Elon Musk is a lot of things. But one thing no one expected him to be is a cyborg. Actually, we all are – according to him.
At the 2016 Code Conference, Musk seemed to be prepared for the occasion, sharing a moment with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg on stage. Musk, who at this point took up the role of a seer, gave a number of ways we could survive the AI apocalypse; if indeed we could.
“We’ve turned into a cyborg already.” Musk stated. “There exists a software type of you, a semi-form of you on the internet composed of all your electronic mails, your social media data, and everything you have done online.
Humans are already endowed with “superhuman abilities,” Musk insisted, referencing the increased use of smartphones and computers. “The power you wield is greater than what the US president had 20 years ago”.
You have answers to any questions that can be thrown at you, you have the ability to hold a video conference with people in different parts of the world. You can contact millions of people in a second, all at once. Basically, there’s just a lot of phenomenal things you can do. However, this is just the beginning.
The barrier, according to Elon, lies on the unbalanced input and output. The answer lies in coming together to form a symbiotic relationship with artificial intelligence. To put it differently, “neural lace.” Scientists are already working to develop it.
Smithsonian Magazine talks about a similar system that was engineered at Harvard:
“A grid of wire which is no bigger than a couple of millimetres in width can integrate itself into the neurons of living organisms and tap into their communication, enabling electronics to interconnect with your brain. If that doesn’t work, people must be ready for colonisation by robotic masters. “If any kind of development takes place in AI, humans will be far less behind them. In one possible situation, which Elon calls the “benign”, he says robots would be so much more advanced than humans that we would be to them as mere pets, like cats.
In a nutshell, what Elon is saying is since humans won’t win against the artificially intelligent robots, our only option is to join them, be one with them.
