In the last decade, we have all become more attached to our tech devices than ever before, but the prospect of a world filled with cyborgs is still (thankfully) the thing of science fiction.
But not for much longer, if Elon Musk is to be believed.
The Tesla billionaire, who is well known for his big ideas, has told consumers at a government summit in Dubai, that in the future people will need to merge with robots in order to save themselves from becoming irrelevant.
As Artificial Intelligence becomes ever smarter - even able to become highly aggressive to get what it wants – nightmares about technology taking over don’t seem so farfetched anymore.
On Monday, Musk told the audience that AI is “smarter than the smartest human on the earth” and warned of the dangers of this situation.
In order to avert a terrifying apocalypse, we will need to make humans indispensable to the technology we create: “Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence.
“It’s mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output,” he said.
Musk explained that computers are able to communicate at “a trillion bits per second” while humans are left trailing in their wake at about ten bits per second when we are texting or communicating via our smartphones.
In this instance, Musk says that an interface to the brain will be something that creates a “symbiosis” between human and machine intelligence, and keeps us in the loop, rather than forced out.
Although, even with these plans, Musk predicts that between 12 to 15% of the workforce will be unemployed in the next two decades as they are replaced by machines.
Oh joy.