The Case for Progress: Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Neuralink

What if you could Google search in your mind? What if you could have a much better memory? Be effortlessly good at arithmetic, or able to suddenly display a talent for drawing or composing music ? What if you could communicate your thoughts and feelings in rich detail directly to another specific human being without speaking? What if you could become much smarter? What would you do?

**Fig. 1 - The fantasy and function of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.**

There are a number of political and cultural affordances associated with the coming wave of automation and the fantasy and function of Artificial Intelligence and robotics, all of which are related to the possible terms under which we should believe in, and come to fully understand, its power with (and over) us (Fig. 1). These are areas related to brain augmentation (to make the humans think, behave, and act faster and in more efficient ways); to provide forms of control of the human against criminality and corruption; an increased human life span, with the production of bio-artificial organs (though still in its infancy) constructed either from other materials – silicon – or even built via 3D printing; the ability of humans to enjoy more time for themselves to create and develop; the transformation of the environment as green, safe, and well-organized, replete with solar energy, food, and other indispensable necessities that will be cheap and easy to obtain; that humans will learn to be diverse, and to unite to embrace difference (accepting identities and learning from their perspectives); the experience of new and interesting situations and environments through VR and other tools to challenge (and expand) our minds; to live in a clean, organized, structured, and sustainable world; and to explore new planets beyond our world.

**Fig. 2 - Anthropo-technology in action.**

We already have robots that are able to clean, talk, cook, serve as waiters, undertake marketing, economic, statistical, and medical analyses, as well as teach, write, and perform (Fig. 2). Yet our relationship to technology is, as Peter Sloterdijk (2004) discusses in his work on “anthropo-technology,” better understood through the idea of a collapse or blurring rather than fixed distinction given the growing fluidity between humans and technology (with the latter a continuation of the former in ways that reconfigure the master/slave narrative). What is the smartphone in your pocket if not a very powerful computer, one that you already feel is a part of you? It holds many of your memories and creations, and helps you learn (if you choose), or watch silly cats (if you don’t!). But today’s computer has a problem: the speed at which we can transmit information to it (by typing, swiping, or speaking) is much lower than the speed at which it can transmit information to us (by showing us videos for example). In part because of this limitation, it is now faster to play than to work with a computer. Yet if science is the pursuit of knowledge about the world, and technology is the application of science to the production of useful tools, then any tool that is useful is also dangerous.

**Fig. 3 - Towards an Artificial General Intelligence.**

When I participated in the Cheltenham Research Festival in 2017, the researchers gathered at the event speculated that in the next 10 years, 70% of daily jobs will replace humans with robots. Even at that moment, they agreed that arts, sports, technology, and research practices would hopefully remain as human pursuits, despite subsequent evidence that these are precisely the areas that are at risk from robot intervention. This is because today’s neural networks – as everything from Deepfake image processing and AI-generated art makes clear – increasingly “understand” what they see and hear, and as a result we are fast progressing (within less than 70 years) towards an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) (Fig. 3). Teaching ethics to AI is already a serious field of study (see Kumar, Krishna, & Maddu 2023). Yet concerns remain over a ‘General’ AI would perform as a self-aware artificial person, very likely with super-human intelligence. If this should happen, then the moral problem of the rights of artificial persons will require urgent intervention. AGI may, in turn, become an existential threat to humanity if its goals are misaligned with ours. If we create an Artificial General Intelligence smarter than us and more self-aware, then it is possible that such an AI will not have our best interest at heart, and that humanity will be left behind.

Neuralink in Action: Monkey Plays Videogame with His Mind.

One of the main motivations behind the American neurotechnology company Neuralink (co-founded by Elon Musk in 2016) is to prevent precisely this kind of Terminator-like AI apocalypse. They believe that instead of creating a separate species that can leave the human race behind, it is better to create AI devices that are actually part of the human mind (what they call “a generalized brain interface”), so that we have the capacity to become super-intelligent. Neuralink has so far built one such “interface” device that is able to read the mind of a monkey while the animal interacts with a video game. A ‘neuralink’ was placed in each side of the monkey’s brain so that the Macaque could be monitored as he interacted with a computer (on the promise of a banana smoothie!) (see right). The Neuralinks are then paired with an iPhone, which allows scientists to monitor more than 2000+ electrodes implanted in the animal’s motor cortex which coordinate hand and arm movements. The ‘neuralink’ is paired to an iPhone same we do with a Bluetooth speaker, with the neurons in this region of the brain particularly modulating the activity with intended hand movement. Some may become more active when Macaque moves its hand up, and others when its moves it to the right. By recording the neurons and feeding their activity into a decoding algorithm, scientists are able to predict the Macaque’s movements in real time. In short, Neuralink works by recording and decoding electrical signals from the brain. The assumption is that such predictive tests will likely move onto human subjects (despite Musk’s proclamation last week that it had already happened), and in 1-3 years it is hoped that the Neuralink will allow paralyzed patients to use a computer by typing and clicking with their minds. The Neuralink will also allow amputees to move their artificial limbs by simply thinking they are moving them. The first human being having a brain chip implant just few days ago ‘’is recovering well’’ according to Elon Musk tweet, quoted in this recent video from Today (see below).

