If you could safely implant a chip in your brain to enhance your intelligence, would you?

Some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful technologists want that future, including Elon Musk, who recently said he would ramp up production of his Neuralink brain chips this year as part of a noble effort to ensure humans can keep pace with superintelligent AI systems that might one day go awry.

Fellow billionaire Alexandr Wang, who is leading Meta Platforms’ program to build such systems (the good kind) wants to delay having kids until Neuralink or similar tech can augment their intelligence, capitalizing on the neuroplasticity of their developing brains. A venture capitalist once told me the true advantage of AI would come when you could plug it directly into your mind, making you the smartest person in the room.

This pattern should feel familiar. Silicon Valley has invested trillions in building artificial general intelligence, despite no consensus on what AGI even means (and companies are now quietly backing away from the term). A similar dynamic is emerging with brain-computer interfaces: grandiose visions built on conviction rather than strong evidence.

Neuralink’s head surgeon Matthew MacDougall, for instance, told the Andrew Huberman podcast that pharmacological agents like LSD and psilocybin are more........

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