Humans are driven by emotions and sentiments. Their outlook to the surrounding is quite subjective rather than being driven algorithms or binary codes like 01101100011010010110011001100101. Being the most intelligent species on this blue planet, humans have sporadically played God. From cloning to genetic-level modifications, there are numerous such instances. Of late, the focus has shifted toArtificial Intelligence (AI). Perhaps your first-level interactions with AI have already happened. From Apples Siri to Amazons Alexa, the so-called assistants are actually your personal assistants, assisting you in your daily lives with bare minimum distraction.

Ask some silly questions to Siri, get some witty responses, and no harm done. Right? Of course, AI is at a very nascent stage but quite smart or dumb, as you may perceive, even in its budding years. The different forms of AI around us are constantly improving, getting upgrades and more importantly getting smarter. Like most of you, even I dread the day AIs get better than us and then get better of us. Even though I hail accomplishments like Google DeepMinds victory over Go Player champion, I seriously dont want AIs to peak after a certain level, where we have lost control only to be left as the second most intelligent species on this planet.

Even as tech companies are working, at surprisingly good pace, to improve the current AI, a few have envisioned slightly different versions. Elon Musk, the man who is known for his ambitious plans like electric cars, solar-powered homes, reusable rockets, sending people to Mars and so on, has also joined the fray with Neuralink. His idea of AI is building an interface between your brains and the computer. Elon Musks AI is more of an extension of yourself that is most probably bit more smart and efficient. I am sure youre already wondering if its something like The Matrix. Perhaps. Musk hopes to build something that will keep a check on AI an apprehension raised by the likes of Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates.

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According to Tim Urban of Wait But Why, Musk is working to merge human brains and AI that will cope with the super-intelligent AIs. He [Musk] believes that the solution to reduce existential risk is to be able to high bandwidth interface with AI. He thinks that if we can think with AI, it allows AI to function as a third layer in our brain, where we could have AI thats built for us. So we have human intelligence and then we have artificial intelligence, and theyre both us and so we become AI in a way, Urban is quoted as saying. ALSO READ: Neuralink and the Brains Magical Future

Urban admits this is indeed creepy but hopes that with everyone having his own AI, there will be nothing for the AI to conquer anything. Its much safer in a weird way, even though it gives us all a lot more power. Its like you dont want one Superman on earth, but if you have a billion Supermen then everything is okay because they check and balance each other, he adds.ALSO READ: A quick guide to Elon Musks new brain-implant company, Neuralink

Essentially, Urban is saying that if each country on the planet had a nuclear bomb, thered be no nuclear war ever. Well, the AI is not like the nuclear bomb, but the fear from it, in my opinion, is quite at the same level. At the moment, when we think about the AIs, we think of a smarter holographic image of a person that has all the answers and knowledge. But would we want to give away everything that our brains have to create a smarter version of yourself? I would not, for one. Perhaps I am okay to see an AI as a third person and neutral face rather blended with my personal history, dark desires, and fears that Id never acknowledged or even document. Most probably Id be livid and submerged into inferiority complex after seeing a smarter version of myself.

In case youre wondering, brain-computer interface concept is not really new. The basic versions of the interface are already lending support to people with disabilities, allowing hearing capabilities to auditory impaired, letting visually challenged to see, and lending a limb with prosthetics. Researchers are already working to connect the 100 billion neurons in our brain to make us do things that seem super human at the moment. Making an AI out of the brain-computer interface, of course, seems plausible but will be an overkill.

Fortunately, Musks plans dont involve connecting wires to the back of your neck to summon the AI, but wirelessly with the cloud. That being said, Musks few observations about us are quite intriguing. One of them is that we are already becoming a cyborg. Youre already a different creature than you would have been 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago. I think people theyre already kind of merged with their phone and their laptop and their applications and everything, he mentioned.ALSO READ: Google I/O 2017: Artificial Intelligence-first finally becomes a thing

Contrary to his opinion, Id like to believe our dependence on internet, smartphones, and applications is more based on our necessities rather the novelty. The apps and the magical world of the internet are just filling gaps that we perhaps had overlooked for a while. For an example, before Facebook, there was Orkut or Myspace, and after Facebook, therell be something else. But I doubt we are ready now or will ever be in at least the next decade, to give away everything we possess to upload our brains to the cloud. Had the Man of Steel been real, and I were the Kal-El, Id be freaked out to see my dead father, wandering around in the abandoned ship. Perhaps, I am okay to talk to an invisible AI with robotic-accent.Mind uploading in fiction Wikipedia

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Elon Musk's brain-computer interface plans are creepy and exactly the kind of AI you dread - BGR India