Just as ancient Greeks fantasised about soaring flight, today's imaginations dream of melding minds and machines as a remedy to the pesky problem of human mortality.

Can the mind connect directly with artificial intelligence, robots and other minds through brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies to transcend our human limitations?

Over the last 50 years, researchers at university labs and companies around the world have made impressive progress toward achieving such a vision.

Recently, successful entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk (Neuralink) and Bryan Johnson (Kernel) have announced new startups that seek to enhance human capabilities through brain-computer interfacing.

How close are we really to successfully connecting our brains to our technologies? And what might the implications be when our minds are plugged in?