The three are joining in on a $40 million round that will help Vicarious toward its ambitious goal: translating the brain's neocortex into code.

Three prominent figures in the technology world have invested serious cash into a company that's trying to make a major move in artificial intelligence.

Tesla chief Elon Musk, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, and actor and venture capitalist Ashton Kutcher have invested $40 million into Vicarious, a company that's studying the human brain's neocortex and attempting to translate its function to computer code, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The neocortex is an essential element of being human, providing the functions that allow us to think, see, move, and much more. Speaking to the Journal in an interview, Vicarious co-founder Scott Phoenix said that his company's goal is to build "a computer that thinks like a person."

Vicarious is part of a broader robotics and artificial-intelligence movement sweeping the tech world. A slew of major companies, including Google and Amazon, are looking to leverage robotics, and Google is especially interested in enhancing artificial intelligence.

Vicarious can't say how long it will take for it to achieve its goal of creating a robot that can think like a human, but the company believes it's only a matter of time before it happens.

Can you say, "Battlestar Galactica"?

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Musk, Zuckerberg, Kutcher invest in artificial-intelligence firm Vicarious