“Under any rate of advancement in AI we will be left behind by a lot. The benign situation with ultra-intelligent AI is that we would be so far below in intelligence we’d be like a pet, or a house cat. I don’t love the idea of being a house cat,” he said at San Francisco’s Code Conference.

“The solution that seems maybe the best one is to have an AI layer. A third digital layer that could work symbiotically [with your brain].”

Scientists have already begun work on a neural lace, successfully testing the concept with mice by injecting them with a device. They believe it could be used for monitoring the brain to fight diseases, or to improve cognitive power.

Musk, who made billions from PayPal and has ambitions to colonise Mars, said he did not know of a particular company working on neural lace, but that he was tempted to invest in the technology himself.