-up, is in its very early stages and registered as a medical research firm according to the Wall Street Journal.

The idea of Elon Musk in creating Neuralink is to improve memory or give humans added artificial intelligence. This could be achieved by developing neural lace technology that would implant tiny electrodes into the brain. Specialists in the field have already signed up to work at the company that is privately funded by Elon Musk. They have long visioned for a time in the future wherein humans will be able to upload and download thoughts, thus, the interest in Neuralink.

Elon Musk confirmed the existence of Neuralink through a tweet posted on Tuesday to which he adds more detail will be revealed next week via WaitButWhy - a website that illustrates tedious posts accompanied with crude but charming stick drawings. Earlier in a conference this year, the Tesla CEO outlined his fears that involve the fast advances in Artificial Intelligence. This means that humans will either have to merge with AI or become completely irrelevant.

"We are, all of us, already cyborgs," he said at the Beneficial AI conference. "You have a machine extension of yourself in the form of your phone and your computer and all your applications...by far you have more power, more capability than the president of the United States had 30 years ago." Elon Musk adds that humans are left because of output bandwidth constraints. This can be solved by adding a high bandwidth interface to the brain cortex to communicate with computers.

Elon Musk explains his vision of a tertiary layer interacting in a way that the motor cortex sends signals to the limbs. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley's visionary is also involved with heading SpaceX - a space exploration company. Elon Musk also leads projects, including one that reinvents transport called as Hyperloop, investigating the feasibility of boring tunnels under Los Angeles and a new one to power Australia.