Neuralink

  On 7/21/2019 at 9:21 AM, vkxwz said:

Wow that is a disturbing picture.

 

I guess in 50years humans will have usb c ports sticking out of their heads too.

 

Can't wait until people with less money become the products (like with Facebook) and instead of paying with money they pay with personal information from their brain, or they're forced to have ads steamed to their brain. And of course they'll all choose to do this because of the convenience/efficiency that the technology provides

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It gets worse actually.  You know how we solve captchas for Google to train its image recognition?  We may be required to solve certain mental feats much more difficult than a captcha on the Neuralink to prove we are humans some day while simultaneously training the AI of the agency that is doing the verification, just as we are doing for Google right now.

  On 7/21/2019 at 9:32 AM, Zeffolia said:

It gets worse actually.  You know how we solve captchas for Google to train its image recognition?  We may be required to solve certain mental feats much more difficult than a captcha on the Neuralink to prove we are humans some day while simultaneously training the AI of the agency that is doing the verification, just as we are doing for Google right now.

Wonderful

I'm starting to rethink my dream of working in this field. Changing degrees 2years in doesn't sound too appealing however.

What happens when you forget your password?

  On 7/21/2019 at 10:00 AM, webby said:

What happens when you forget your password?

death

  On 7/21/2019 at 10:00 AM, webby said:

What happens when you forget your password?

mnemonic seed

you piss yourself

I piss myself

  On 7/21/2019 at 2:34 AM, Zeffolia said:

Imagine an expert at using this tool (and it is a tool (just as they said in the presentation) which must be learned to be operated similar to playing a piano) controlling a 303 with nothing but your brain.  I want to hear it.  If you don't you're lame

alvin lucier and david rosenboom already experimented with similar ideas

  On 7/21/2019 at 1:25 PM, Freak of the week said:

alvin lucier and david rosenboom already experimented with similar ideas

 

thanks for this great info.  very cool to know this.  it's still not even slightly on the level of what is possible though

  On 7/20/2019 at 11:17 AM, darreichungsform said:

Why shouldn't we mess with it?

Nothing wrong with a well designed brain computer interface. It would make things way more easy. In a way your brain is already communicating with computers, only the interface is shitty (hands, fingers, eyes).

Of course every technology brings its downsides and dangers, we just gotta think hard on how to deal with those and make some rules.

The only way to develop this is to forego all ethical aspects. I imagine a sinister lab working without any public knowledge on homeless people or lunatics, trapped in cages, heavily drugged and sedated. Or if they get volunteers for that kind of experiments (which is not unlikely) it's going to be gruesome in any way. Think Mengele 2.0. Experimenting on rats and mice is one thing, interfacing this shit with fully-developed human brain is another. The fact that we don't even understand how memory and conscience works, this appears similar to a neanderthal buliding a rocket.

Autistic hubris.

  On 7/22/2019 at 3:37 AM, cichlisuite said:

The only way to develop this is to forego all ethical aspects. I imagine a sinister lab working without any public knowledge on homeless people or lunatics, trapped in cages, heavily drugged and sedated. Or if they get volunteers for that kind of experiments (which is not unlikely) it's going to be gruesome in any way. Think Mengele 2.0. Experimenting on rats and mice is one thing, interfacing this shit with fully-developed human brain is another. The fact that we don't even understand how memory and conscience works, this appears similar to a neanderthal buliding a rocket.

Autistic hubris.

That's not true, it's minimally invasive and is going to first be tested by far-gone paraplegics who, trust me, would gladly take the risk to be able to move a computer mouse.  As the technology is proven more and more then people with less serious disabilities like severed limbs can step in, then more advanced techniques will eventually be used for targeting blindness.  If you have evidence that it's Mengele style that'd be great but they are following FDA rules.

What about messing with your head for the desired effects of recreational drugs?

  On 7/22/2019 at 3:42 AM, Zeffolia said:

That's not true, it's minimally invasive and is going to first be tested by far-gone paraplegics who, trust me, would gladly take the risk to be able to move a computer mouse.  As the technology is proven more and more then people with less serious disabilities like severed limbs can step in, then more advanced techniques will eventually be used for targeting blindness.  If you have evidence that it's Mengele style that'd be great but they are following FDA rules.

