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A Year of Telepathy

neuralink.com

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Re: A Year of Telepathy

#161

Post by kragen »

I wonder how hard it would be for an LLM interpreting the neural signals to perform a convincing simulation of speaking for the paralyzed person while doing things they don't actually want, or after they've suffered a loss of mental function that leaves them not really wanting anything. Like the autism scandals surrounding Facilitated Communication. Not that I think that's what is going on currently.

This Greg Egan short story is a useful intuition pump about the possibilities. Not recommended for children. Or before trying to sleep. https://philosophy.williams.edu/files/Egan-Learning-to-Be-Me...

It would be great if instead of "a clinical trial to demonstrate that the Link is safe and useful" we could have a clinical trial to determine whether or not it is.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#162

Post by lores »

sneak wrote: post #150
Philpax wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ADL's current leadership appears to be ideologically aligned with Elon Musk for reasons unclear. Here's an article with other Jewish voices, including the former director of the ADL, emphatically stating that it was a Nazi salute: https://forward.com/fast-forward/690745/adl-elon-musk-sieg-h... As for his other views, Wikipedia can speak to it better than I can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Views_of_Elon_Musk#Rac…

> Musk later denied being antisemitic and described himself as a "pro-Semite". So which is it? It seems wildly inconsistent to me to intentionally make a nazi salute but verbally deny being antisemitic. I don’t think someone like him would need to rely at all on plausible deniability, given that everyone already seems to hate him and he’s been granted immense power without having been elected to any position.

It strikes me there's no particular reason a modern Nazi should hate Jews when there are plenty of other groups to be scapegoated, like immigrants or liberals. There was historical prejudice against Jews then, there is against others now. I can well see Musk loving the trappings of fascism, the hilarious fun of trolling as a Nazi, and having people pay attention to him, while not being directly antisemitic.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#163

Post by aziaziazi »

sneak wrote: post #110
discordance wrote: post #56

Between 2018 and 2022 "the company has tested on and killed at least 1,500 animals — over 280 sheep, pigs, and monkeys, as well as mice and rats." [0] 0: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/12/11/23500157/neura...

Would you prefer they do the R&D solely on humans? Or that they cease developing BCIs?

Volontary humans over constrained animals? Sure!

Why would you cease developing BCIs? It’s not ethical to force another sentient being into biological R&D on their own body. OTOH there’s no problem to enroll someone to a dangerous mission if they’re truly voluntary and get a benefit from it.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#164

Post by misja111 »

SimianSci wrote: post #74

I very violently recoil from any of Musk's ventures these days. Im sure there are some very smart and talented people working at Neuralink. They should go work for someone else as their boss has shown himself to be a revolting person and the kind of leader who seeks to actively harm people who inconvenience him. This kind of behavior is not befitting of a company that will need to cultivate an incredible amount of tr…

Sadly it seems that the most visionary and successful CEO's tend to be a*holes to the people around them. Steve Jobs with his 'reality distortion field' comes to mind as well.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#165

Post by ralfd »

Philpax wrote: post #109
zensavona wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being concerned about animal testing seems pretty silly coming from people who likely eat pigs, sheep and other intelligent animals every day, who likely lived in just as bad conditions if not worse their whole lives leading up to them becoming food. I also eat meat, it just seems a bit ironic to me.

I'm pulling out my vegetarian pass to say, without hypocrisy, that Neuralink's animal testing record appears to be pretty horrific.

[flagged]

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#166

Post by Schiendelman »

SimianSci wrote: post #76
etchalon wrote: post #53

I wish I could trust this.

Dont. until we have a solution to the problem that is Elon Musk, and potential future Elon Musks, this type of technology can only be a net negative to society.

Henry Ford was a Nazi. Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post and drove it into the ground.

I think basically any of the leaders who brought us the technology we are using today are cults of personality like this, we just forget about the ones that aren't contemporary. I have yet to see us grow without them.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#167

Post by diggan »

Yoric wrote: post #152
KaiserPro wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forigner here, one who's family has been shaped on both sides by the nazis and lived through either bombing, or were active members of the resistance in occupied europe. That was a Hitlergruß, no ifs no buts. More over it wasn't just the once. Does it make him a nazi? no. But one has to question why the fuck he thought it was a good idea. He's terminally online, he knows exactly what it is. He's seen the same memes a…

I think we're forgetting something. As far as I understand, most of the leaders of the historical NSDAP (the Nazi party) / the Nazi regime were not Nazis themselves, insofar as they did not believe in whatever was written in Mein Kampf. Nazism was just a mean to grab and hold power. The true believers were basically victims of a con. So... I don't care whether Elon Musk is actually a Nazi. I do believe that he is wil…

Probably some of the Nazi leaders may have been opportunists to varying degrees, but to say that most of the leaders were not hardcore Nazis is not accurate. Out of the various biographies and books I've read, they're were all aligned about racial supremacy, antisemitism, and German expansionism, this is 100% crystal clear. Even private diaries from people like Goebbels that are now public, makes their commitment abundantly clear.

Another example is Albert Speer (whose biography I've also read), where he initially was an opportunists but eventually became active participants in furthering the goals and believing the "mission" of the Nazis, even though initially (and afterwards) wasn't as convinced (edit: by his own accounts, many historians disagree with this today).

Characterizing the leadership/inner-circle/leaders as merely power-seekers who didn't believe their own ideology minimizes their moral culpability and misrepresents the historical record.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#168

Post by diggan »

yreg wrote: post #128
fulafel wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taken seriously, this is a fallacy and a way of thinking that easily halts progress in making the world a better place. You can always use whataboutism to argue against any improvement on grounds that a consistent ethic would require you to improve several other things at once. Being this kind of silly on the way is fine. (Also of course a lot of the critics don't eat meat, and it's also true that the rest of us shou…

I believe that killing a pig for neuroscience research is more worth it than killing it to eat it. It also scales much better. (I currently eat meat.)

Do you sometimes feel like the end justify the means?

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#169

Post by noworld »

MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #77
SimianSci wrote: post #74

I very violently recoil from any of Musk's ventures these days. Im sure there are some very smart and talented people working at Neuralink. They should go work for someone else as their boss has shown himself to be a revolting person and the kind of leader who seeks to actively harm people who inconvenience him. This kind of behavior is not befitting of a company that will need to cultivate an incredible amount of tr…

What is the problem with Musk? I know his many shenanigans, but what about his helmanship causes you to violently recoil?

[flagged]

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#170

Post by tgv »

romaaeterna wrote: post #118
computerthings wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not questioning as in asking, that's accusing someone of something nobody can disprove. And if every single person who doesn't see the Nazi salute acts this way, smearing those who do, that's kind of telling. Basically " because it's not a Nazi salute, you're just a far leftist foreign agent nonperson" -- okay? That really does prove the point, and being confused by that shows having read zero bookshelves abou…

[flagged]

> he made explicit fascist statements

You're shifting the discussion from salute to conviction.

> Here is a collage of images

And now we know you're acting in bad faith.

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