Neuralink

cool, but all the stammering and stuttering from the guy who wants to implant something in my brain, doesn't fill me with confidence. Ol' Musky needs to hire a spokesperson to present his products. At the very least, hire someone with a background in neuroscience to give the pitch. Your stock price would go up faster that way.:smirk:
 
I watched that demo yesterday. It's fascinating, and obviously a V1.0 product. The capability to provide assistive tech to stroke victims, those who are paralyzed, and to enhance quality of life in general... that's amazing stuff. Regardless of anyone's opinion of Elon Musk, he thinks big and delivers on groundbreaking challenges.
 
RDeraz said:
cool, but all the stammering and stuttering from the guy who wants to implant something in my brain, doesn't fill me with confidence. Ol' Musky needs to hire a spokesperson to present his products. At the very least, hire someone with a background in neuroscience to give the pitch. Your stock price would go up faster that way.:smirk:
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He's not pitching a product... He's recruiting. That's one of the first things he says when he started talking.
 
unix-guy said:
He's not pitching a product... He's recruiting. That's one of the first things he says when he started talking.
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It's a demo. I don't get this guy. He's terrified what AI will become in the future, giving warning speeches to whoever will listen, then wants to implant a link for AI in the brain. The motives here may be altruistic, but damn this is dangerous. the avenues for exploitation are endless.
 
I'm not a luddite, by any means... hell, I enjoy the Axe FX and I even use a computer... just goes to show how technologically progressive I am... but this is crossing the line. Sadly, I'm getting the impression that the rubicon has already been crossed. If they're displaying that kind of technology to the public, who knows what DARPA has up its sleeves?

This carbon- to silicone-based hybrid lifeform transition is dystopian to say the least. Just the other day I was watching a documentary about Jose Delgado and now this.... we will all go to hell in a handbasket, so let's enjoy the time we have left as "real human beings ™".
 
RDeraz said:
It's a demo. I don't get this guy. He's terrified what AI will become in the future, giving warning speeches to whoever will listen, then wants to implant a link for AI in the brain. The motives here may be altruistic, but damn this is dangerous. the avenues for exploitation are endless.
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Yes, but he alleviates the pain some patients with disabilities might feel. So they will start using it, and then everybody will have to use it in order to keep up with them. And then...

Reminds me of that little story of a Chinese Harvard professor who gene-edited an unborn baby plagued by the AIDS disease due to parental inheritance. Through gene-editing, the baby was born without AIDS. A nice side-effect was a substantial increase in Intelligence.

I still don't see how increasing the intelligence of unborn babies might benefit the leaders of said countries, but maybe someone can solve this puzzle for me...
 
RDeraz said:
He's terrified what AI will become in the future, giving warning speeches to whoever will listen, then wants to implant a link for AI in the brain
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He very specifically spoke about this, several times. In the long run, there are two ways for us to go:
  1. Get replaced by AI entirely
  2. Figure out how to use it such that it helps us, rather than replaces us, as a crutch if you will, blending the best of mankind and machine-kind
We currently can't effectively do #2 because we are severely bandiwdth-constrained. The purpose of Neuralink is to remove that constraint and enable symbiosis, rather than replacement.

The idea of Neuralink, BTW, comes from the epic sci-fi novels of Iain M Banks, the "Culture" series. There it's called the "neural lace", but the idea is the same - a direct, non-destructive interface into the brain. The weird landing barge names come from the same books as well.

I do recommend the series BTW. IMO it's some of the best sci-fi ever written. It describes a post-scarcity society where quadrillions of people populate galaxies, where spaceships are tens of kilometers in length and have AI "minds" of their own and fly at FTL speeds, and just about every gadget has intellect exceeding that of a human. This civilisation is called the "Culture", and there are other factions, with which The Culture interacts.

As far as Neuralink, even if none of this works as intended, this is still absolutely huge for neuroscience and understanding of the brain, and they will be able to repurpose that surgical robot. Thus far, we've only been able to implant a handful of electrodes into the brain, and do so very much destructively, with bleeding, rejection etc. Then these electrodes would be connected to a wire harness (yes, protruding from the skull) and to amplifiers designed by (shudder) scientists who would then attempt to decode the signals. The only non-destructive option, fMRI, was very coarse, and non-realtime. You'd basically be able to see entire regions of the brain light up. That gives you basically no practically (as opposed to academically) useful information. The whole line of research that currently exists, is of very limited use, demonstrated by a simple thought experiment: you would not be able to figure out how a much simpler system, like a computer CPU, works by using the current neuroscience techniques no matter what you did. And the brain is way more complicated than that.

