• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Elon Musk's Neuralink Announcement / Conference Friday Aug 28th

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
They may announce upcoming human trials.


"Musk’s confirmed the event will feature a live demonstration of neurons firing." -- This is huge.

If you want to get up to speed on Neuralink, I suggest this wonderful but lengthy read that is now only a few years outdated:


:messenger_horns:
 

Kadayi

Banned
207827.gif


“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
That link is lonnnnggg and I’m drunk tl;dr pls
Elon Musk started a company called Neuralink. That company is doing a demonstration on Friday of what they've been working on the past few years.

The goal of Neuralink is the build realistic an non-invasive brain-to-computer interfaces. In the beginning it'll be basic stuff like being able to control video games without controllers, and should naturally evolve into things like being able to watch movies in our head (overwrite the visual cortex with new input signals) and wireless thought sharing between two or more humans.
 
Last edited:

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Pretty sure this already exists for a while.

Here's how it effects parkingson:



I guess he just went further on this concept and made it more advanced with more specific signals.

It's true that basic BMI (brain-machine-interfaces) exist now and have vast medical implications.

The overarching goal of Neuralink is augmentation, rather than repair.
 

-Arcadia-

Banned
Elon Musk started a company called Neuralink. That company is doing a demonstration on Friday of what they've been working on the past few years.

The goal of Neuralink is the build realistic an non-invasive brain-to-computer interfaces. In the beginning it'll be basic stuff like being able to control video games without controllers, and should naturally evolve into things like being able to watch movies in our head (overwrite the visual cortex with new input signals) and wireless thought sharing between two or more humans.

Love the tech, and Elon, but this is where I'm out.

I have no desire to be a cyborg. If that's cool to others I get it, but it really, really freaks me out and unsettles me.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Love the tech, and Elon, but this is where I'm out.

I have no desire to be a cyborg. If that's cool to others I get it, but it really, really freaks me out and unsettles me.
Think of how ubiquitous technology is today, as compared to 20 years ago. Elon has argued on several occasions that we are all already cyborgs that have superhuman abilities. Nearly everyone carries around a device small enough to fit in their pocket that contains the whole of human knowledge and understanding. If you're old like I am, you went through school hearing your math teacher every year tell you "In the future, you're not going to be able to carry a calculator with you everywhere you go." and they turned out to be dead wrong. The problem is, our ability to interact with these machines is limited in scope to how quickly our fingers and thumbs can type out messages on a keyboard or screen - the goal here is to increase the bandwidth between humans and computers (and through computers, subsequently, other humans). The concept of simply thinking about a question and then immediately knowing the answer is exciting.

The good (or bad) news regarding this, depending on which side of the argument you land on, is that realistically these types of advancements could be decades away from being widely available and some people believe they could be as far off as 100 years from now before these types of interfaces become ubiquitous. So you and I will likely be long dead before this type of technology sees widespread adoption for anything other than repairing broken functions of the organic brain.
 
Last edited:

-Arcadia-

Banned
Think of how ubiquitous technology is today, as compared to 20 years ago. Elon has argued on several occasions that we are all already cyborgs that have superhuman abilities. Nearly everyone carries around a device small enough to fit in their pocket that contains the whole of human knowledge and understanding. If you're old like I am, you went through school hearing your math teacher every year tell you "In the future, you're not going to be able to carry a calculator with you everywhere you go." and they turned out to be dead wrong. The problem is, our ability to interact with these machines is limited in scope to how quickly our fingers and thumbs can type out messages on a keyboard or screen - the goal here is to increase the bandwidth between humans and computers (and through computers, subsequently, other humans).

The good (or bad) news regarding this, depending on which side of the argument you land on, is that realistically these types of advancements could be decades away from being widely available and some people believe they could be as far off as 100 years from now before these types of interfaces become ubiquitous. So you and I will likely be long dead before this type of technology sees widespread adoption for anything other than repairing broken functions of the organic brain.

That is definitely fudging the argument on his part.

There's a huge difference between external devices and delving into the very processes and parts of the body themselves, and enhancing them.
 
Last edited:

Tesseract

Banned
That is definitely fudging the argument on his part.

There's a huge difference between external devices and delving into the very processes and parts of the body themselves, and enhancing them.
true, these things will take time and require careful medical testing along the way

still think it's a point well made re: bandwidth optimization, and it'll be nice to have something noninvasive for deep brain stim patients
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
That is definitely fudging the argument on his part.

