Happy Wednesday to all my favorite norms out there. Another great day to get outside and sniff around… be careful.

Yesterday, Brady had a great talk about “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” framing a structure for us to think about Artificial intelligence. If you missed that, you can find it here unless it’s already printed out on your mom’s fridge - then read it there.

For today, we’ve got something you Muskers might have missed in the news. I started covering this innovation from Elon way back in 2020 when we had our previous show (tech bytes…. rip). With all the innovations and companies Elon is working on - this project has a ceiling that’s higher than all of them… combined (outside of OpenAi which he founded but doesn’t look like he has a major part of anymore because Sam Altman and their medling dog… wait). And if Brady tries to come at me about the boring company, I will throw my computer.

Neuralink is a chip implant (named Telepathy) that goes a few thin layers deep within your brain. It operates via sending signals through neurons to invigorate your system. Current target audience: individuals with quadriplegia restoring function in areas currently not in use (arms, legs, being blind, can’t smell) along with allowing them to use their mind to control external devices hands free (ie: texts and surfing the world wide web). Future target audience: all of humanity…

TLDR — WE’RE COVERING NEURALINK TODAY BECAUSE THEY JUST RELEASED BIG NEWS. READ BELOW FOR MORE.

Test Training: Animals

Neuralink came out back in 2016 but not publicly recognized until 2017. Multiple animal testings (like over 1500) happened within 2018-2022. You can find more information about their animal testing here.

Neuralink chose to target smarter animals (monkeys and pigs) to give as close to a replica to what it would be like to try on Humans. How smart are the monkeys? Look at this monkey playing pong with Telepathy implanted:

New Test: Humans

Elon tweeted on January 29, 2024 “The first human received an implant from @Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well. Initial results show promising neuron spike detection.”

When I originally started covering this back in 2020, I thought Neuralink would be a little ways out. And, boy did “a little ways out” get here quick. That’s one thing I love about Elon Musk is he’s going to do everything in his power to sprint for as long as possible.

It does worry me because if you read some of the testing reviews that came out about the project, there were quite a few deaths in monkeys, sheeps, and pigs. But likely to happen. And there will be more deaths in humans. That’s the nature of the beast. That’s also how they can go so fast is build to highest level of human intelligence, analyze when wrong, adjust quicker than quick, and now obtain a higher level of human intelligence.

So… Neuralink - whatcha think? Sometimes I have to take a step back, a deep breath, and maybe a cinnamon, almond milk latte to really get a grip. This seems like stuff we would have seen in the movies 10 years ago (preferably in Batman’s Garage) and now with advancements through AI and eventually AGI, we’ll see these becomes as widespread as an iPhone. Hopefully, consensually and not government mandated…

“Onward” (as Brady says),

Zander Huff

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