The editor-in-chief of Backchannel Stephen Levy spoke with an entrepreneur who advocates the redevelopment of the human body through technology.

Implantation of a microchip in the brain to improve mental abilities has long been a science fiction story, but now the neurocomputer interface is a hot technological news item. In the spring of this year, Ilon Mask created a new company, Neuralink, which is working on this issue. Facebook at its F8 developer conference showed a video about a patient with amyotrophic sclerosis, which prints using brain signals. But the first in this race was Brian Johnson, an entrepreneur who in 2013, broke a big jackpot, selling PayPal his company Braintree for $ 800 million. Last year, he used $ 100 million to open Kernel, a company that is studying how to create and deploy chips in the heads of patients with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, to reprogram their neural networks and restore some of the lost abilities.

But helping to repair a damaged brain is just the starting point for Kernel. Johnson with impatience - and almost indecent enthusiasm - is waiting for the day when healthy people can get a neural stimulation. He has the reputation of being one of the most violent preachers of the alteration of the human brain. Needless to say, this desire raises many questions - the very same questions that I asked him in a recent conversation. Will you get his answers to subscribe to the neurocomputer interface? (We warn: this manipulation is invasive, but Johnson hopes that we will be able to find a way to do this without serious damage to the head. ) Read them and make your own decision - even with your obsolete, unmodified brain.

Stephen Levy: Why do you want to implant chips in the brain?.

Bryan Johnson: The next frontier of human ambition is inside our brain. Today, we learn the world through sensory mechanisms, and we will find thousands or millions of Everest when we unblock our brain.

We have run out of Everest, and now we have to create them?.

I look at the current set of things I could potentially do, and I would like to have more options.

You would like to do something, but feel limited, because your brain is not powerful enough?.

Yes, I feel incredibly limited in my current configuration. In my ability to process information, remember it, perceive it, think about it. Even what concerns the imagination - in my ability to reflect on things I do not know. I can only imagine those things that I know.

Can not at least some of these problems be solved by working together with machine intelligence, without having to change your own brain?.

Let me ask you: what will the human race look like in 50 or 100 years? What will it mean to be a person?.

I do not know the answer. Maybe my brain is too small.

People are now ruling on planet Earth, because we are the most powerful form of intelligence. Therefore, we decide who we eat, whom we keep as pets, who die, who to save, who to castrate, and to whom to allow breeding. Now we are developing a new form of intelligence - artificial intelligence, much more powerful, regardless of whether it is conscious or not. A person, in order to maintain his importance for decades, has no choice but to unblock his brain and interfere in the evolution of knowledge. If we try to imagine a world in which we will be happy in 30, 40, 50 years, then we will not see a version of this future where we could not understand how to read and write our neural code.

Until now, we have not found this out. Why do you think that it will be possible for several decades?.

I do not have confidence in success. This is the most intellectually honest answer I can give. Society says that the brain is incredibly complex. But we did not previously have the tools to properly study it, so we do not know. A fundamental breakthrough can occur within five or ten years.

You said that one thing that can be useful to humanity is to change our brains to do more of something positive. For example, do not make wars. Is it possible to change the brain so as to reduce hostility?.

All these are possible options. I want this to be an option.

Change of the brain for the sake of modification of feelings sounds to me like an anti-utopia. Did not you see the "Black Mirror"?.

Looked. This is an emotional experience that we are experiencing when meeting new technologies. When most people face this, they get the same instinctive response: "It's scary. I feel uncomfortable. I like myself as I am ". When people get drunk with an idea, they start to cook in it and find other factors in action. Why do we think that what we have is so sacred? Why do we consider ourselves sacred to the standard and think that some serious justification is required to change the configuration? Does not mankind strive to constantly change itself - with the help of such things as meditation? Are we not dissatisfied with ourselves initially? This is the change that comes from within. In my opinion, what you are proposing should be feared not that some people will say "I reprogram my brain", but that some things can be imposed on them.

I agree that when something is inside the brain, it's not the same as a cell phone, let's say. But all this is the gradients of our habitual evolution. These are the same arguments that always sound about new technologies. The answer to all of them is that I would like to live in a pleasant world. In a world in which I can be safe, I can creatively develop where I feel the purpose and meaning.

But if some people improve their abilities by increasing the brain, will not people who do not do this at a disadvantage? Perhaps they will not be able to compete in education, in the workplace and even in conversation over a cocktail. So it really will not be a matter of choice, is it?.

And how do you feel about the fact that some people receive private education, while others study in public schools?.

I do not like this.

Nevertheless, this is already happening. People for some reason think that cognitive improvement is something new in the world. This is not true. Just there are different forms. Private education is one of the forms of improvement. People always do everything possible to achieve maximum prosperity. Adding technology to the brain is just a continuation of what people have always done. I hope that now we will be able to develop technologies that will be available for billions. But the point is that this is not a new problem.

Do you feel that this is inevitable?.

Undoubtedly.

So, when do you think you can have a computer chip in your head?.

It depends on the type of technology, and also on whether governments will be able to resolve such a choice, instead of making me bear the burden of some kind of dysfunction or disease. So, if I have a healthy brain, when can I get it? I would say within 9-10 years.

Do you think that in 100 years people will not read books written before our time, because they will be too elementary 100%.

All great masters will look like ignoramuses.

I do not think so. People of the future will gather history together to consider this evolutionary path. What kind of people did this? What kind of people have contributed to what we like in our time, and what have we done good for our species?.

But it seems to me that you are talking about serious changes in human activity, from biological evolutionary development to something that will become an artificial evolution and will forever change what is a "person".

Exactly. Now we are in the era of self-governing evolution.

Genetically, biologically, neurologically and physically. I'm just waiting for a certain state to raise a hand and say: "We are ready to develop human potential. Bring your technologies here and let's do it ".

Do some states think about this now?.

I had several confidential conversations, and I would say that the interest is much higher than many think. When it comes to the competitiveness of a country, breakthroughs occur very quickly.

Inf. Kalynovsky. Com.