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A Year of Telepathy

neuralink.com

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Re: A Year of Telepathy

#201

Post by tmnvdb »

ben_w wrote: post #183
tmnvdb wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem awfully sure about what you would do but you again do not seem to have considered about what it is like to be fully paralyzed. Let me be clear, I understand the risks of these devices. But my impression is that you're having trouble emphathizing with people with such medical conditions and you're not really considering how it feels to live like that. In fact, you again spend your whole message talking about…

> In fact, you again spend your whole message talking about abstract considerations No. Not abstractions. I have experience of software, I know how bad the entire industry is . https://xkcd.com/2030/ applies to everything. Even without malice, my degree used as case studies the failures of the Therac-25 and the digitalisation of the 1992 failure of the London Ambulance Service computerised dispatch system. Hospitals…

Software safety is an abstract concept. You have experience with specific instances of problems that fall under the abstract concept of software security. This is not to say it is not important.

Not being able to move your hands is not an abstract concept. It can be directly experienced.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#202

Post by simianparrot »

BluSyn wrote: post #195
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…

I violently recoil at comments like this. Elon is so effective as a leader he seems to break people’s brains. No other person could have started this company and had even half this success. There’s a reason all the most talented flock to his companies, despite “conventional wisdom” saying they shouldn’t. It takes a lot of self deception to ignore the reality that he obviously must be doing something right.

I also think the way DOGE has gone about their business is the only way that'd work in a systemically corrupt environment. If you give these institutions ample warning they'll bury or destroy any and all evidence, because that's how it's been done for decades. That doesn't work.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#203

Post by dpnmn »

Veserv wrote: post #75
kfajdsl wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but have any made as much progress as Neuralink? Not a rhetorical, genuinely asking as someone who doesn't know much about this field. Though, even if others have, isn't this kind of technological achievement something to be lauded regardless of who owns the company that did it?

Yes: https://www.youtube.com/@BCIcanDoBetter Shaking President Obama's hand with "touch feedback" in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itkgmMLi7l4 Eating a taco in 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUjfA78FuZM Robot arm in 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjFr0rnbT24 Playing Final Fantasy 14 with a BCI in 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjNHkRH0Dus Non-invasive robot arm control in 2011: https://ww…

very interesting links, thanks! I was not aware that the technology had progressed that rapidly (outside of Neuralink, which captures a lot of the attention)

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#204

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

BluSyn wrote: post #195
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…

I violently recoil at comments like this. Elon is so effective as a leader he seems to break people’s brains. No other person could have started this company and had even half this success. There’s a reason all the most talented flock to his companies, despite “conventional wisdom” saying they shouldn’t. It takes a lot of self deception to ignore the reality that he obviously must be doing something right.

>It takes a lot of self deception to ignore the reality that he obviously must be doing something right.

Well, you have hit the nail on the head. My misanthropic view is that most people are a deluded lot.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#205

Post by janetmissed »

kragen wrote: post #161

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 s…

Thank you for sharing this short story. I read it with my coffee and really enjoyed it, turns out existential dread goes well with the first hit of caffeine of the day. You made my morning :)

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#206

Post by bennettnate5 »

diggan wrote: post #168
yreg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not the OP, but your question got me thinking. I think ends frequently justify means, though I’m guessing that the real question in that adage should be “does the end justify any means?”

Our entire decision system relies on endings justifying meanings. I want a steady job that pays well, so I concede to going to a 4-year institution and paying a decent amount in order for that end to be so. The end justifies the sacrifice in time and finances, so the decision is justified in my mind. If the end were that I had only obtained unemployable skills or knowledge, then that particular end would not have justified the means for me.

So I suppose that when people say the ends don’t justify the means, they’re not really saying it categorically—just that the particular ends being argued don’t justify the particular means.

With the case of animal testing to improve human quality of life, it’s hard to say. Dogs were routinely experimented on and killed to first link diabetes to the pancreas, and later to discover insulin was a substance that could be transferred to preserve life. These medical results have saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the past hundred years. Whether the neuralink experimentation is justified in its potential for quality-of-life improvements in paralysis victims years into the future really depends on where you weigh animal well-being and life in relation to future improvements to human life, as well as whether you believe their experiments are too gratuitous and could be carried out more safely/ effectively on fewer animals.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#207

Post by toasteros »

watwut wrote: post #113
SimianSci wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people mistakenly make a gesture, they dont do it once more exactly the same. And when people point out that they made this gesture their answer is usually not to crack jokes about how they made a Nazi salute in response. We can maybe disagree about WHY he did it, there's room to discuss if it was genuinely a white nationalism thing or if he was just being an edgelord. But it WAS a nazi salute and denying this i…

> it was genuinely a white nationalism thing or if he was just being an edgelord. Can we admit to ourselves that most edgelords are actually people infatuated with exact same movements and value systems? Literally all edgelords get angry and strongly dislike anyone left leaning. For example, you do not see them harassing right wing, but you do see them harassing perceived sjws. Somehow, there is no such thing as left…

> Somehow, there is no such thing as left wing edge lord.

Your comment is absolutely correct; Musk and his ilk are just people who "joked around" on 4chan and essentially radicalised themselves doing it.

HOWEVER left wing edgelords absolutely exist. Look up (at your peril) the phenomenon of "tankies". They're not your average communist, but rather apologists for Stalin's genocides.

Maybe your comment is more about the terminology at play, but it's interesting to see that the left wing mirror image of the average 4chan poster absolutely exists.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#208

Post by [deleted] »

swat535 wrote: post #190
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…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#209

Post by toasteros »

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.

You have to remember that fascism's application of othering is not logical, it's just a convenient method of gaining leverage. The Nazis targeted Jews because it was easy to weave a narrative about them, and because their population within Germany itself was so small that it was electorally inconsequential to victimise them. You see this with the Musk-Trump regime's position on trans people; trans people are not a threat to anyone, and are so few in number that you can easily weave a narrative about them and use it to push a more extreme agenda.

You are absolutely correct that modern Nazis are not really bothered by the Jews, but you have to remember that fascists just look for easy targets to hate.

Essentially, yeah, fine, he's not a card carrying member of the NSDAP. But he's a hateful individual pursuing a hateful agenda all the same, and he did the salute to signal to edgelords that he sees them.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#210

Post by smallpipe »

swat535 wrote: post #190
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…

[flagged]

“This kind of comments” is pointing out a completely valid reason for which you wouldn’t want to do business with a company, let alone have them implant something in your brain.
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