Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Year of Telepathy

neuralink.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 357 posts

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#301

Post by Terr_ »

computerthings wrote: post #78
andsoitis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we all know helping disabled is not the end-game objective of neuralink. Can you tell us more what you surmise we all think is the end-game objective?

Someone who has genuine concern for helping people doesn't cut medical programs in fly-by-night operations to leave people with medical devices in their body and whatnot. Empathy and caring about suffering can be ruled out. Generally speaking, the demo is always about finding the green ball on top of a red cube, or the person who went missing in a land slide, but what sells it is detecting and aiming at the dissident…

> Vulnerable and sick people can only have things that would a.) help super rich people with the same conditions

I have occasionally wondered if, in some kind of time-travel scenario, I could convince the local royalty that subsidizing healthcare for the masses would ultimately benefit them years down they line when they need an experienced doctor who knows how to do some kind of surgery.

> Someone who has genuine concern for helping people doesn't cut medical programs in fly-by-night operations to leave people with medical devices in their body and whatnot.

Some folks might miss the political reference: https://www.citizen.org/news/egregious-abandonment-of-ongoin...

> but what sells it is detecting and aiming at the dissident hiding under a truck

Mildly relevant: https://xkcd.com/2128/

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#302

Post by Terr_ »

isoprophlex wrote: post #73
andsoitis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we all know helping disabled is not the end-game objective of neuralink. Can you tell us more what you surmise we all think is the end-game objective?

Jensen Huang becoming a sandworm from Dune, only he keeps shitting out mountains of NVIDIA cards instead of spice. Elon Musk and the rest of the technorati using neuralink to upload themselves into said mountain of GPUs to become immortal.

Wait... A sandworm with a mountain of GPUs ravaging a country ruined by a Technorati-coup's failed dreams of immortality?

The anime movie Vexille (2007) has you covered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Ti8mjRXsc&t=34

Technically the worms ("jags") are unintended junk rather than tools of apotheosis, but the overlap is striking.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#303

Post by mrguyorama »

tmnvdb wrote: post #30
ben_w wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the security track record of software in general, not even specifically those of Musk's companies but more broadly zero-days in all the major platforms, I would worry about a scenario half way between the plot of the film Upgrade and the long-standing trope of using hypnosis to turn someone into an unwitting assassin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upgrade_(film)

It seems easy to worry about somewhat far-fetched scenarios like this when one is not paralyzed and thus not making a trade-off between risks and a fully paralyzed life.

I know people this paralyzed. The concerns they have are usually more "How will I pay rent next month" and "how do I not get such bad bed sores"

How much do you think Neuralink is going to cost? How will people who can't get around on their own pay that? How are people who can't work going to pay that?

I don't know why supporters of all these things are so unable to view the whole situation. Musk doesn't want to pay taxes to a government that will support these disabled people. Musk doesn't want to support these disabled people. They are literally pawns for PR to him.

Musk doesn't want to advance the HUMAN RACE. Musk wants to advance CERTAIN PEOPLE.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#304

Post by consumer451 »

andsoitis wrote: post #63
wazdra wrote: post #61

Am I the only one a bit disturbed by this whole communication ? I mean, we all know helping disabled is not the end-game objective of neuralink. And right now, from a very cynical point of view, disabled people constitute a large reservoir of cobayes and free marketing for Neuralink I don’t know how much has been invested in R&D on Neuralink, but I doubt we have ever invested that much money in any other technology t…

> we all know helping disabled is not the end-game objective of neuralink. Can you tell us more what you surmise we all think is the end-game objective?

> Can you tell us more what you surmise we all think is the end-game objective?

Musk's original stated end-game objective is to give humans a chance against ASI by removing the biggest impediment that humans have to communicate digitally, the keyboard.

This is hard to believe as the truth, as it is extremely short-sighted. If ASI can think 1000x faster than a human brain, and with much more intelligence, then what does giving humans even a 100x improvement in I/O achieve? Also, if ASI is achieved, then it will continue to self-improve. The meat brain is stuck at our current speed.