Yes, curing stuff and helping the impaired is all well and nice, but we both know this is not the primary reason why this technology is being researched.

What I meant with Mengele style is that rodent brain is much much simpler than human brain is. We are talking exponentially different by order of n. Don't tell me you believe this can be done on the first try, with no side effects with day-to-day operation and further down the line, like how the perception of reality of this test subject is going to change in the long run, i.e., how the brain is going to adapt to it. I'm just saying that we tend to rush things we don't understand yet (namely consciousness and memory). I'm no neuroscientist, but I feel this is just too ambitious, and other fields need more urgent attention than this, imo

  On 7/21/2019 at 2:32 AM, Zeffolia said:

For people with missing limbs, it will be able to control them.  For people who are healthy, it will give you access to a new limb - an input to controllers similar to a keyboard and mouse but more abstract and high-bandwidth.  Imagine instead controlling a video game controller with your mind.  Now imagine that you add on some more modulators to increase data throughput.  Now imagine that this controller is being used to control something else, like a drone that follows you around.  Now imagine that the imagery this drone sees is processed by imagine recognition software and converted into some abstract encoding space using a denoising autoencoder, and this encoding is normalized and cleaned up into an inderstandable form, then fed to a contact lens based HUD which gives you information about your surroundings, your coordinates, how to get to the location you want, how efficient you're being.  Imagine a heavily audited and open source knowledge graph letting you browse for information in realtime to solve any problem that comes your way with your mind, which is augmented by your control of the traversal of the knowledge graph whose results are then fed to the HUD.  It's like an external memory.

 

The next level would be extra eyeballs except they aren't used for viewing the world in the typical way, but directly interfacing with the knowledge graph.  Once they implement rich vision for blind patients it can be applied to sighted individuals to allow them to "see" and traverse other spaces, in this case information spaces

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Christ I'm getting old. Anyway, as a one-time futurist, this sort of thing fascinates me, but your description of what this might look like in practice also horrifies me. It's like something out of a Cronenberg film. We already spend so much of our time divorced from our present moment, endlessly sifting through various data streams, places electronic lens on top of electronic lens, using tech as a way to avoid actual human interaction and contact. . . .

I know, tech is just tech. But I can't help feeling like this leads to:

Anyway. Fuck it:

Long Live the New Flesh

itll be utilized to help us order toilet paper from amazon prime using bitcoin by just thinking about it, thus freeing up precious time to more efficiently bring about the (TM) next stage of humanity, while the planet continues to be destroyed, minimum wage workers toil in a warehouses and business people argue over how to market this revolutionary technology to the 'emerging markets in second world countries'

  On 7/21/2019 at 2:32 AM, Zeffolia said:

 Imagine a heavily audited and open source knowledge graph letting you browse for information in realtime to solve any problem that comes your way with your mind

Before those things ever go open source, decentralized or whatever it will be just one or two gigantic corporations using this for profit, information will be just as easy to organize / falsify as it is today and people will most likely just be used by a greater system.

But hey as soon as this thing will get wildly adopted it will get harder and harder to refuse it because not being augmented will be considered as being inferior.

I don't want to sound Amish on this lol, I know that smartphones already took over our lives that way and that it's not all bad - I just can't help but think that most of us are still very naive or plain dumb and that this technology will definitely do harm.

  On 7/22/2019 at 8:38 PM, Stock said:

Before those things ever go open source, decentralized or whatever it will be just one or two gigantic corporations using this for profit, information will be just as easy to organize / falsify as it is today and people will most likely just be used by a greater system.

But hey as soon as this thing will get wildly adopted it will get harder and harder to refuse it because not being augmented will be considered as being inferior.

I don't want to sound Amish on this lol, I know that smartphones already took over our lives that way and that it's not all bad - I just can't help but think that most of us are still very naive or plain dumb and that this technology will definitely do harm.