Neuralink starts at 1024 electrodes, implants non-destructively and without bleeding, is bidirectional, and wireless, and its electronics are designed and built by some of the best people in the world. And that's just the start. This is going to do more for neuroscience in a year than academia has done in the last 20 years.
 
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plexi59 said:
He very specifically spoke about this, several times. In the long run, there are two ways for us to go:
  1. Get replaced by AI entirely
  2. Figure out how to use it such that it helps us, rather than replaces us, as a crutch if you will, blending the best of mankind and machine-kind

Neuralink starts at 1024 electrodes, implants non-destructively and without bleeding, is bidirectional, and wireless, and its electronics are designed and built by some of the best people in the world. And that's just the start. This is going to do more for neuroscience in a year than academia has done in the last 20 years.
Click to expand...
I was about to reply a much abbreviated version of this and then saw you posted my thoughts and then some. I’ve been following this since Elon first mentioned it, looking to build a team, and to me, the scariest part is ”bidirectional”.

Brings a whole new realm into “I got a virus”.
 
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plexi59 said:
He very specifically spoke about this, several times. In the long run, there are two ways for us to go:
  1. Get replaced by AI entirely
  2. Figure out how to use it such that it helps us, rather than replaces us, as a crutch if you will, blending the best of mankind and machine-kind
We currently can't effectively do #2 because we are severely bandiwdth-constrained. The purpose of Neuralink is to remove that constraint and enable symbiosis, rather than replacement.

The idea of Neuralink, BTW, comes from the epic sci-fi novels of Iain M Banks, the "Culture" series. There it's called the "neural lace", but the idea is the same - a direct, non-destructive interface into the brain. The weird landing barge names come from the same books as well.

I do recommend the series BTW. IMO it's some of the best sci-fi ever written. It describes a post-scarcity society where quadrillions of people populate galaxies, where spaceships are tens of kilometers in length and have AI "minds" of their own and fly at FTL speeds, and just about every gadget has intellect exceeding that of a human. This civilisation is called the "Culture", and there are other factions, with which The Culture interacts.

As far as Neuralink, even if none of this works as intended, this is still absolutely huge for neuroscience and understanding of the brain, and they will be able to repurpose that surgical robot. Thus far, we've only been able to implant a handful of electrodes into the brain, and do so very much destructively, with bleeding, rejection etc. Then these electrodes would be connected to a wire harness (yes, protruding from the skull) and to amplifiers designed by (shudder) scientists who would then attempt to decode the signals. The only non-destructive option, fMRI, was very coarse, and non-realtime. You'd basically be able to see entire regions of the brain light up. That gives you basically no practically (as opposed to academically) useful information. The whole line of research that currently exists, is of very limited use, demonstrated by a simple thought experiment: you would not be able to figure out how a much simpler system, like a computer CPU, works by using the current neuroscience techniques no matter what you did. And the brain is way more complicated than that.

Neuralink starts at 1024 electrodes, implants non-destructively and without bleeding, is bidirectional, and wireless, and its electronics are designed and built by some of the best people in the world. And that's just the start. This is going to do more for neuroscience in a year than academia has done in the last 20 years.
Click to expand...
Don't get me wrong , this is incredible. From a medical standpoint, the amount of people this could help is amazing. But, when this becomes consumer grade, well then , let the shitstorm of all shitstorms begin. The divide between have and have not will become a chasm. Then there is the possibility of brain hack. We can't keep our banking, corporate systems safe, how are we going to secure a neural network? If there is one thing we humans excel at, it is finding cracks in the system for abuse or profit.
 
In the days when we had to program VCR clocks for our grandparents, I always said that the thing that would segregate us from our grandkids would be our inability to get the full benefit of neural implants.
 
To get involved with something like this, you, meaning both a person considering an implant, and society in general, would have to really have a lot of faith in the company, both technically and ethically.

Technically, beyond all the required tech that doesn't actually exist yet, so we can't even discuss its specific issues, ALL software has bugs, known or not.

Ethically, the question isn't just whether you trust Elon or the company or its employees. The fact is that there's no such thing as ethical neutrality. Where's the line between alerting about or blocking depression or violence signals, addictions, etc, vs homosexuality, "excessive" left- or right-leaning ideas, lack of appropriate allegiances, etc? Does suicidal ideation in a 15 year old with an intensely painful terminal illness get blocked or reported? How about if the person is 102, unable to move more than an eyelid?

Who do you trust to make those decisions?

Of course these questions exist with or without this tech, and it clearly has the potential to help an enormous range of people, if it works well, and is administered with wisdom and compassion, none of which we should take for granted.

Hard questions. We might as well start thinking about them now, before potential profits and competitive advantages bring all kinds of crap into existence.
 
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I'll wait till they can implant a chip that will help me play guitar better than anyone on the planet!
 
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