This isn’t quite as unlikely as it sounds, even if it will certainly take some time. Research into brain/computer interfaces has been going on since the 1970s, and microchips have been getting more powerful since the 1990s. If Israeli futurologist Yuval Noah Harari is to be believed, brains and computers may be able to communicate with each other almost seamlessly via direct interfaces within the next twenty to fifty years.
It is exactly this sort of research that Tesla founder Elon Musk hopes to revolutionize with his company Neuralink. If he has his way, people should not only be able to summon their Tesla by thought or play games directly in their minds, but with the help of brain implants possibly even communicate with one another without speaking a word. Thomas Stieglitz, a professor of biomedical microtechnology, finds Neuralink’s interface “innovative,” as he told the magazine Mixed. However, whether or not this vision of thought transmission actually becomes reality doesn’t depend only on research funding—but presumably also on society’s acceptance of it.