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Nothing wrong with sounding Amish or rather Neo-Luddist, it's a perfectly valid position that I give a lot of credence to.  I'm trying to be optimistic in this thread and of course there is a downside.  But with OpenAI gaining steam there is hope for the future, even if it's not perfectly Stallman-esque, and since Elon seems to genuinely care about the future of humanity rather than just making profit, there's hope that he can be convinced to go open source

  On 7/22/2019 at 8:15 PM, markedone said:

itll be utilized to help us order toilet paper from amazon prime using bitcoin by just thinking about it, thus freeing up precious time to more efficiently bring about the (TM) next stage of humanity, while the planet continues to be destroyed, minimum wage workers toil in a warehouses and business people argue over how to market this revolutionary technology to the 'emerging markets in second world countries'

You fail to realize how the economic freedom to the individual provided by Bitcoin, and the enhanced social ability provided by 24/7 connectivity, will allow workers to unionize and enact the communist revolution more effectively, permanently placing the means of production in the hands of the masses rather than the hands of the current horrible fucks

  On 7/23/2019 at 4:15 AM, Zeffolia said:

You fail to realize how the economic freedom to the individual provided by Bitcoin, and the enhanced social ability provided by 24/7 connectivity, will allow workers to unionize and enact the communist revolution more effectively, permanently placing the means of production in the hands of the masses rather than the hands of the current horrible fucks

i wish your convictions were true but they have no basis in reality, Libertarian/anarcho capitalism has never been to help anyone except the rich.  The stateless promises of something like bitcoin enable people with wealth to launder and keep more of their wealth hidden from government and thus fellow citizens; and you're crazy if you think development can happen purely out of the hand of the market/ without government. It's like the bitcoin cultists who thought they had all the answers to "fix" Puerto Rico but bailed as soon as  an ounce of reality hit. 'Enhanced social ability', don't even know what you mean, but having smartphones has not helped the common worker have any more power against corporate/oligarchical consolidation of wealth/power. These are social issues that don't have easy technological solutions.

  On 7/20/2019 at 10:24 AM, Stock said:

I'm really frightened by transhumanism / augmented humanity and of course by Neuralink. The " rewiring psychological issues" especially : what makes a psychological issue? It's all a matter of perception, isn't it? Like in the seventies when homosexuality was still considered as a mental disorder : would you rewire it?

 

I mean I'm not against medical progress, I'm curious to see how those devices will help us recover after a stroke for example but I'm afraid we will start losing our individualities and what makes us humans in the first place.

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Agreed. The idea is interesting in itself, like the ideas in a Philip K. Dick story are interesting and exciting, but not something I'd particularly want to experience. Not sure that more invasive technology is what the world needs right now, seems to be far too much room for misuse.    

  On 7/23/2019 at 7:32 PM, markedone said:

i wish your convictions were true but they have no basis in reality, Libertarian/anarcho capitalism has never been to help anyone except the rich.  The stateless promises of something like bitcoin enable people with wealth to launder and keep more of their wealth hidden from government and thus fellow citizens; and you're crazy if you think development can happen purely out of the hand of the market/ without government. It's like the bitcoin cultists who thought they had all the answers to "fix" Puerto Rico but bailed as soon as  an ounce of reality hit. 'Enhanced social ability', don't even know what you mean, but having smartphones has not helped the common worker have any more power against corporate/oligarchical consolidation of wealth/power. These are social issues that don't have easy technological solutions.

You have a first world perspective, Bitcoin is exactly what Venezuelans need.  Neuralink may be a bit more of a reach in that scenario though

  On 7/22/2019 at 8:15 PM, markedone said:

itll be utilized to help us order toilet paper from amazon prime using bitcoin by just thinking about it for the best porn ever.

FTFY.

  On 7/22/2019 at 7:32 PM, T3551ER said:

Christ I'm getting old. Anyway, as a one-time futurist, this sort of thing fascinates me, but your description of what this might look like in practice also horrifies me. It's like something out of a Cronenberg film. We already spend so much of our time divorced from our present moment, endlessly sifting through various data streams, places electronic lens on top of electronic lens, using tech as a way to avoid actual human interaction and contact. . . .

I know, tech is just tech. But I can't help feeling like this leads to: 

 

 

Anyway. Fuck it:

Long Live the New Flesh

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+1 to Musk as the first Observer. makes sense.

Any news about this? I want to play a synth with my brain. I want to change parameters of the music with my brain cells. Swoosh! Bam! I want to do that

I'm thinking these projects that Elon picks up are someone elses' idea and investors want him distracted from the financial dealings concerning Tesla and Solar City because he's an idiot.

Just like Trump and everyone around him letting him race the presidential limo around a Daytona racetrack.