There's a huge difference between external devices and delving into the very processes and parts of the body themselves, and enhancing them.
Fair enough.

For me personally, a huge part of my life is digital. I work multiple jobs digitally, my biggest hobbies are all digital (gaming, TV, movies). The majority of my "human interaction" I take part in is all digital, and this extends even to my wife and kids. For me - personally - it's not that big of a stretch to have some sort of brain implant that has the capabilities of smoothing over the interactions I have with computers to increase my productivity and therefore also increase the amount of time I have for digital leisure activities.
 

Dirk Benedict

Gold Member
true, these things will take time and require careful medical testing along the way

still think it's a point well made re: bandwidth optimization, and it'll be nice to have something noninvasive for deep brain stim patients

I'm getting Johnny Mnemonic vibes.
Also, it just occurred to me, but what if Johnny Silver Hand is just Johnny Mnemonic under a new last name? :pie_thinking:
 
I try to be positive and i am excited about this because fuck nihilism. My only concern is that the introduction of technology which empowers us to become more intelligent and productive does not lead to people utilizing the access or learning or productivity...ie even if pressing a button downloads a new language into your brain...there are the unwilling to press the button because of the effort involved. Currently we have the worlds information at our fingertips and yet we have a great deal of the population zombified in echo chambers of contentment. IE you can gain knowledge and skills you want at the touch of a button right now but people remain idiots and utilize the technology to support their ignorance.

See : Twitter


* right now im most excited by the prospects of neurological diseases which could potentially be cured....or even if the possibility of finding ways to clarity and people with conditions like severe down syndrome....a digital flowers for algernon
 
Last edited:

Tesseract

Banned
i worry about intelligence firewalls, high bandwidth learning of calculus or something onto someone who doesn't have the aptitude or crystal intelligence for the material

do those types fry out, go mad, or push through and learn?

who da fuq knows, let's do it live
 

Tesseract

Banned
Pretty sure this already exists for a while.

Here's how it effects parkingson:



I guess he just went further on this concept and made it more advanced with more specific signals.

oh it's way beyond this stuff, the goal is to push output to such a level that mastery magnitudes are cut down several orders

10,000 hours to 10 hours for some subject, and of course humans gunning at that tempo will basically become a different species
 

Tesseract

Banned
i won't be the first in line for this but also not the last, at the point where it's a safely embedded outpatient service targeting sectors i desire

we're gonna need better ways to assess and account fmri scans, oxygenated heat maps aren't good enough
 
Last edited:

Bolivar687

Banned
Fair enough.

For me personally, a huge part of my life is digital. I work multiple jobs digitally, my biggest hobbies are all digital (gaming, TV, movies). The majority of my "human interaction" I take part in is all digital, and this extends even to my wife and kids. For me - personally - it's not that big of a stretch to have some sort of brain implant that has the capabilities of smoothing over the interactions I have with computers to increase my productivity and therefore also increase the amount of time I have for digital leisure activities.

You've made a very persuasive case throughout this thread and I sincerely hope you're right. But I am worried that the majority of your human interaction, even with your own household, being digital is not a good thing and it's swaying your perspective on this.

I managed to get out of urban lock down about a week ago. I was laying on the sand with the sun on my back and feeling the sea breeze on my skin, with the sound of the waves crashing in and children playing. I was consumed by the unshakeable thought that the human mind and body were not made to sitting inside under artificial lights in an office chair looking at a screen. I realized the very real impact it's had on me and is likely having on society.

I think the toxicity and tribalism taking place on and exacerbated by social media shows that our stunted maturity can't even handle the basic internet functionality we've had these last few decades. It's getting worse and spilling over into real life. Things that only edgelords said on forums 20 years ago are now being regularly echoed by pundits and elected officials on cable news.

There is every reason to believe we will use this for its most base and destructive opportunities just as much as we will for altruism and efficiency. We are learning more and more about the very real damage that on demand porn is having on the mental and social health of men and kids. I can't imagine what this is going to do.
 

Tesseract

Banned
You've made a very persuasive case throughout this thread and I sincerely hope you're right. But I am worried that the majority of your human interaction, even with your own household, being digital is not a good thing and it's swaying your perspective on this.

