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Elon Musk: Humans Need To Merge With Machines Else They Will Become Irrelevant in AI Age (cnbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.

Billionaire Elon Musk is known for his futuristic ideas. So it didn't come as a surprise when on Monday at the World Government Summit in Dubai, he predicted that over time we will see a "closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence." He added, via a CNBC report: "It's mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output." Musk explained what he meant by saying that computers can communicate at "a trillion bits per second", while humans, whose main communication method is typing with their fingers via a mobile device, can do about 10 bits per second. In an age when AI threatens to become widespread, humans would be useless, so there's a need to merge with machines, according to Musk. "Some high bandwidth interface to the brain will be something that helps achieve a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence and maybe solves the control problem and the usefulness problem," Musk explained.

10 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. This guy by geek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Elon needs to go away. One minute we're all in the fucking Matrix and the next we need to "merge with machines". Pick one you fucking douche bag

    1. Re:This guy by kuzb · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He needs to go away from topics like this because he's an engineer trying to talk about AI as if he has some clue. People seem to forget that Elon's success is largely due to the people who he surrounds himself with and not him specifically. The man is not an expert in all things.

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    2. Re:This guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Except the idea didn't come from him. It came directly from Elon who's ego has inflated to such a degree that he's starting to believe his own bullshit.

  2. Yellow Journalism by Spazmania · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Humans Need To Merge With Machines?" Reading the article it turns out Musk said nothing of the sort. He actually said, "we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence."

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    1. Re:Yellow Journalism by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He's probably right, eventually taking your glasses off will be like suffering from some kind of learning disability. All text you see automatically scanned and available for perfect recall, the name of ever person you meet whispered in your ear in case you forgot, any equation instantly solved... And an unquenchable thirst for Pepsi, an uncontrollable urge to buy a Tesla.

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  3. Re: He does have a point... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Fine, I'll bite.

    We dont have Strong AI. We're not even close. We have programs that are written to do certain tasks really well, and learn how to do tasks when we define the rules for them. We are not close to an AI that can learn things without our assistance.

    We do not know how the human brain works, much less be able to merge it with anything. We are not even close.

    This is a fantasy pipe dream. Elon could say we need to build lightsabers and blockade runners to fight the Empire when they get here, and it would be just as relevant as our need to merge with AI.

  4. Re: He does have a point... by Rei · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We dont have Strong AI.

    I missed the part when Musk said "we need to do X by next Tuesday".

    We do not know how the human brain works

    Again, I missed the part when Musk said "we need to do X by next Tuesday".

    This is a fantasy pipe dream.

    I missed the part where time ceased progressing and technology ceased advancing.

    Elon could say we need to build 1) lightsabers and 2) blockade runners to fight 3) the Empire when they get here

    1) Not in line with physics, and impractical
    2) Does not describe a concrete thing with traits arguably superior to alternatives
    3) Does not exist, with no prospect of it existing... (...depending on how strictly you want to define it, either A) "... any time soon", or B) "... ever."

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  5. Re:Solve for Greed first. by ChrisMaple · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Oh, just stop it. Your desire to neither work nor think does not mean that people will stop working and thinking.

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  6. No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The concept of bio-integration is quite old. The part-man-part-machine being has been a common theme in popular science fiction for as long as I can remember.

    So, one need not use drugs to come up with these ideas. In fact, the scifi authors who came up with these ideas probably didn't need drugs either...they just thought things through.

    Seriously, this isn't that weird nor does it require that much creativity to imagine it.

    And further, since humans today have machines integrated with them, it is likely that we will see more of this in the future, including and especially where our cognitive abilities are concerned. The potential benefits are just too high.

    None of this should be hard to believe for anyone who has been paying attention.

  7. Re:Elon Musk: What's this guy smoking? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is not money that gives Elon credibility, but his list of accomplishments.
    He has a track record of turning ideas into reality, so people pay attention.