Boosting your brain with a chip carries a price

IF YOU could safely implant a chip in your brain to enhance your intelligence, would you?

Some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful technologists want that future, including Elon Musk, who recently said he would ramp up production of his Neuralink brain chips this year as part of a noble effort to ensure that humans can keep pace with superintelligent artificial intelligence (AI) systems that might one day go awry.

Fellow billionaire Alexandr Wang, who is leading Meta Platforms’ programme to build such systems (the good kind), wants to delay having kids until Neuralink or similar tech can augment their intelligence, capitalising on the neuroplasticity of their developing brains.