Elon Musk has launched a new company called Neuralink for the development of “neural lace” technology.
Neural lace technology seeks to augment human intelligence by implanting tiny brain electrodes that could be used to upload and download thoughts, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter.
The company was registered as a medical research company in California last July.
Musk has expressed his interest in the field on various ocassions over the past few years.
Speaking at Vox Media’s Code Conference in 2016, Musk said that the technology would allow humans to achieve “symbiosis” with machines.
He believes that neural lace technology could help prevent people from becoming “house cats” to AI.
“I don’t love the idea of being a house cat, but what’s the solution? I think one of the solutions that seems maybe the best is to add an AI layer,” Musk said at the Vox Code Conference. “A third, digital layer that could work well and symbiotically.”
More recently, Musk told an audience at the World Government Summit in Dubai, “Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence.”
He added that “it’s mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output.”
It remains unclear what type of products the new company will create, but according to the report by the WSJ, people familiar with the matter describe a strategy that is similar to Tesla and SpaceX.