Originally, I published this article on 07 February 2018 here

Elon Musk is known for being the owner of Tesla and SpaceX. But the entrepreneur's greatest megalomania is not making electric cars or the dream of taking mankind to Mars, but a third company called Neuralink and its project of linking computers and our brains.

Registered as a medical concept, the company's main objective is to cure diseases such as Parkinson and Alzheimer, from chips implanted in the head (which, until now, is something that has already been implemented by other research centers). However, Elon has already made it clear that he wants to go further, making the computer increase our cognitive ability.

The new service will be on air in 4 years and, when we are close to the deadline, the news will be on all media channels. We will have the classic "a lot of people against" versus “a lot in favor" and your cousin get into the bar saying: "I made a chip subscription yesterday and the guys installed the same day." Needless to say, it will be the joke of the bar table:

- What is the capital of Norway?

- Oslo.

- How much is 1527 x 63?

- 96,101

Astonished? The first big change is that your brain will be plugged into Google and, over time, you will not know if you answered "Oslo" because you learned it from your school teacher or it was the computer that blew the answer to your neuron. You just know it. And he knows everything: data, facts and so on.

So far, so good, uh? We will spend less time chasing information and more thinking about what we can do with so much data. Our new objective will focus on the power of human transformation from some raw info. Great? Maybe. We will also lose that bar chat where the conversations add up from layers of information that one knows and the other doesn't (after all, everyone will know everything). Oh, and we will not have Sunday quizzes on TV anymore.

The second step in this exercise of futurology is what makes virtual reality reach its peak, making your brain see what you want. It’s the end of couple's fights because of the sofa color. Once you purchased the furniture, it will have the gray color given to you and beige to your wife. Gotcha. And so it will be with everything from the decorating objects of your house to the color of the sky in the morning.

Cheating the brain will be the biggest weapon against heat, cold, obesity and so on. All we have to do is just click on the "I want to be cheated, thank you" option and this is the third big change. You will finish your lunch and feel an overwhelming desire to drink macadamia ice cream. Your favorite color will become blue and your next vacation will be at Kilimanjaro (just you, who have never been adventurous). Quickly, people will run the rumor that Neuralink and its competitors are selling neural induction packs for brands with the certainty of impulse-designed consumption. They will swear under the bible of Silicon Valley that it is a lie and that all their customers keep their free will. Except for the sponsored guys, of course.

Rodolfo Barreto.

Ps .: 1527 x 63 = 96.201. Never trust the system.

#neuralink #ellonmusk #science #singularity #artificialintelligence #ai