Musk live demos Neuralink, a high bandwidth brain-computer interface

[HumansfirstComputersSecond]

33 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

That went..waaaay too many places at once.  “Accelerate income”?!  Not sure what that even means. 
 

this is not a currently in productive use thing like tesla cars or spaceX or even solar panels. This is something that MAY (or may not) go somewhere some day.  It’s not production or even engineering level. It’s kind of weird for an industrial specialist to be doing this sort of research.  It’s happened before though.  Edison created a device to speak with the dead at one point.  This may turn out to be more useful that that (it actually turned out that tech developed for the Edison device was useful. Just not for speaking to the dead.  It’s used in earthquake detection and has saved thousands of lives) but treating it like it’s the same as his other stuff is unreasonable.  Basic science is almost always useful.  For what is rarely known when the research is started though.  Do I think he will make a working device that does what he claims? No. He may find out something interesting that is useful elsewhere though. Or he may not. He can spend his money how he likes.

As for accelerated income, youtube can teach you any method of income generation at any level you want for the most part. Yes there's a lot of crap videos but there are a lot of very very good ones too.

Pick a category & income level and type it in, you'll get answers. Just costs time & patience.

 

Eventually we will all own friendly robots of some kind (roomba is an example) that help make aspects of our day & work lives easier. AI Virtual Assistants already exist for instance.

[Monkey Dust]

I can't see this being anything other than super niche. Sure if it can fix, say epilepsy. But to use it as an interface for other tech, at the speed things advance and have support dropped, you'll be having your head opened up every couple of years. 

[Donut417]

So we talking Ghost in the Shell style of surfing the internet? Cause that would be kinda cool. 

[jagdtigger]

4 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

So we talking Ghost in the Shell style of surfing the internet? Cause that would be kinda cool. 

Nah ill pass, dont need a virus like the individual eleven in my head. Or straight up ghost hacked......

[akio123008]

Musk claims one of the goals of this stuff is to make humans smarter (by adding compute power to your brain) in order to outsmart AI systems. I have a couple of problems with that.

 

1. The brain implant may eliminate the I/O bandwidth problem of a human brain (you no longer have to type or read) but it doesn't increase your intelligence. This means that if an AI is sufficiently smart, it's going to outsmart you anyway, because it never had an I/O bottleneck in the first place and is also smarter.

 

2. Having a brain-computer interface could make it easier for an AI to mess with humans, because it can now interact with them directly through their brain, rather than having to rely on some physical phenomenon which would require the AI to make use of extra hardware.

 

IMO this being an AI defence is BS. We may want to focus on not making a hazardous superintelligence, rather than trying to build systems to outsmart one (which will fail given the superintelligence will be smarter)

[Bombastinator]

Re: edison

he had a dead relative of some kind he was desperate to talk to.  Ghost photography hadn’t gotten debunked yet and spiritualism was all the rage. It was the heyday of Houdini, who debunked a lot of spiritualist charlatans and the birthplace of evangelical Christianity.  It didn’t seem quite so stupid at the time.  The irony is the tech he developed turned out to be useful in earthquake detection.  It’s outmoded now, but it helped save thousands of lives.

 

re: Elon Musk & Christianity 

a lot of atheists are less atheistic than they claim.  Bill Marr holds himself up as an atheist icon, but his behavior is more Christian than many people who claim the title.  The title itself has fallen on very hard times.  I spent some time in a Wiccan group before returning to faith, and what I saw there was people who turned away from god mostly because the people who claimed to follow him/her the loudest were also very clearly awful human beings who specialized not in good, but in evil.  Why would one want to be part of something like that?  So in the search for something decent they took this ridiculous bizarre thing stitched randomly out of long dead pagan religions because while it was silly, at least it wasn’t out-and-out evil.  I looked at that and went back to the faith of my birth.  Not all Christian sects have that problem.  I did not leave empty handed.  Wicca was all ritual all the time because it’s all they had, and they made them up off the cuff.  I learned a lot about the purpose of ritual and what it was for there.

 

 Many of the newer more successful sects have  massive problems of that type though.  As a general rule I find any sect who avoids having its name spoken but refers to its adherents only as “Christians” frequently has an awful reputation they are trying to avoid taking responsibility for.  The result is they more or less simply spread the filth amongst the Less soiled and there was so very much of it the word “Christian” has become synonymous with the phrase “ignorant bigoted asshole” in many places. 

Christian “faith” does not necessarily make a person more trustable. Often the opposite.  They feel because they are “saved” they are free to behave any which way towards other people.  It’s a question of faith and works.  An issue that has been around as long as Christianity has.  Works without faith isn’t necessarily any worse than faith without works. Sometimes it’s actually better, depending on the faith and the works.  It didn’t used to be that way long ago, but it has been for a while now. I don’t trust a believer to be any more or less capable of making a brutal and absolutely dirt stupid decision than an atheist. They can even make more of them.  
 

re: the tech. 
right now he’s playing with pigs. He can keep doing that and learning things.  If it gets to people it will become suddenly different.  There will be a whole new class of hoops to jump through. 

