At it Again

There’s no doubt that Elon Musk is one busy individual. When not playing on the Tesla factory floor, he may be bringing electric roofs to electric vehicles, or dreaming up the Hyperloop, or toying with the future of AI.

If not any of those, he is apparently busy protecting us from being treated like house pets after the Singularity. To that end, the billionaire polymath has revealed he may be working on something called a “neural lace.”

Discussed in a conversation at the Code Conference, Musk touched on a number of topics, including this fascinating “brain hacking” tech. Take a look in the video below.

Neural Lace

The concept was first thought up by Iain M. Banks in his Culture novels. In these novels, a neural lace is a mesh-like device that would be implanted in a person directly through the bloodstream, controlling the release of certain neurons using the power of thought.

Musk’s version of the neural lace doesn’t work exactly like that. Musk’s lace seems to be a mesh that would allow such AI to work symbiotically with the human brain. Signals will be picked up and transmitted wirelessly, but without any interference of natural neurological processes. Essentially, making it a digital brain upgrade. Imagine writing and sending texts just using your thoughts.

As far-fetched as it sounds, it’s not all mere science-fiction; there may be actual basis in verifiable science. We may, at least, already have the mesh part locked down. Nanotechnology experts have already developed an ultra-fine mesh of electronics that can seamlessly merge with the brain. This mesh has been tested on mice. Mr. Musk has hinted at announcing some developments in the area very soon.