Posted on 11/10/2017 10:57:09 AM PST by Red Badger
SUPER HUMANS could exist in just 15 years thanks to a computer chip inserted into the brain to unlock the mankind’s full potential.
People will be able to buy new memories and delete unwanted ones in the near future as experts believe they are close to biohacking the body’s most powerful tool, according to a leading technology entrepreneur.
Speaking at Lisbon’s Web Summit, Bryan Johnson, the founder of Kernel – a start-up researching the possibilities of microchips being inserted on the brain – says unlocking the true potential of the mind is the “single greatest thing” humanity can achieve.
Kernel’s first step is to design chips that can help fight disease, but then it hopes to evolve the brain to offer superhuman abilities.
The firm’s website reads: “To further explore our own human boundaries, a wave of new technologies needs to emerge that can access, read, and write from the most powerful tool we have — the human brain.
“At Kernel, our primary aim is to develop technologies to understand and treat neurological diseases in new and exciting ways.
“We will then interpret the brain’s complex workings in order to create applications towards cognitive enhancement.”
Mr Johnson told the audience at Web Summit: “I would expect in around 15-20 years we will have a sufficiently robust set of tools for the brain that we could pose any question we wanted.
“For example, could I have a perfect memory? Could I delete my memories? Could I increase my rate of learning, could I have brain to brain communication?
“Imagine a scenario where I say ‘I want to know what it’s like to be a cowboy in the American west in the 1800s?’ and someone creates that experience mentally.
“I’m able to take that and purchase that from that person and experience that.”
When Mr Johnson was questioned on whether such technology could cause further divisions in society between those that do have a neural implant and those that do not, the founder of Braintree, which was sold to eBay for $800 million in 2013, said that he believes such technology will become “democratised, like smartphones”.
He said: “The bigger question on this is: ‘Is working on this a luxury or a necessity?’
“I don’t understand what we are so scared of losing?
“I don’t know why it would not be the singular focus of the human race because everything we do stems from our brain.”
Yeah, a brain running Windows 10, just what we need.
“That computer you are using was sci-fi pie in the sky only a few decades ago”
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You _must_ be a young pup if you think PCs where just some crazy pipe dream in the 1990s.
As long as it cures my paraplegia, I’m all for it!
Wouldn’t memories of a trip to Mars be more memorable?
Yeah, but everybody goes there..................
I’m 62 and took computer courses in college, when ‘core memory’ was the the thing.................ferrite cores on a wire frame.................
This sounds like a scenario for the genesis of the Borg.
One of our engineers brought his PET to work.
People were standing around gaping at it in awe..................
Some of the early home PCs were pretty neato, I liked the Timex Sinclair, with it flat-touch keyboard. Did a lotta programming on that one and Radio Shack’s TRS-80. Fun days. Still have those computers, but the Sinclair is damaged.
Will they be able to implant brains into progressives?
My first home computer was the Timex Sinclair!................
Timex?? You guys were late to the game. I built the Sinclair kit LONG before Timex bought them.
With the Sinclair all you needed was a TV and cassette recorder and you were good to go!
I was lazy...............
Funny, I keep getting these ideas to open up an account for a Minister of Finance in Nigeria and they intend to make me a millionaire overnight for my assistance..../s
It gives me chills, pause to pray and admonition to share the free, gospel of Christ with the lost every time I see it.
That’s nonsense...
There is a good technological example of what works and what doesn’t.
Years ago, someone had a useful idea that if people could have glasses that would allow them to see in different spectra of light, or even use lasers to see structural distortion created by loads, they would be a very practical tool.
However, they just couldn’t make glasses that were light enough to wear with all that stuff in them.
Then somebody came up with the idea of making glasses with just a simple, transparent screen in them, that could be plugged in to a device that did the hard work. That is, the heavy device would see in different spectra, and just send an *overlay* of what it saw to the glasses.
So a person wearing the glasses would first see in normal light, then turn a dial to see in infra-red, ultra violet, or even with laser light.
In any event, compare this to the potential problem of putting a chip in your head, rather than using a machine outside of your head that then just gave you the information the chip would have given.
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