The fundamentals of this idea are so shockingly hand-wavey, that I find this to be something of a hazard to Elon Musk’s reputation.

It’s far enough afield, that as blue sky projects go, this is farther away from us now, than cold fusion was in the 1980’s. Hint: we’re still not sure if cold fusion will arrive very soon.

It’s great to see caution in light of powerful technologies, but this blue sky concept is thrown into the mix as if to say “try anything to make it work” and in so doing, leaves the overall prophetic narrative in the realm of AI dominance as inexorable.

To hear this idea floating around is like saying:

  So, let’s do something to our brain. Anything. 
  Sprinkle wires on it, and maybe those wires will 
  help. What’s in them? Who knows! But golly, anything 
  to gain an edge because the who knows!

  But yeah, AI is already here to stay, and there’s no 
  controlling it, so just route around it.

There’s no plan here. Just add in the “make-brain-smart-wires” and pray. No one explains how we’ll be smarter, which is especially bothersome, given that we can’t quantify subjective experience, motivation and emotional reaction.

Are terrible people, criminals, dictators,and third world war lords getting these things too? Why will it make them do good? Why is it better to make an evil person more powerful than an artificial entity which we fear?