The internet is overflowing with tips on how to hack your health. From increasing cognitive function by drinking butter-spiked coffee to tracking sleep, stress, and activity levels with increasingly sophisticated fitness wearables, ours is a culture obsessed with optimizing performance. Combining this ethos with recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, it’s practically inevitable that the next frontier in achieving superhuman status lies in the rapidly developing field of brain augmentation.
copyright by venturebeat.com
Artificial intelligence has already proven its value in making software more intuitive and user friendly. From voice-activated personal assistants like Alexa and Siri becoming the new norm, to smarter app authentication through facial recognition technology, we have reached the point where people are starting to trust that the machines are here to improve our lives. The science fiction based fear of bots taking over is being put to rest as consumers embrace the ease and enhanced security that AI brings to our daily devices. Now that it has nestled itself comfortably inside our smartphones, scientists are aiming higher with the next device hack: the human brain.
Brain Augmentation
Visionary entrepreneurs including Elon Musk and Bryan Johnson have teamed up with scientists around the world to make brain augmentation a reality sooner than you may have thought possible. Simply put, the goal is to enhance intelligence and repair damaged cognitive abilities through brain implants. Duke University senior researcher Mikhail Lebedev, who recently published a comprehensive collection of 150 brain augmentation research papers and articles, is confident that brain augmentation will be an everyday reality by 2030.
Lebedev’s main focus of research is developing a device that can be fully implanted in the brain. Creating a power source and wireless communication system is a huge challenge, but one that Elon Musk is also working on. Musk made headlines earlier this year with the launch of Neuralink, a company working on the development of what science fiction fans refer to as “neural lace,” or the merging of the human brain with software to optimize output of both biological and technological functioning. Musk hopes to offer a new treatment for severe brain traumas, including stroke and cancer lesions, in about four years.
Neuralink
With Neuralink is still in its early stages, other Silicon Valley heavy hitters are eager to crack the code of brain augmentation. Braintree founder Bryan Johnson invested more than $100M of personal funding to launch Kernel, a startup staffed by neuroscientists and engineers working to reverse the effects of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s through the creation of a neuroprosthetic in the form of a tiny embeddable chip. Scientists admit that there is much research on how neurons function and interact that needs to happen before neural code can be written by computers, but the resources and attention garnered by some of today’s brightest entrepreneurs is sure to accelerate the process. […]
read more – copyright by venturebeat.com
The internet is overflowing with tips on how to hack your health. From increasing cognitive function by drinking butter-spiked coffee to tracking sleep, stress, and activity levels with increasingly sophisticated fitness wearables, ours is a culture obsessed with optimizing performance. Combining this ethos with recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, it’s practically inevitable that the next frontier in achieving superhuman status lies in the rapidly developing field of brain augmentation.
copyright by venturebeat.com
Brain Augmentation
Visionary entrepreneurs including Elon Musk and Bryan Johnson have teamed up with scientists around the world to make brain augmentation a reality sooner than you may have thought possible. Simply put, the goal is to enhance intelligence and repair damaged cognitive abilities through brain implants. Duke University senior researcher Mikhail Lebedev, who recently published a comprehensive collection of 150 brain augmentation research papers and articles, is confident that brain augmentation will be an everyday reality by 2030.
Lebedev’s main focus of research is developing a device that can be fully implanted in the brain. Creating a power source and wireless communication system is a huge challenge, but one that Elon Musk is also working on. Musk made headlines earlier this year with the launch of Neuralink, a company working on the development of what science fiction fans refer to as “neural lace,” or the merging of the human brain with software to optimize output of both biological and technological functioning. Musk hopes to offer a new treatment for severe brain traumas, including stroke and cancer lesions, in about four years.
Neuralink
With Neuralink is still in its early stages, other Silicon Valley heavy hitters are eager to crack the code of brain augmentation. Braintree founder Bryan Johnson invested more than $100M of personal funding to launch Kernel, a startup staffed by neuroscientists and engineers working to reverse the effects of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s through the creation of a neuroprosthetic in the form of a tiny embeddable chip. Scientists admit that there is much research on how neurons function and interact that needs to happen before neural code can be written by computers, but the resources and attention garnered by some of today’s brightest entrepreneurs is sure to accelerate the process. […]
read more – copyright by venturebeat.com
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