ELON MUSK, perhaps the world's most famous entrepreneur, is sometimes referred to as "the Trump of technology"--not for political reasons, but because of his habit of making, at short notice, spectacular pronouncements that stretch the bounds of credibility. On July 16th he was at it again, unveiling a new type of brain-machine interface (BMI). If human beings do not enter a symbiosis with artificial intelligence (AI), he declared, they are sure to be left behind. And he, the announcement implied, was going to be the man who stopped that happening. Connecting brains directly to machines is a long-standing aspiration.

A battle for the "soul" of the global economy is underway. The next few decades will likely decide whether capitalism survives or is replaced with a techno-fuelled quasi-socialism where robots do most of the jobs while humans live off government support, likely a designated guaranteed or basic income. Many experts believe wide-scale automation is inevitable. Even the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, recently announced it's building an AI to replace its managers, many of whom are highly educated and previously thought invulnerable to automation. Robots, it seems, will manage everything.

Elon Musk's Neuralink, the venture working to bridging the gap between potential superhuman artificial intelligence (AI) and the human brain itself, is finally providing an update on the research it's been doing since its formation in 2016. The event will take place on July 16th in San Francisco for a select audience, and a live stream will be provided as well, according to the company's official Twitter account. "We're having an event next Tuesday in San Francisco to share a bit about what we've been working on the last two years, and we've reserved a few seats for the internet," the company posted. "It will also be livestreamed, for those who don't have the chance to come!" An update on Neuralink's research activity was teased in September last year by Musk during a live interview.

Solar-powered self-driving cars, reusable space ships, Hyperloop transportation, a mission to colonize Mars: Elon Musk is hell-bent on turning these once-far-fetched fantasies into reality. But none of these technologies has made him as leery as artificial intelligence. At Code Conference 2016, Musk stated publicly that given the current rate of A.I. advancement, humans could ultimately expect to be left behind--cognitively, intellectually--"by a lot." His solution to this unappealing fate is a novel brain-computer interface similar to the implantable "neural lace" described by the Scottish novelist Iain M. Banks in Look to Windward, part of his "Culture series" books. Along with serving as a rite of passage, it upgrades the human brain to be more competitive against A.I.'s with human-level or higher intelligence.

Elon Musk's Neuralink may be testing its'Matrix' style computer-brain interfaces on animals, it has emerged. Devices being developed by the firm are designed to give people advanced mental abilities, which Musk says will let humanity keep up with future'god-like' AI systems. City planning documents submitted by the company reveal plans for'a small operating room for in vivo testing, and a small room to house rodents.' It is not known what the tests involved, whether they actually took place, or if they are on-going, as Neuralink has refused to comment on the matter. Elon Musk's (pictured) Neuralink may be testing its'Matrix' style computer-brain interfaces on animals, it has emerged.

As if solar-powered homes, and cars, and gigawatt factories along with his Space X ventures weren't enough already, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has another outlandish plan for humanity – a wizard-hat you might say, for our brains. Tesla and Space X are already redefining humanity's future, but Neuralink, a platform that would use futurist technology to augment our brains could alter our world even more. With a 36K explainer showing us exactly how Neuralink supported brain-hacking will work, Elon Musk has laid out plans to bring us to the future in a few short years. Among other claims, Neuralink promises to make human to human telepathy possible. This news makes some very excited, but others are wary.

At the World Government Summit in Dubai in February, Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said that people would need to become cyborgs to be relevant in an artificial intelligence age. He said that a "merger of biological intelligence and machine intelligence" would be necessary to ensure we stay economically valuable. Soon afterwards, the serial entrepreneur created Neuralink, with the intention of connecting computers directly to human brains. He wants to do this using "neural lace" technology – implanting tiny electrodes into the brain for direct computing capabilities. Various forms of BCI are already available, from ones that sit on top of your head and measure brain signals to devices that are implanted into your brain tissue.

The future is both thrilling and terrifying. It's normal to feel both. For every aspect of life in which technology could play a role, it's not hard to envision a doomsday scenario (or two) arising from it. When considering the fate of humanity, keen insight, inference, and humor go a long way. That's what science-communicating husband and wife Zach and Kelly Weinersmith had in mind when they penned their new book SOONISH: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and / or Ruin Everything. Zach is a cartoonist best known best for his webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and Kelly is a biologist at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Neural lace made headlines this month with Elon Musk launching Neuralink, a medical research company that aims to merge the human brain with intelligent computers. And while this sounds like it's pulled from the pages of a Sci-Fi novel, neural lace could be the next advancement in the field of AI. See also: 10 Elon Musk ideas that aren't so crazy. At its most basic form, neural lace is an ultra-thin mesh that can be implanted in the skull, forming a collection of electrodes capable of monitoring brain function. It creates an interface between the brain and the machine. To insert neural lace, a tiny needle containing the rolled up mesh is placed inside the skull and the mesh is injected.

Elon Musk's controversial startup to crate a'Matrix' interface to plug the human brain directly into a computer has raised over $27m, it has been revealed. Called Neuralink, SEC filings have revealed the scale of the firm for the first time. It has raised the $26.96 million of a technically still-open funding round that could grow to $100 million - although Musk took to Twitter to say the firm is no longer raising cash. Elon Musk's latest company Neuralink is working to link the human brain with a machine interface by creating micron-sized devices. Neuralink was registered in California as a'medical research' company last July, and he plans on funding the company mostly by himself.