Grimes and Lil Uzi Vert have never expressed much interest in boring old concepts like “being human.” Now, in the wake of Elon Musk’s announcement that his company Neuralink hopes to conduct human trials “later this year,” the pop experimenter and Baby Pluto linked up on Twitter to plan their own neural enhancements.
This is hardly the first time Grimes has supported one of Musk’s ventures. Apart from having his baby, she’s been a backer of his AI and SpaceX businesses, and recently said she’d be willing to travel to Mars even if it means “manual labour until death.” For Uzi’s part, he’s already a fan of cranial improvements, having recently unveiled a $24m diamond implanted on his forehead. You’d be hard-pressed to find two artists more receptive to something like Neuralink.
As previously reported, Neuralink works through “gossamer-thin wires” that could help people recover from traumatic brain or spinal cord injuries. It also has the potential to cure depression and allow users to stream music or control video screens with their minds. In a recent demonstration, a monkey was able to play video games without moving a muscle.
The two superstars made their plans to become superhumans on February 6th, after Uzi tweeted out “NEURALINK” in all-caps. Grimes responded with a short message of her own: “Let’s get brain chips.” LUV was predictably enamored with the idea, replying, “I’m ready when we doing it?”
“Let’s aim for chips by 2022,” she wrote. “It’s experimental surgery but if it succeeds we’ll have the knowledge of the Gods haha.”
Those three words, “if it succeeds,” are doing an awful lot of heavy-lifting. But assuming Musk gets an all-clear from the FDA, it would certainly be interesting to hear music from our new cyborg overlords. Whatever you think of their personal choices, Grimes and Uzi are fascinating artists, and between Miss_Anthrop0cene and Eternal Atake they produced a couple of our favorite songs and favorite albums of 2020.
Let’s get brain chips
— 𝑪𝒍𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒆 𝒅𝒆 𝑳𝒖𝒏𝒆࿎ (@Grimezsz) February 7, 2021
Let’s aim for chips by 2022. it’s experimental surgery but if it succeeds we’ll have the knowledge of the Gods haha
— 𝑪𝒍𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒆 𝒅𝒆 𝑳𝒖𝒏𝒆࿎ (@Grimezsz) February 7, 2021