// Timeline
The road to the merge
From two electrodes in 1998 to the 2045 singularity forecast: the milestones behind us and the scenarios ahead, every stop with a source.
1998–2004
The first interfaces
Phil Kennedy's two-channel electrode proves a human can steer a cursor by thought, and the 96-channel Utah array turns it into a research tool.
Source: Wikipedia: BCI2004–2016
The BrainGate era
The academic consortium demonstrates thought-controlled cursors, robotic arms and early speech synthesis: the foundations of nearly every system today.
Source: BrainGate2024
Neuralink in humans
Noland Arbaugh is the first to receive the N1 chip: 1,024 electrodes, wireless, invisible. Lab research becomes a product program.
Source: Neuralink2025–2027
Scaling & Blindsight
More than a dozen patients and trials in several countries. With Blindsight, the first vision prosthesis for the visual cortex is around the corner.
Source: Neuralink2027–2030
The AGI window
Leading labs expect human-level AI across nearly all cognitive tasks: the accelerator for every other technology on this list.
Source: Stanford AI IndexThe 2030s
Neurotech goes consumer
Interfaces leave the clinic: first therapy, then tool, then a given, like the smartphone, only under the skin.
Source: Wikipedia: Neurotechnology2045
Kurzweil's Singularity
The field's most famous forecast: machine intelligence surpasses all of humanity's, the brain couples to the cloud. Contested, and still the fixed point of the debate.
Source: The Singularity Is NearerBeyond
Post-biological?
Mind uploading, substrate independence, digital continuity: the open question philosophy and engineering are working on together.
Source: Wikipedia: Mind uploading
The past is documented, the future is forecast. We record who predicts what and when, not what is certain to happen.