Elon Musk envisions a future machine that can compute information faster and more efficiently than the human brain. When Musk tweeted, “The Ratio of Digital to Biological Compute is Growing Fast. Worth Tracking,” we all sat up, wondering how life has progressed so quickly that the world’s richest man sees a future in which machines can compute life, finance, medicine, and learning faster than the most dynamic computer ever created: the human brain.
As it turns out, this is not the first time Musk warns that the ratio of digital (capability of AI to create new algorithms that understand, predict and monitor phenomena) to biological computing (the innate ability of the most complex part of the human body to process life). His business, Neuralink, has invested heavily in research to better comprehend the complexity of the human brain. Neuralink claims that they have developed the ability to decode the information represented by those cells, gleaning the body’s intended movements through studies of the “neurons in the brain that carry information about everything we see, feel, touch, or think” by placing electrodes near neurons in order to detect action potentials and recording from many neurons. Many cynics see Musk’s study as vanity and an extension of his egotistical tendencies.