Please see my HN profile for a privacy rant about the downsides, which only assumes a read capability. Once a write capability is introduced, I mean you gotta be kidding me. Who should you trust with that power? The answer is no one.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#305

Post by walrus01 »

Philpax wrote: post #137
cubefox wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Financial Times just ran an article about how trump might defy the supreme court on his way to burning down the republic. But that is arguably a mixture between conjecture and hyperbole which would not be surprising from a newspaper that is clearly quite left-wing and often aims to make right-wing people look bad. It's like a right-wing newspaper writing an alarmist piece about Kamala Harris. Would you expect a…

The Financial Times is "quite left-wing"? Really? It's certainly not Jacobin! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Times#Editorial_stan...

I have to admit I had a good laugh at that, "oh yes, very good point, well known extreme left wing marxist-leninists, The Financial Times...". Not to be confused with well known leftists The Wall Street Journal.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#306

Post by Veserv »

hoseja wrote: post #177
Veserv wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are ignoring the benefit side of a benefit-harm morality analysis. Eating an animal at least ostensibly has positive value for the people doing so. However, there are plenty of forms of "animal testing" that confer zero positive value. For instance, testing the wrong compound or inserting the wrong implant confers zero benefit. Having improper controls, "testing" nonsensical theories, repeating stale results poor…

> testing the wrong compound or inserting the wrong implant confers zero benefit It's called learning. That's why they are doing it in the first place.

You wanted to test implant A, but you unintentionally used implant B in half of your experiments is not "learning". Unless you needed to learn Surgery 101 like maintaining and going through checklists, but then you are grossly ill-equipped to be doing neurosurgery.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#307

Post by Yoric »

diggan wrote: post #167
Yoric wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abu…

You may be right. I'll need to double-check.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#308

Post by esotericimpl »

stackedinserter wrote: post #269
clarionbell wrote: post #222

Musk is a great example of how to ruin ones legacy. At this point, no matter what he does, how his companies perform, or even if this implant gives people back control of their bodies. Nothing will rid his work of the taint. It's tragic in a way. If he stuck to same playbook as practiced by many other early tech billionaires, spending his life on investing, philanthropy, himself and family, the world would probably n…

> Everything he has ever done, will now be viewed in much worse light. Viewed by whom? By you and a bunch of other neurotics that consumed too much CNN?

[dead]

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#309

Post by ben_w »

mrguyorama wrote: post #303
tmnvdb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems easy to worry about somewhat far-fetched scenarios like this when one is not paralyzed and thus not making a trade-off between risks and a fully paralyzed life.

I know people this paralyzed. The concerns they have are usually more "How will I pay rent next month" and "how do I not get such bad bed sores" How much do you think Neuralink is going to cost? How will people who can't get around on their own pay that? How are people who can't work going to pay that? I don't know why supporters of all these things are so unable to view the whole situation. Musk doesn't want to pay…

To add to what you say:

> Musk doesn't want to advance the HUMAN RACE. Musk wants to advance CERTAIN PEOPLE.

I think he can't tell the difference between those certain people and the human race as a whole. Trans people in particular would be the obvious example of his failure here — ironically, given how much inspiration he's taken from a fictional universe where people can change physical gender by thinking about it a bit and waiting a few months.

It's… not intended as a compliment when I say he "seems sincere" about wanting to advance the human race when it comes with this caveat. Quite the opposite.

Likewise given what else he's "seemed sincere" about in the past and hasn't manifested.

Re: A Year of Telepathy

#310

Post by some_random »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #299
some_random wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and yes, but honestly commenting etiquette has always been poor when it came to political topics.

I feel like it used to be better. But in this case this isn't even a political topic; a bunch of people just decided to bring up politics anyway.

Unfortunately anything involving _certain people_ instantly becomes political these days
Post reply on HN