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

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

#261

Post by arca_vorago »

gambiting wrote: post #232
globuous wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to resist to a tech when everyone around you is uing it. It's not impossible, but it is hard. My mum was super anti Facebook when it first came out. Now she has one. I'm not saying you will have an iBrain, but myself for instance, hope that I will not have one. Maybe though, I won't really have a choice in a world where nearly everyone has an iBrain. Kinda like that show where everyone has smart contact len…

I wonder if these conversations are how we ended up in 21st century with old people adamantly refusing to use computers - at some point in their 20s they decided they don't want to have anything to do with this dangerous technology, and now they are 60 year old and unable to receive email. Will it be us in 40-50 years time, with kids running neural laces with ease, and we will be refusing to use them because we were…

I think there is a clear distinction between what we are talking about and your example. I'm not talking about refusing to learn a new tech, such as "computers", rather insisting to only use tech that respects my freedom. For example, Linux is my daily operating system largely for this reason.

Stallman knew these issues were and are important, he was simply a man so far ahead of his time most people fail to understand the level of importance of his arguments.

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

#262

Post by norea-armozel »

I'm not sure if Musk's contention makes sense because intelligence isn't a uniform attribute to systems (biological or synthetic). Specifically, what passes for intelligence is just the proper applicable, discovery, and/or refinement of algorithms which we can do easily without intelligence (as in self-awareness and raw analytical capability). Just run through all possible paths or solutions on a sufficiently fast computer and you'll eventually get all the possible solutions to any given problem. It's not a matter of intelligence, it's a matter of lifespan and applicability.

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

#263

Post by scarlac »

littledouglas wrote: post #224

How do you prevent a malevolent AI from controlling armies of neurally-linked humans?

The proposed idea with a neural lace would be that we became the "AI". Any AI advancements would be augmenting our shared thoughts.

If you accept the notion that the internet is our backbone, then we're already a super organism with shared thoughts.

Or to reduce it to a catch phrase: If you can't beat [it], join [it].

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

#264

Post by nradov »

adrianN wrote: post #171
btschaegg wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

Those lines of research are usually shut down because of claims of racism. Researching genetic differences between different societies is frowned upon. There are for example people who claim that Jews tend to excel in science because historically they have been banned from many trades and retreated into more intellectual fields like banking.

There's nothing stopping researchers from searching for correlations between certain genes and intellectual ability (or at least performance on standardized tests as a proxy). Bringing race or ethnicity into the issue doesn't add anything.

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

#265

Post by bencollier49 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #210
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…

> How is this not an obvious eventuality for everyone here? I remember immersing myself in the Guggenheim's exhibition of Italian Futurism, 1909-1944 [1]. It was a rich display of the future course of humanity, per Italy's interwar and war-era fascists. F.T. Marinetti's Electric War: a Futurist Visionary Hypothesis [2], which I read in the Guggenheim's upstairs reading area, comes to mind: "Up there, in their monopla…

"abnormal growth of plants, as a direct result of artificial, high-voltage electric power"

Erm? http://gpnmag.com/wp-content/uploads/LED_Lights_in_Basil_Gre...

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

#266

Post by bencollier49 »

littledouglas wrote: post #222
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…

You should read Edison's biography. You'd understand Musk much more.

Which one?

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

#267

Post by myegorov »

Quenz wrote: post #178
myegorov wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've stopped paying attention ever since he spoke of breaking into the tunnels business.

Why?

In my book, tunnels, road construction, mining, oil & gas are quintessential examples of diehard reactionary industries making snail pace progress, with entrenched corruption and basically insurmountable barriers to entry.

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

#268

Post by AnimalMuppet »

aerovistae wrote: post #123
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. But not every idea that is labeled as "too hard" is in fact useful (or even doable) idea.

You don't think being able to communicate with a computer by thought is useful?

If it's not doable, no. It's just a nice dream.

If it's doable but the computer can't tell the difference between my attempts to command it and my daydreams, maybe still no.

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

#269

Post by grondilu »

An efficient brain-computer interface would require a good understanding of the inner-workings of the brain. So any effort in building such interface would motivate neurobiological research to get such understanding. I personally believe that once we have an accurate model of the brain, that is one that explains how thoughts, memory, emotions, consciousness and so on arise from brain activity, we're literally done.

Once we reach this point, I think humans will eventually replace their brains with artificial ones, either gradually (Moravec transfer), or in one-go. There will be various motivations : immortality, mind-performance improvements, etc. The end-result will be the same : we will turn into machines. It won't be a merger, it'll be a plain replacement. The scenario where AI robots kill us all will only be different from a subjective point of view.

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

#270

Post by namlem »

grondilu wrote: post #269

An efficient brain-computer interface would require a good understanding of the inner-workings of the brain. So any effort in building such interface would motivate neurobiological research to get such understanding. I personally believe that once we have an accurate model of the brain, that is one that explains how thoughts, memory, emotions, consciousness and so on arise from brain activity, we're literally done. O…

I'm not convinced that's true. There are countless innovations that we were able to get to work despite having little understanding of the underlying theory. Given how adaptable both biological and artificial neural networks are, I'd say that the hardware is far and away the primary limiting factor, not our theoretical understanding. Once we get a safe and reliable connection between brain and computer, we can figure out the rest through trial and error.
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