Billionaire Elon Musk has launched a new company that may one day turn cyborgs of science fiction like “Justice League” into a reality.
The CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Tesla Inc. now includes Neuralink Corp. on his resume. The company is focused on “neural lace” that would alleviate brain disorders like epilepsy in the short run while staving off human extinction via artificial intelligence further down the road.
The Wall Street Journal spoke to industry insiders about the California-based “medical research” company on Monday and confirmed the hiring of Timothy Gardner, a professor at Boston University.
Max Hodak of the robotic lab services startup Transcriptic also said he was “member of the founding team,” but would only refer to the organization as
“embryonic.”
“If Neuralink can prove the safety and efficacy of technology it develops and receive government approval, perhaps it then could move on to cosmetic brain surgeries to enhance cognitive function, [sources] say,” the newspaper reported.
Mr. Musk told Vanity Fair as recently as Sunday that “meaningful partial-brain interface” will be available in “four or five years.”
The Journal noted that Mr. Musk, 45, has long been concerned about a tipping point regarding artificial intelligence, which theoretically could turn on its creators.
“I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence,” the CEO said to an MIT audience on Oct. 24, 2014. “If I were to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. We need to be very careful with artificial intelligence. […] You know all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water — he’s sure he can control the demon. It doesn’t work out.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.