CONNECTING PEOPLE Eo

Transhumanism might sound like the stuff of dystopian nightmares, but the advances required to link our minds to computers are closer than you think, says Steven Cutts

For most of human history, the field of engineering has been seen as distinct from biological and neural science. Living tissue has a quality of its own, and cannot easily interact with an electromechanical device. This perspective is now in flux. Within a matter of months, hardware that has been conceived by man in the laboratory will begin to converse with our cerebral cortex.

The idea of a brain-machine interface has been around for at least 50 years. It’s a common staple of a certain kind of science fiction novel and has already made the transition to science fact in research laboratories all over the world. Scientists working in this field have even conjured up a new name to describe their collective vision: transhumanism. They plan to take us ona journey into the future, and it is a future in which the frailty of human tissue will be augmented by computer science.

It’s a concept so intoxicating that it has attracted the attention and funding) of several of the world’s biggest tech barons including Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. These billionaire investors have access to the kind of research funds that would put most European governments to shame. As forward-thinking and driven individuals, they have the option of directing their resources to specific research topics including projects that more mainstream fund managers might have dismissed as high risk whether or not this level of investment will result in an increased rate of progress.

Elon Musk perhaps the most famous tech investor is the majority shareholder in the Neuralink Corporation. Neuralink was set up to develop implantable brain-computer interfaces ie electronic devices that might be surgically inserted into a person’s head in a bid to set up a data link between their nervous system and an external computer.