 

[bejamartins]

43 minutes ago, Caroline said:

2010: hackers steal credit card info

2030: hackers steal your memories and kill you using microsoft remote desktop

FTFY:

2010: hackers steal credit card info

2030: hackers steal your memories and kill you using microsoft remote desktop Flipper Zero

1 hour ago, HumansfirstComputersSecond said:

Trouble is he's an athiest, even if a friendly one, and there are problems with that.

I would rather see many more problems combining this with dogma and the concept of sinful thoughts.

 

Whatever are his or anyone's personal religious beliefs have no place in scientific research. Good scientists and researchers know how to separate personal beliefs from empirical evidence. What matters is critical thinking and ethics.

 

You are free and certainly right to distrust him or anyone else's motivation, but make no mistake to trust anyone just for their personal beliefs, or the beliefs they claim to have.

[Mark Kaine]

7 hours ago, DildorTheDecent said:

I thought it would have been late 2000s or early 2100s but here we are now.

This is a nothingburger though.

 

It's stuff he *wants* that doesn't mean it's easily doable "anytime soon" or a reality. 

 

All they did so far was torture some pigs. 

 

 

[Nicnac]

can someone give me a bit of background on this? since when does Elon own this company and what other companies did he buy to make this work....

[Bombastinator]

17 minutes ago, Nicnac said:

can someone give me a bit of background on this? since when does Elon own this company and what other companies did he buy to make this work....

He owns a bunch of crap and has owned it for a good while. They worked on this thing for years before an initial thing about it was done some months ago.

[bejamartins]

On 8/30/2020 at 5:04 AM, Mark Kaine said:

This is a nothingburger though.

 

It's stuff he *wants* that doesn't mean it's easily doable "anytime soon" or a reality. 

 

All they did so far was torture some pigs. 

 

 

It's not exactly a nothing burger. It's a discrete implant with extremely precise connections, there isn't anything like it available.The application, that big robot they are developing is also a game changer.

 

And yes, the ability to understand exactly how to interact with synapses and neurons to do stuff he wants to achieve will probably take decades, but this can very much speed up tremendously the knowledge acquisition. And meanwhile, can more easily be a game changer for some diseases that require the understand of simple stimulus, like paralysis of some part of the body, as an example.

 

19 hours ago, Nicnac said:

can someone give me a bit of background on this? since when does Elon own this company and what other companies did he buy to make this work....

Elon created this company back on 2016, invested $100 M out of his own pocket and gathered other 58. There hasn't been public knowledge of public acquisitions related to its R&D, but it paired with the University of California for it.

 

They started animal testing back in 2018 and just this month got FDA recognition as a breakthrough therapy, being now allowed to start limited human testing.

[StDragon]

On 8/29/2020 at 10:45 AM, CTR640 said:

Why does Elon even want this to happen? This technology is really getting out of proportion. I cannot imagine about the consequences.

Because Elon is a Cyberpunk junkie.

[Kabraxis]

How has no one said this yet?

 

"I know kung fu."

[Bombastinator]

18 hours ago, bejamartins said:

It's not exactly a nothing burger. It's a discrete implant with extremely precise connections, there isn't anything like it available.The application, that big robot they are developing is also a game changer.

 

And yes, the ability to understand exactly how to interact with synapses and neurons to do stuff he wants to achieve will probably take decades, but this can very much speed up tremendously the knowledge acquisition. And meanwhile, can more easily be a game changer for some diseases that require the understand of simple stimulus, like paralysis of some part of the body, as an example.

 

Elon created this company back on 2016, invested $100 M out of his own pocket and gathered other 58. There hasn't been public knowledge of public acquisitions related to its R&D, but it paired with the University of California for it.

 

They started animal testing back in 2018 and just this month got FDA recognition as a breakthrough therapy, being now allowed to start limited human testing.

Limited human testing sounds like a really bad idea.  I sure as heck wouldn’t volunteer, and I’m waaay more up for being a test subject than most people.  Wired neural electrical stimulation is often really really bad news.

[bejamartins]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Limited human testing sounds like a really bad idea.  I sure as heck wouldn’t volunteer, and I’m waaay more up for being a test subject than most people.  Wired neural electrical stimulation is often really really bad news.

They need to start them for the research to go anywhere. I wouldn't volunteer, not even for the final product, but I'm glad someone is. I'm sure they'll be be very well compensated. It is also in Elon's and Neuralink's interest that nothing goes wrong. They'd be foolish not to procede with the greatest carefulness.

 

The testing permit probably only allows for people wih a major relevant health issue, I'm sure some will be eager to try.

