What is AI? Even Elon Musk Can't Explain

Word leaked Monday via The Wall Street Journal that Tesla / SpaceX industrialist Elon Musk has been funding a company called Neuralink-- allegedly with some of his own money -- attempting to connect computers directly into human brains. This is the same Musk profiled in this month's Vanity Fair, where he tells journalist Maureen Dowd in all seriousness that humanity needs a Mars colony to which we can escape'if AI goes rogue and turns on humanity." In short, Musk is one of many big thinkers who believe a human-computer hybrid is essential to allowing humans to keep their own machines from marginalizing them. Neuralink's technology is said to be a neural lace, which Musk has spoken about for over a year. But for most people, the first question isn't whether artificial intelligence will usurp our planet.