Comments on Elon Musk's Neuralink

Imagine waking up, coffee in hand, to read the news before you start your writing day. You click on Reddit and you see one of the central components of your scifi novel on the front page. E lon Musk is designing a computer / brain interface called a neuralink. Or he’s started a company to do that. He’s calling it ‘Neuralink,’ and all you can say is ‘Gee, I called it a ‘neurolink.’

That was me five minutes ago. To be clear, I didn’t plan this.

Let’s catch up: I’m writing a near-future scifi novel called ‘Mesh‘ and within the story I cover a lot of cool toys and tricks … a YA scifi novel with a vibe like Back to the Future 2 with a dark side. With me so far?

One of the things I talk about are computer/brain interfaces, nothing new there. The kids of Miramar Techncial High (where Mesh takes place) get them installed as part of their work building secret tech projects. A neurolink has a low-level AI, interfaces to the Internet, and more.

So I’m sure you can understand how weird and cool it is to hear that Elon Musk is talking about doing the same thing. He wants to make a chip that gives you ‘the digital intelligence needed to progress beyond the limits of our biological intelligence. This would mean a full incorporation of artificial intelligence into our bodies and minds.’ I read the article going “check, check, and check.”

So this blog post is part ‘hey, that’s neat,’ and part ‘don’t call me a rip-off.’ I’ve been talking about this since the beginning, just ask my Beta Readers. Does that mean I think E.M. is ripping me off? Of course not. We’ve been discussing neural network interfaces as a species for decades now. I want to talk about what a neurolink might do to society in the future, but that’s definitely not a central core of Mesh’s plot.

Plus, it’s not like the Neuralink is coming next week. If the hive-mind of Reddit is any indication, neurolinks are a long way from reality. However, the fact that different components of Mesh are popping up on the radar of our existence is pretty cool. It also means I better finish this thing before any other parts of it appear. 🙂

Write on!