As I’ve mentioned before, I doubt we’ll survive as a species without AI and brain-enhancement, though those things could potentially end us as well. It’s a gambit. The opening of Kevin Loria’s Business Insider article about the future of souped-up brains, which I would guess are probably still a long way off:

“With a jolt of electricity, you might be able to enter a flow state that allows you to learn a new skill twice as fast, solve problems that have mystified you for hours, or even win a sharpshooting competition.

And this just scratches the surface in terms of what we might be able to do to improve cognition as our understanding of the brain improves. With an implanted chip, the possibilities might be close to limitless.

Researchers think that as we learn more about the brain, we’ll be able to use electricity to boost focus, memory, learning, mathematical ability, and pattern recognition. Electric stimulation may also clear away depression and stave off cognitive decline. We’ll eventually even implant computer chips that allow us to directly search the web for information or even download new skills — like Neo learning Kung-fu in The Matrix.

We’re heading down a path that will allow us to supercharge the brain.

The key is decoding how the brain works. That’s the hurdle in the way, and the one that billions of dollars in research are going towards right now.

‘I don’t think there’s any doubt we’ll eventually understand the brain,’ says Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology at New York University, and an editor of the upcoming book The Future of the Brain: Essays by the World’s Leading Neuroscientists.

‘The big question is how long it’s going to take,’ he says.”