Pioneered by one of the greatest technological mastermind of the generation, Elon Musk, Neuralink made its way to headlines substantially quick, and rightfully so. The idea of merging human and technology in a symbiotic, terminator style, as one entity seems closer to reality than fiction, now.
The evolution of human kind has always been through excelling in technological advancements and conquering convenience contrary to the typical adaptation and survival limited to specific surrounding environment. With the invention of much needed fire, where human defied the standard methods of hibernation and mass migration, the ball started rolling. Get it? Rolling? Like the wheel?
Thinking of it in such a broad perspective, it does start to make sense as to how and why we, as humans, have advanced in an astonishingly apt and more than apt manner. Every single decision, mistake, invention, movement of atom has led us here. The era where fiction meets reality. World in your palm, bitcoin, neuralink. All of it.
The initial goal of our technology will be to help people with paralysis to regain independence through the control of computers and mobile devices. Our devices are designed to give people the ability to communicate more easily via text or speech synthesis, to follow their curiosity on the web, or to express their creativity through photography, art, or writing apps.
-Neuralink.com
Apart from what the website says and what has been discussed with the media openly, it is difficult to constraint my imagination and suppose what could become of neuralink. The possibilities are bottomless. The innovations that could layer onto the basic "helpful" and "sober" approach Neuralink has are many.
The train of thoughts guided me to today's thread. How far could it realistically go? Yes, you could possibly control the light bulbs in your pantry with a blink or even look up the latest Arsenal beatdown while laying in your bed and scratching your man-parts.
But, I want to imagine what happens when this innovation takes an airplane-to-jetpack styled twist.
Considering how powerful the human brain already is, attaching a facilitator that can connect to computer technology as a single entity will make the brain only stronger.
There should come a time where the implant will facilitate solving of computational puzzle, which is done in extremely smaller scales in the brain, or verification of a transactional process through an algorithm which also adds the transaction to digital records.
BOOM! You are now mining bitcoin, at a tiny hashrate, a tiny satoshi a minute.
It will be interesting to see how the power supply problem will be tackled. Will Neuralink-humans be the sole source of energy or will traditional energy still take the lead.
According to this article on thebalance.com, One Gigahash Per Second takes about one watt.
Humans, in general, need an intake of 2000 kcal of energy to go therough a single day and 2500 kcal for a higher activity day.
At rest, humans produce ~100 watts of energy (due to high brain activity and repair), and through out the day an occasional 300 watts bursts.
Albeit, in case of sportsmen like Michael Phelps, they can go through 10,000 kcals a day. Producing whopping amounts of energy that make them Olympic champions.
So, yes, it could be possible to power the mining through your body facilitated through a Neuralink, possibly with or without a miner pc/unit. It is only up to time and research to figure out the details..
You could literally be the Proof-of-Brain.