Bring in the A.I.



Artificial Intelligence is a game-changing technology that echoed in our pop culture for years before we thought it was attainable. However, today, it is a lot more than just pop culture sci-fi. Now that we are on the cusp of a reality where we may one day come face to face with our AI counterparts, the world’s greatest minds are planning for such an eventuality.

This is where billionaire inventor and engineer Elon Musk steps in.

According to him (and many other experts), an era of Artificial Intelligence could quite possibly spell the end times for humanity. Artificial Intelligence is predicted to outpace humanity at an unprecedented rate, having them look at us adoringly as house pets at best or just doing away with us at worst. These predictions have pushed Musk to suggest something daringly unconventional and almost controversial: The neural lace.

Creating a neural lace is the thing that really matters for humanity to achieve symbiosis with machines — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 4, 2016

The neural lace is a device that is intended to grow with your brain. Its major purpose is to optimize mental output through a brain-computer interface, effortlessly accessing the internet just through singular thoughts.

Musk explaining the neural lace at the 2016 Code Conference:

So How Does This Save Humanity From Killer Robots?

Ironically, by becoming one with A.I.

By placing the neural lace as a layer above our brains, the playing field becomes even. While the computing powers of A.I. is expected to surpass that of humans greatly, the neural lace is expected to push our cognitive performance levels to one that is comparable to that of A.I. But all of this contingent on how society perceives placing a mesh covering atop of their cortex.

While many fear invasive surgery that would require their heads to be split open, there is another, slightly less intimate alternative: injections. Trials with wired neural mesh have already gone underway on mice, confirming that a syringe is a potentially viable mode of implantation. However, we are years away from anything close to what Musk was suggesting.

But here’s to waiting long hours at the doctor’s office sometime down the line for that neural lace.