Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to boost the brain to keep up with AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to boost the brain to keep up with AI

#151

Post by badminton1 » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 4:30 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #139

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #124

Everyone is so scared of all of this, but where do you all realistically see humanity in 200 years? Living like we do now? I mean do you realize how different things were in 1817 compared to now? Unfathomable to them [1]. I know HN hates techno groups, but this kind of thing is not new at all to folks who consider themselves "Transhumanists." How is this not an obvious eventuality for everyone here? It seems pretty c…

1917 was a lot like today in the most developed areas. The New York City subway system was running. Electric lights, telephones, and telegraphs were available. Running water. Indoor plumbing. Movies, even. Cars were being driven around, and airplanes were flying. Railroads were everywhere. NYC had skyscrapers with elevators. IBM was already in business. Compare 1817. No useful railroads. A few steam engines here and…

100 years ago was still an extension of the industrial revolution, where solutions were designed for the masses: mass media, mass education, mass production... there were mass produced standardized solutions that you had to adapt to.

The information age or post-industrial society we live in today an inverse process: a process of decentralization and customization, where consumers want personalized solutions rather than adapt themselves to an average/massive solution.

Re: Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to boost the brain to keep up with AI

#152

Post by aridiculous » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 4:37 AM UTC

cannonpr wrote: post #16

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #5

I don't want to compete with AI. I want AI to create efficiency and wealth so I can relax and have a leisure lifestyle. This shows that work-a-holic CEO culture is only about margins and gains and not improving lifestyle and quality of life. Automation should be improving our lives not adding anxiety to compete with it, which we will ultimately lose. We're probably in for another 1880's labor movement as automation k…

Not everyone wants to be human for ever, some people take joy in their work and want to continue doing it and contributing in a meaningful way, etc, etc. Nothing to do with being a workaholic or the rest. I hate to say it, but 'leisure' gets boring awfully quickly.

Have you actually tested this recently? I used to be concerned about unconstrained leisure bottoming out, but I've recently had about 6 months of a break of sorts and I was never bored. As long as I kept physical, social, emotional needs met AND had some creative output (side projects), I was perfectly content. A real surprise actually.

Re: Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to boost the brain to keep up with AI

#153

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 4:54 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #138

That guy needs to finish his itasks for 2017 first. - Tesla Model 3 production line (First deliveries late 2017. He said he was going to live at the factory to get the cars out the door.) - Brownsville TX launch facility (first launch scheduled for 2018, not much construction started yet) - Manned Dragon spacecraft (as of 2015, first crewed launch scheduled for late 2017) - Falcon Heavy (as of Q3 2016, supposed to la…

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to boost the brain to keep up with AI

#154

Post by rspeer » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 5:00 AM UTC

doktrin wrote: post #44

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #5

I don't want to compete with AI. I want AI to create efficiency and wealth so I can relax and have a leisure lifestyle. This shows that work-a-holic CEO culture is only about margins and gains and not improving lifestyle and quality of life. Automation should be improving our lives not adding anxiety to compete with it, which we will ultimately lose. We're probably in for another 1880's labor movement as automation k…

> I don't want to compete with AI. I want AI to create efficiency and wealth so I can relax and have a leisure lifestyle. This shows that work-a-holic CEO culture is only about margins and gains and not improving lifestyle and quality of life. I suspect, though I'm not 100% sure, that when Musk speaks about AI "competition" there's an implication of existential danger. If true, then from his POV it would not so much…

And that's why he's talking about nuclear disarmament, right?

No?

Seems that Musk wants to be a superhero that saves humanity, but villains that actually exist aren't cool enough for him.

Re: Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to boost the brain to keep up with AI

#155

Post by inimino » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 5:06 AM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #150

inimino wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predictions that were "obvious" to small groups of people and not to anyone else have a poor track record historically. That's not an argument against, but it justifies significant skepticism, and helps explain why your "but it's obvious " argument isn't going to convince anyone to take you seriously. Poll ten transhumanists, get ten mutually incompatible futures, all "obvious".

Well it's not just transhumanists, or small groups. It's basically every legendary computer scientist ever that assumed this would be an outcome - Minsky, Turing, Shannon, Knuth, Von-Neumann etc... so my point is that on a technologist site like HN, most people here would have been exposed to these people and what pretty much all the greats assume is an eventuality. They didn't necessarily advocate or want it, but th…

First, I don't think any of those greats had such a specific vision as this as an inevitable future:

"functionally merge with our engineered system in a symbiotic way and then probably see the extinction of the human species"

You can probably find quotes that will confirm your belief, but from a neutral viewpoint there is no such consensus between these people about the future.

Secondly, even if there was, we have 60+ years more experience than they did with these systems, and we should be able to make better predictions than they did.

