If Elon Musk worries about one thing, it’s artificial intelligence. Over the years he’s sounded the alarm over and over again about the potential for unfettered, unchecked or unregulated artificial intelligence putting killer robots on our streets and perhaps even starting World War III.
Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, isn’t one to just sit back and presume that governments or someone else will take care of such concerns, futuristic and science fiction-y as they may be. This is a man who just gave away his Hyperloop plans and started drilling tunnels under Los Angeles over his frustrations with traffic, after all.
Earlier this year he also announced his involvement in a company called Neuralink, which apparently aims to build a brain/computer interface. In subsequent interviews Musk has explained how such a cyborg hack could greatly improve humans’ current input/output bottleneck (typing, clicking, tapping and swiping is much slower than the speed of thought).
This is necessary, his reasoning goes, because we need to be quicker in order to stay competitive with artificial intelligence.
In other words, to compete with the machines, we may have to become part machine ourselves.
If that isn’t the plot of science fiction blockbuster, I don’t know what is.
And yet, on the strength of his track record, his brand as a trail-blazing visionary, and his succeed-at-all-costs mentality, Musk has somehow managed to convince a small group of people to invest in his dystopia prevention side project, which it would be fair to classify as a literal fantasy at this point.
Last month, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing revealed that Neuralink has taken on a dozen investors, putting a total of almost $27 million into the secretive startup. The filing says the company is offering up to $100 million in stock, although Musk later tweeted that the company “is not raising money.”
Even if Neuralink is not actively soliciting new investors, the SEC form makes clear that at least a dozen people have skin in the game. That’s still pretty impressive for a business concept pulled directly from a sci-fi plot.
It’s safe to say that Musk is one of the few entrepreneurs around who could convert such a far-out pitch into millions without really even trying.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.