[BuckGup]

Sweet bring it on. I'm all for tech advancements like this. There have been nay sayers since the beginning of time. People complained paper was devilish and students wouldn't learn as well compared to blackboards and chalk. I do find it strange though as we don't really have a clue how the brain actually works so maybe this will shed light on it

[cj09beira]

2 hours ago, BuckGup said:

Sweet bring it on. I'm all for tech advancements like this. There have been nay sayers since the beginning of time. People complained paper was devilish and students wouldn't learn as well compared to blackboards and chalk. I do find it strange though as we don't really have a clue how the brain actually works so maybe this will shed light on it

this kind of tech although could be a great thing, also has the potential for extreme evil, and society today is not wise enough to be trusted with it

[BuckGup]

2 hours ago, cj09beira said:

 society today is not wise enough to be trusted with it

I'd like to believe that's not true

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, cj09beira said:

this kind of tech although could be a great thing, also has the potential for extreme evil, and society today is not wise enough to be trusted with it

Research is great and all, the worry I have is human testing, and if they do find something (which afaik they haven’t yet 90% of research goes nowhere) what will happen and what will the costs be?  Brain surgery is always damaging.  It’s just that sometimes the problem is so bad it’s worth it. 
 

Human testing seems a bit premature. 

[StDragon]

1 hour ago, BuckGup said:

I'd like to believe that's not true

Have you not seen the filth that's on Twitter and Facebook?

 

Quote

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals" -MiB

 

[niofalpha]

I don't understand how people continue to buy truck loads of snake oil from the same apartheid man child.

 

Animal trials for drugs take at the minimum 3 years for most medical treatments and devices that are relatively mundane (Neuralink has been in development for less than 4) with the FDA requiring that the tests have a "high probability that they will cause minimal harm to the subjects". I doubt that this can be achieved in such an experimental field in such a short time, and regardless, there are the absolute minimum 2 more years, where it will more than likely go to at least 4. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it came out that the "Live Test" was just someone pressing a button somewhere whenever the pig did anything. The notion that they're "Close to beginning human testing" is more than likely a straight up lie, since there is absolutely no way they can get FDA approval for that this quickly.

[Bombastinator]

13 minutes ago, niofalpha said:

I don't understand how people continue to buy truck loads of snake oil from the same apartheid man child.

 

Animal trials for drugs take at the minimum 3 years for most medical treatments and devices that are relatively mundane (Neuralink has been in development for less than 4) with the FDA requiring that the tests have a "high probability that they will cause minimal harm to the subjects". I doubt that this can be achieved in such an experimental field in such a short time, and regardless, there are the absolute minimum 2 more years, where it will more than likely go to at least 4. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it came out that the "Live Test" was just someone pressing a button somewhere whenever the pig did anything. The notion that they're "Close to beginning human testing" is more than likely a straight up lie, since there is absolutely no way they can get FDA approval for that this quickly.

There seem to be plenty of people buying snake oil from man children lately.   “Close to” in this case might mean a bunch of things one of which is they're reaching that 4 year number. Wires in brains has been done in humans as have wires in muscles.  The side effects are not great.  It’s been mostly human testing for parapalegics though so the desperation level is high amongst test subjects.  I’m not sure I’m 100% comfortable with people with severe mental deficits being volunteered. 

[Senzelian]

Just another necessary step into the future.

I'm surely excited to see where it leads, but also scared for potential misuse of the product.

 

I guess that's what people felt like when they discovered the atomic bomb (sorta)

[HumansfirstComputersSecond]

On 8/31/2020 at 10:51 PM, Bombastinator said:

There seem to be plenty of people buying snake oil from man children lately.   “Close to” in this case might mean a bunch of things one of which is they're reaching that 4 year number. Wires in brains has been done in humans as have wires in muscles.  The side effects are not great.  It’s been mostly human testing for parapalegics though so the desperation level is high amongst test subjects.  I’m not sure I’m 100% comfortable with people with severe mental deficits being volunteered. 

Come to think of it, this type of scenario already played out in the recent DEUS EX (Mankind Divided & Human Rev) games.

 

Plenty of people had wireless chips in their head. The inventor could then cause enormous harm.

This needs serious regulatory oversight.

I agree that interfacing with AI is a mistake. You are basically plugging into the very threat you are trying to avoid. Seems to make no sense. <--This is the type of potential bias I was talking about.

Considering that AI is already being open sourced and developed by multiple companies, as long as its continuously democratized then AI itself could remain benign.

The issue is that all of us have to keep a close eye and put a hard stop to any AI that could pose a threat.

[Bombastinator]

14 minutes ago, HumansfirstComputersSecond said:

Come to think of it, this type of scenario already played out in the recent DEUS EX (Mankind Divided & Human Rev) games.

 

Plenty of people had wireless chips in their head. The inventor could then cause enormous harm.

This needs serious regulatory oversight.

I agree that interfacing with AI is a mistake. You are basically plugging into the very threat you are trying to avoid. Seems to make no sense. <--This is the type of potential bias I was talking about.

Considering that AI is already being open sourced and developed by multiple companies, as long as its continuously democratized then AI itself could remain benign.

The issue is that all of us have to keep a close eye and put a hard stop to any AI that could pose a threat.

I personally never said a thing about interfacing with AI one way or another. I was more concerned with the surgical methodology than the end goal.   It’s an interesting take though.