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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

#161

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…

Transhumanism in terms of belief in the coming of AGI / immortality / mind uploading / genetic enhancement / etc is just a new secular religion. They're taking it on faith that those technologies will arrive soon without any hard evidence. Surely the Messiah is coming soon, right guys? Right?

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

#162

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…

You may enjoy reading about the world of Numenera: Earth, billion years in the future.

http://www.numenera.com/what-is-numenera/

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

#163
post #161

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…

Transhumanism in terms of belief in the coming of AGI / immortality / mind uploading / genetic enhancement / etc is just a new secular religion. They're taking it on faith that those technologies will arrive soon without any hard evidence. Surely the Messiah is coming soon, right guys? Right?

I think this claim would be more credible if there were the any other characteristics of a religion present. Namely: Doctrine, rituals, totems, prayer, and above all it would require that there is some credulity to a higher power/state such as heaven/nirvana that will never be seen by humans.

I'd be interested to see some of those as I haven't yet and I've been in the community for a while.

What I will grant is that, there are those who speak in the same structure as religious people. "In the future there will be no poverty because machines will make everything we need for free" sounds a little too close to "In heaven, you can eat all you want and never get full!"

However similar they sound though, they have radically different theoretical roots.

In fact though there is plenty of hard evidence for progress on all of the accounts you mentioned:

AGI: https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.08734

Immortality: http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-successfully-rev...

mind uploading: Not sure about Whole Brain Emulation progress right off the top of my head.

genetic enhancement: http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-reverse-sickle-cell-d...

Are they solved? Not by a long shot. Do we know when they will be? Of course not. There is progress though.

As far as I know, nobody is making hard progress on when Jesus is coming back.

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

#164

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…

You may enjoy reading about the world of Numenera: Earth, billion years in the future. http://www.numenera.com/what-is-numenera/

[deleted]

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

#165

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…

Musk never delivers on time. I think he sets unrealistic deadlines deliberately to scare off competitors and motivate his staff. Yet he still does things so radical that they spawn or renew entire industries, so does it really matter whether things are delayed by a year or two?

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

#166
Neural interfaces are an obvious direction to go, and we already have well established commercial nerve-interface products, like cochlear implants.

But I think there'll be significant problems in interfacing with the brain in a meaningful way, if you want to bypass the existing interfaces (hearing, sight, touch etc).

I think it will turn out that the internal implementation is a lot stranger than the external interface, it could vary significantly between persons. Perhaps falling into major categories for some aspects, analogous to blood types; but then varying in the details as much as our finger prints - note that even genetically identical twins have unique fingerprints, as they are highly developmentally affected, like the branches of a specific tree. Simikar for retina prints, an example closer to (some say part of) the brain.

I think interoperation with the internal implementation could require actual understanding of the brain - enough to build strong AI. We might even have strong AI before.

It seems very difficult, we haven't the faintest clue at this point. We may need new fields of marhematics. Could take even more than 20 years.

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

#167

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 wouldn't look to a workaholic to invent new ways to eliminate work. You might have to figure that one out on your own.

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

#168
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically you want AI to enclose you in a simulation where you feel fulfilled and happy?

No, I want it to create value that will be given back to me via taxation.

Why would it consent to you leeching onto its productivity?

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

#169
post #156

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.

[deleted]

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

#170
post #161

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…

Transhumanism in terms of belief in the coming of AGI / immortality / mind uploading / genetic enhancement / etc is just a new secular religion. They're taking it on faith that those technologies will arrive soon without any hard evidence. Surely the Messiah is coming soon, right guys? Right?

The difference is that most of those things are not known to be impossible. Immortality exists in nature, genetic enhancements have been demonstrated in the lab for simple cases, and building a machine that works like a biological brain also doesn't sound impossible. Mind uploading might still be thwarted by the no-copy-theorem, if our minds depend on quantum states.

The things transhumanists believe are possible are engineering problems. Historically we managed to solve those when we put our minds to it.

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