Elon Musk says a person with a Neuralink chip could beat a pro gamer in a few years

Elon Musk predicted a future the place a human with a chip-enhanced mind can defeat a skilled video-game participant shouldn’t be far off.

In an episode of Lex Fridman’s podcast that was posted on Friday, Musk pointed to his Neuralink start-up, which implanted a chip into someone’s brain earlier this year.

“We really feel fairly assured that in the following yr or two, somebody with a Neuralink implant would be capable of outperform a pro gamer as a result of the response time can be quicker,” he stated.

In March, Neuralink stated the primary human to have a chip implanted in his mind is a quadriplegic, who gained the flexibility to play video games using his mind.

Wanting even additional into the long run, Musk stated Friday that the long-term purpose of Neuralink is to enhance AI-human symbiosis by rising a person’s capability to speak at excessive quantity.

With out such an enhancement, AI will get “bored” ready for folks to speak at a few bits per second whereas AI can do it at terabits per second, he defined, including “It is like speaking to a tree.”

However he pressured that Neuralink’s first order of enterprise is to handle broken neurons in the spinal twine, neck or mind, like the corporate’s first sufferers.

“We’re simply beginning with the fundamentals right here, the straightforward stuff, comparatively talking is fixing neuron injury,” Musk stated.

However as soon as the dangers of getting Neuralink mind implants are confirmed to be low, after 1000’s of individuals have been utilizing them for years, then maybe the corporate could purpose for “augmentation” of individuals with out neurological points, he added.

In reality, Neuralink already plans to enhance folks with neuron injury, giving them a “communication knowledge charge” that exceeds what people usually have.

“Whereas we’re in there, why not? Let’s give folks superpowers,” Musk stated.

Equally, Neuralink could enhance human imaginative and prescient, finally constructing on its Blindsight product for restoring sight. At first, it will present low-resolution pictures, however over time the decision could be greater than what people have as we speak, with the product even enabling imaginative and prescient in completely different elements of the spectrum like ultraviolet or infrared, he defined.

In February, Musk claimed progress on Neuralink’s first patient and final month stated his start-up had plans to implant a chip in a second affected person. On Friday, he instructed Fridman the second implant has occurred and was “to date so good.”

Representatives for Neuralink did not instantly reply to a request for remark.

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Roughly the scale of a quarter, Neuralink’s N1 brain-computer interface is designed to each report and transmit neural exercise with the assistance of over 1,000 electrodes distributed throughout dozens of various filaments, every thinner than a human hair.

This story was initially featured on Fortune.com