Yet despite these advancements, the longer-term goal of Neuralink (in around 10 years) is to expand the power of consciousness. The Neuralink of 2030-2040 is likely to completely replace smartphones, and effectively be the first cybernetic upgrade to the human mind. Humans with a link will be practically smarter, have much better memory, be able to mentally search the Internet, and eventually, be able to communicate telepathically with other humans who also have an embedded Neuralink.

Several other companies are similarly researching what are termed genomic-based treatments, and have promising initial results. The genomic medicine is using a patient or individual's genes (DNA) offering a tailored perspective, investigating the individual through their own complex biological details, allowing for a more effective diagnosis and treatment plan specifically for the individual. This is a technological intervention also dealing with the AI as the DNA is analysed through an AI tool. The genomic revolution is likely to start showing serious results in a maximum of 10 years, and reach maturity in another 20. Modifying human DNA via technological intervention raises clear moral and ethical questions that we as a society have never encountered before. Is it right to improve a child’s intelligence before it is born? Is it right to enable people to live indefinitely? What about the costs of anti-ageing treatments, and who will have access to them?

These are difficult questions, but humans can answer them together. The following 10 years will all be about technological strength, purpose, unexpected shifts, inside revolution, and amplification. Political changes, new social views, different mindsets sit alongside images of hunger, corruption, power, destabilisation, fear, crisis, trauma, domination, division, oppression, and discrimination on one side, and a desire for freedom, connection, healing, tolerance, transformation, growth, balance, compassion, living on purpose, rebirth, care for good of the society on the other. If we are to play a part in this journey of transformation, then it remains to be seen the extent to which AI becomes part of these issues how we can use it wisely.

**Tickets to see Victoria’s feature film The Pitesti Experiment film on Saturday 24th February in London are available here**

**Article published: February 10, 2024**

References

Baltag, Victoria. 2017. “Cheltenham Science Festival.” Available at: https://victoriabaltag.blogspot.com/2017/06/celtenham-science-festival.html

Haque, Enamul. 2023. The Ultimate Modern Guide to Artificial Intelligence: Including Machine Learning, Deep Learning, IoT, Data Science, Robotics, The Future of Jobs, Required Upskilling and Intelligent Industries. London: Enel Publications.

Kulz, George Anthony. 2020. Artificial Intelligence in the Real World. Minnesota: Focus Readers.

Sabry, De Fouad. 2022. Brain Implant: The Research that supports Neuralink, Elon Musk's proposed Brain Chip. One Billion Knowledgeable.

Sloterdijk, Peter. 2004. “Anthropo-Technology.” New Perspective Quarterly 21, no. 4 (Fall): 40-44.

Suresh S. Kumar, Bomma Rama Krishna, and ‎Rama Bhadra Rao Maddu. 2023. Principles of Artificial Intelligence Ethics. Andhra Pradesh: PND Publishers.

Biography

Victoria Baltag is a film director, scholar activist, entrepreneur, journalist and sociologist. Double bachelor graduate (Sociology and Journalism, both bachelors at the University of Bucharest), Victoria obtained, in 2010, a Master’s degree in Management and International Marketing at the Academy of Economic Studies (ASE), and in 2011 she completed another master’s degree, in Film, History and Television, at the University of Birmingham. She is currently doing a PhD in film studies at Queen’s University Belfast. In 2023, she launched an event film, The Pitesti Experiment, the last film to feature Mission: Impossible (1996) actor Ion Caramitru. In 2023, Victoria also directed the documentary Titus Munteanu – A Life in Television, a feature film about the history of Romanian television and the entertainment industry. Victoria is now working on her Artificial Intelligence animation film, and this blog is part of her research for the development stage of her movie.