There are many potential future outcomes, and it's reasonable to think about them and to try to mitigate certain possibilities. It's not reasonable to say that a certain outcome is inevitable and you know what's going to happen. We just don't.

Re: Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to boost the brain to keep up with AI

#156

Post by nradov » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 5:07 AM UTC

blazespin wrote: post #136

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #124

Everyone is so scared of all of this, but where do you all realistically see humanity in 200 years? Living like we do now? I mean do you realize how different things were in 1817 compared to now? Unfathomable to them [1]. I know HN hates techno groups, but this kind of thing is not new at all to folks who consider themselves "Transhumanists." How is this not an obvious eventuality for everyone here? It seems pretty c…

More realistically I think will be genetically selecting super smart babies. Most likely this is already being done today. As it proves to be effective people will get better and better at it until we start genetically selecting and even engineering superminds.

There's no free lunch when it comes to genetics. If it was possible to be a lot smarter without negative consequences then we probably would have evolved it already. Most likely there are some downsides such as increased risk of depression, autism, schizophrenia, etc.

Re: Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to boost the brain to keep up with AI

#157

Post by btschaegg » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 5:10 AM UTC

blazespin wrote: post #136

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #124

Everyone is so scared of all of this, but where do you all realistically see humanity in 200 years? Living like we do now? I mean do you realize how different things were in 1817 compared to now? Unfathomable to them [1]. I know HN hates techno groups, but this kind of thing is not new at all to folks who consider themselves "Transhumanists." How is this not an obvious eventuality for everyone here? It seems pretty c…

More realistically I think will be genetically selecting super smart babies. Most likely this is already being done today. As it proves to be effective people will get better and better at it until we start genetically selecting and even engineering superminds.

This makes me wonder at what stage we can actually start to draw parallels to Huxley's Brave new World... Or are we already past that threshold?

Re: Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to boost the brain to keep up with AI

#158

Post by btschaegg » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 5:20 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #156

blazespin wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More realistically I think will be genetically selecting super smart babies. Most likely this is already being done today. As it proves to be effective people will get better and better at it until we start genetically selecting and even engineering superminds.

There's no free lunch when it comes to genetics. If it was possible to be a lot smarter without negative consequences then we probably would have evolved it already. Most likely there are some downsides such as increased risk of depression, autism, schizophrenia, etc.

Perhaps. Another explanation might be that it doesn't produce enough evolutionary advantages in the context of a human society.

One could also argue that the medical advancements of the last 100 years or so have greatly reduced the evolutionary pressure created by "bodily weakness", and I'd imagine similar arguments could be made in the opposite direction when it comes to other factors (like the norms of a society and its influence on the advantage of mental capabilities of some kind).

It would be very interesting to see in what ways societies "skew" the evolutionary process. Does anyone know of good research/data in this direction?

Re: Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to boost the brain to keep up with AI

#159

Post by AndrewKemendo » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 5:36 AM UTC

inimino wrote: post #155

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's not just transhumanists, or small groups. It's basically every legendary computer scientist ever that assumed this would be an outcome - Minsky, Turing, Shannon, Knuth, Von-Neumann etc... so my point is that on a technologist site like HN, most people here would have been exposed to these people and what pretty much all the greats assume is an eventuality. They didn't necessarily advocate or want it, but th…

First, I don't think any of those greats had such a specific vision as this as an inevitable future: "functionally merge with our engineered system in a symbiotic way and then probably see the extinction of the human species" You can probably find quotes that will confirm your belief, but from a neutral viewpoint there is no such consensus between these people about the future. Secondly, even if there was, we have 60…

There are many potential future outcomes, and it's reasonable to think about them and to try to mitigate certain possibilities.

Let me rephrase then:

If you evaluate the written history of humanity, there is the unavoidable trend that humans will create tools which replicate and obviate human actions in a more optimized manner.

Stone Tool > Controlled Fire > Shelter > etc... to the point that the ultimate boundaries of human capability including things like creativity (Generative Adversarial Networks are the frontier right now) - which is one of the few remaining distinguishing features of humanity by the way - are being mechanized.

Eventually they all will be, because there are people like me trying to make it happen.

So while you are right that it's not inevitable, you can rest assured that we're working hard on it and the trends are in our favor.

Re: Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to boost the brain to keep up with AI

#160

Post by fsloth » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 5:42 AM UTC

erkkie wrote: post #140

2_listerine_pls wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is so scared of all of this, but ... This will be used for control. 50 pieces of senators want to sell you online thoughts already (internet history). And yet, you are willing to live in an alternate reality where this doesn't happen and it's all for good.

Everything is/was going to be used for control since the start of times, what's the alternative?

Legislation that protects citizen from abuses of power. There are governing bodies that actually do this