I managed to get out of urban lock down about a week ago. I was laying on the sand with the sun on my back and feeling the sea breeze on my skin, with the sound of the waves crashing in and children playing. I was consumed by the unshakeable thought that the human mind and body were not made to sitting inside under artificial lights in an office chair looking at a screen. I realized the very real impact it's had on me and is likely having on society.

I think the toxicity and tribalism taking place on and exacerbated by social media shows that our stunted maturity can't even handle the basic internet functionality we've had these last few decades. It's getting worse and spilling over into real life. Things that only edgelords said on forums 20 years ago are now being regularly echoed by pundits and elected officials on cable news.

There is every reason to believe we will use this for its most base and destructive opportunities just as much as we will for altruism and efficiency. We are learning more and more about the very real damage that on demand porn is having on the mental and social health of men and kids. I can't imagine what this is going to do.
it could go either way, it's a keyhole to two doors where one irrevocably damages and the other primes us for a second enlightenment beyond the flesh (and analog world)
 
Last edited:

Tesseract

Banned
just imagine combining something like this with a virtual hyperspace

deep / machine learning tasks to offset annoying brick walls, push up our input layer, eliminate the need for keyboards and mice

operating at such a capacity among equal yet distant minds is the dream
 

GAMETA

Banned
Fair enough.

For me personally, a huge part of my life is digital. I work multiple jobs digitally, my biggest hobbies are all digital (gaming, TV, movies). The majority of my "human interaction" I take part in is all digital, and this extends even to my wife and kids. For me - personally - it's not that big of a stretch to have some sort of brain implant that has the capabilities of smoothing over the interactions I have with computers to increase my productivity and therefore also increase the amount of time I have for digital leisure activities.

I think you're being naive.

Higher productivity soon becomes the norm and people will need to work more for less, it becomes a professional requirement to have an implant, people won't be forced, but will be completely coerced into adopting it, and so begins the age where your head neural address will be the coin of trade (just like information is now).

"Hi JShackles, watch this add before proceeding with your thoughts"
"Wait 59 seconds to download this knowledge or sign up your consciousness to skip"
"Wanna make extra coin? Lend your processing brain power while you sleep and get rich doing nothing!"
"NeuraGym is a service that allows you to work, play, watch movies or even engage in conversations while we take control of your body for maximum exercise efficiency! You'll be fit in no time! Enjoy a perfect body with a free mind!"

Terms of service with Petabytes of information to make sure you won't process it before accepting, and boom, institutions are recording your thoughts and sight feed, all while manipulating what you see based on your beliefs, slowly making you see the path that leads you to their own beliefs, you're more of a robot than human, and "How dare you don't support the Global Consciousness Organization!? Are you a nazi? That's neurism!"

You're crazy, dude.
 
Last edited:
Everyone quickly jumping to doomsday scenarios , welcome to every technology ever made..ever.

The invention of the fork was a wonderful reliable weapon which could quickly disarm someones senses with a nice jab in the eye....or a great alternative to picking up potatoes off your plate.
 

GAMETA

Banned
Everyone quickly jumping to doomsday scenarios , welcome to every technology ever made..ever.

The invention of the fork was a wonderful reliable weapon which could quickly disarm someones senses with a nice jab in the eye....or a great alternative to picking up potatoes off your plate.

Not doomsday, just invisible coercion and the notion that such tech is necessarily an advancement while neglecting it has the capacity of doing harm.

Doesn't social media do exactly that? Wasn't it awesome when it simply connected people? Look at where we are now.

Every technology is exploitable, you need to see things for what they are. The ones with the capacity to influence people are usually more dangerous. You can kill with a fork but you can't subvert a population with it.

Do you trust the media right now? Do you trust social media platforms? Then how you think it's a good idea to allow third parties inside your mind and consciousness? Inside your senses, able to control what is displayed on your mind's eye?

Do you think they won't use it for that if they get the chance?


I'm not saying the technology it's necessarily bad, I'm just wondering what the bad will necessarily do with the technology.
 

Texas Pride

Banned
Not sure if the good outweighs the bad regarding this. It ultimately will be used by corporations to get richer somehow someway and that tilts me towards more negative than positive. Anything with hardware and software can be hacked it seems incredibly naive to connect something like that to your brain.
 
Top Bottom