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| Neuralink co-founder quits weeks after hinting brain-tweaking software could reanimate dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park situation |
Hodak, who co-founded Neuralink
with Musk, was most recently seen speculating about the potential for the
project to semi-reanimate dead dinosaur species a la ‘Jurassic Park.
The engineer has thus far remained silent about his reasons for
quitting, insisting he “learned a ton [at Neuralink] and remain[s] a huge
cheerleader for the company!” However, an individual questioning Hodak on
his future projects seemed to have inspired him to eat his words. Asked what
was next for him, Hodak tweeted “not Jurassic Park.”
In the hyper-competitive aura of Silicon Valley, some have
speculated that Hodak may have enjoyed working on Neuralink so much that he
opted to build something along those lines himself. However, others have
suggested that “troubles at the management level” are responsible – and
indeed, Musk is accustomed to being the sole man in charge at his other
companies, Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink.
Neuralink may be the most controversial of all Musk’s projects. The billionaire has waffled back and forth between claiming the brain-to-AI setup is merely intended to help humans with severe health problems, including the paralyzed and others who can’t communicate with the outside world, and stating it’s an effort to make human beings more competitive as AI grows in strength and ubiquity.
“We will not be able to be smarter than a digital supercomputer,
so, therefore, if you cannot beat’em, join [‘em],” Musk infamously said
during a 2019 podcast, suggesting the “existential risk associated with
digital superintelligence" was too great for humans to face on
their own. Other stated (and less disturbing) aims for the project include “understanding
the human brain.”
Musk and other engineers have suggested that, due to the miniature scale of the operation required to implant a functional Neuralink setup into the human brain, the entire process should be done robotically. The company’s team claims to have implanted Neuralink chips into the brains of monkeys and pigs, supposedly giving the creatures the ability to “play video games using [their] minds.” However, skeptics have argued that experimental animals’ Neuralink-enhanced activities are more like playing ultra-simplistic video games like ‘Pong’ than surfing the internet.
At least a few reactions to Hodak’s announcement sounded alarmed, with one
commenter suggesting Hodak’s tweet read “like a ransom note.”
Another pointed out that it was “too early” for him to quit,
as Neuralink had still not debuted its flagship product. Hodak seemed to agree
with the latter opinion.
Others were simply itching to see what came next, hoping the company’s cofounder could spill the beans on how far along Neuralink was. Musk’s work tends to be shrouded in secrecy, accumulating huge rumors before it is finally introduced. Given the potential military
applications for Neuralink, it’s quite possible that the technology won’t see
the light of day for quite some time.
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