Elon Musk is one of the most powerful business owners in the world. Now, he is trying to take over the world. Just kidding … maybe.
Elon Musk is the founder and owner of Neuralink, a company that is working to develop implantable brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and computers. Remember that sci-fi book you read about robots and computers taking over the world? Maybe it’s not as fictional as you thought.
To be fair, Neuralink has a lot of potential to help people. It could possibly be used to cure brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Actually, successfully creating this brain chip for the human brain would truly be revolutionary. People would be able to control their phones and computers without even having to touch them. With this, people with paralysis could easily text, draw, take pictures, and more. Also, paraplegics could walk again, and people could save memories as photos.
The question on my mind is safety. How safe is it for human brains to be connected to computers? I love my phone, but do you know what I don’t love about my phone: hacks and glitches. If a human brain is connected to a computer or phone, what is to say their brain will not be hacked? Neuralink would also have complete control over the brain, and what happens then? Is the person even themself anymore, or are they just a robot? Who knows if this is actually just intended for people with brain diseases and paraplegics or if Musk is planning on taking this to the entire world population to have control over everyone’s brains with this new technology?
The brain chip does not yet have Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval but trials have been done on pigs and monkeys. This could mean trials on humans are next. Neuralink rival Synchron has already been given FDA approval for its brain chip. Maybe I’m just cynical, and Elon Musk is actually doing something kind for humanity, or maybe we should all take caution when approaching Neuralink and other similar brain chips.