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

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.

20 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:Elon Musk: What's this guy smoking? by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wow..these super rich types much be smoking some killer, killer shit.....

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    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  3. Solve for Greed first. by geekmux · · Score: 5, Interesting

    AI can and probably will ultimately make the concept of human employment extinct. And we probably need to accept that fact faster than any prediction, given the speed at which technology has accelerated just in the last couple of decades.

    Humans need to first solve the problem of Greed. Otherwise, the chasm that separates the AI owners and wealthy overlords from the rest of the human race will continue to grow, and they won't give a shit about the demise of the irrelevant meatsack masses.

    1. 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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  4. Re:Game Time! by UncleRage · · Score: 4, Funny

    Even better when you consider that an improper filter set to prevent this winds up causing seizures for everyone up in HR.

    "Be back, in a bit. I have to go reboot Bob again."

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    #SickNotWeak
  5. He does have a point... by mspohr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Most of the comments so far have been personal attacks on Musk. I guess this is par for the low level of discourse here.
    However, I'd like to see some discussion of his statement.
    Would a better connection between humans and machines be beneficial?
    What would be the benefits/ problems?
    How could this be achieved?
    Come on, folks, I have seen much better from you in the past.

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    1. 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.

    2. Re:He does have a point... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

    3. 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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    4. Re:He does have a point... by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 3, Interesting

      However, I'd like to see some discussion of his statement.
      Would a better connection between humans and machines be beneficial?
      What would be the benefits/ problems?
      How could this be achieved?

      To discuss something meaningfully, you need to have a freakin' clue how it might work. At this point in time, we don't. We don't know how the brain works. We don't have anything close to strong AI. The best interfaces we're looking at now are stuff like moving artificial limbs or whatever. To speculate on what might happen IF we could all of this would be sort of like walking up to Isaac Newton in the 18th century and saying, "Sir Isaac, what problems do you think will occur with the internet next year? What will the major benefits/problems be of new advances?" Even if you explained the basic idea of the internet to Newton, I doubt he'd have enough perspective to meaningfully debate what might happen.

      But, having put forth that disclaimer, I'll just note a few complete speculations in response to Musk. First is that his argument seems premised on the idea that a faster interface from brain to world would be beneficial to humans. Maybe it would. OR maybe our brains are somewhat limited in maximum input/output in ways that we can't really understand yet because we've never tried what he's proposing. Typing is about the right "speed of thought" for me to create coherent text. I've tried dictating, and I need to pause, correct, and reword too much for it to be useful to me. That seems to be how my brain works... although if I really needed to, I probably could retrain myself to dictate better.

      But what if you increased my potential output by 10-fold, 100-fold, a million-fold. Would that actually be useful for me to interact with the world better or faster? Or would it just result in gibberish because my brain literally can't adapt to working much faster than it already does in USEFUL output? Or maybe the plasticity of the adult brain isn't enough to adapt -- so we try hooking up infants from birth with these things. Maybe it works... or maybe it just drives them to be insane or to have other brain development that effectively renders them LESS functional than "normal" humans. Not saying this WILL happen, but it's a possibility when you're talking about an interface with absolutely NO IDEA on what specs might work. Human brains have spent millions of years evolving into what they are to work efficiently at the speeds they do. Just because you could theoretically hook up a device to increase input/output doesn't mean the brain can actually change and adapt enough to make use of the throughput meaningfully.

      Also, I think it's important to note in a discussion like this that one of the PRIMARY hallmarks of human intelligence is FORGETTING. One of the things that makes humans so much better than machines is our ability for abstraction -- finding larger patterns so we don't have to parse the "stream of consciousness" directly all the time. And then we sleep, and our brains revisit the memories of things that we've evolved to assimilate as "important" data, while we forget millions of random little details of our day at the same time.

      Effectively, we take a very TINY percentage of the "noise" that is input into our brains and actually remember it in any detail, mostly through complex pattern-matching that we're only even beginning to emulate in specific cases with computer algorithms. But the point is that there's only so much that we CAN assimilate into our brains -- and that goes not just for memories, but for new skills or whatever. (Think about when you've tried to learn a skill by "cramming" for a full day or two vs. when you've done practice for a few minutes/day over weeks or months. Your brain needs the "downtime" to assimilate new skills... increasing input or output seems unlikely to make that process faster.)

      My speculation is that Musk's idea is rather pointless for somehow keeping humans "relevant" or whatever. IF w

  6. 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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  7. Firewall? by zamboni1138 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some high bandwidth interface to the brain...

    Without a 100% perfection inbound firewall you're not coming anywhere near my brain interface.

  8. ...and the benefits would be...what exactly? by holophrastic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    alternatively: humans only need to communicate at 10 bits, we don't need a trillion bits per second to enjoy life.

    But really, isn't the trick to do less, not more? I ain't no worker-bee. I'm jealous of my pet dog sitting on the couch all day while I work at a desk. I want his life -- it's called retirement.

    Productivity is the goal of business. Laziness is the goal of life. I've worked hard to be this lazy.

  9. Humans communicate 10 bits per second? by infodragon · · Score: 3

    I didn't read the article. However even if this is bytes there's so much that is missed!

    I look at a tree, recognize it and say "tree" in less than a second.

    I can throw a ball against a wall and catch it before it hits the ground. Now give me a completely different size/weight ball and I can do the same (within tolerances of weight and size).

    There is communication in both of those in which massive amounts of information is consumed and processed. For example the tree, 32 bits of information is relayed. However if I speak it then there is inflection, volume, direction, body language and intent that are all communicated in a short time.

    Even though nothing is typed/spoken with the ball there is an output, catching the ball, that requires a tremendous amount of bandwidth utilized by a human.

    Human Computer interfaces have a long way to go to catch up to these types of things; however, I think someone is raising an alarm about something that has no near term danger and just from the porn perspective will be developed as soon as is humanly possible. Think Matrix and Mouse pushing the girl in the red dress to Neo... The first in the porn industry to do that get's money from 99% of the world's men and a good portion of the world's women. Same thing happened with VHS....

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  10. Re:Elon Musk: What's this guy smoking? by The+Real+Dr+John · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, rich people don't get a lot of reality checks from their hired help. I just wish people were better at differentiating between Hollywood and real life. I hope Elon has a computer surgically implanted in his brain to show everyone how dumb an idea it is.

    --
    A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
  11. Re:language by flink · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I can't find the source, but I remember reading that speakers of lower entropy languages simply end up speaking faster than speakers of higher entropy languages. E.g. English on average is spoken more slowly than Spanish by native speakers because English has less redundancy, so errors are more likely to affect received meaning. Overall spoken information rate (bps) remains pretty constant.

  12. 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.

  13. The Bullshit is Strong with This One. by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 3

    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.

    It's already sort of the case. Most of modern students are incapable of doing anything if they don't have facebook to ask elder friends for what to search on google. And then they have an unquenchable thirst for Pepsi. Conclusion, you don't need a brain interface to sell crap and render people useless.

    There is so much bullshit with this. Modern students still learn how to use a library. I know, I see batches of students coming with their teachers all the time to learn how (just like old times.) All colleges make students learn how to use them (just like in old times), etc, etc.

    In reality, the ability to search online has made students (and people in general) far more efficient at retrieving information. Obviously, this also has the downside that it makes it easy to plagiarize. But that comes with every technology. You get what you put in, and you put in according to what kind of person you are.

    Case in point: my daughter who is in second grade now knows how to use google voice search to check for spelling of words she doesn't know. Then she cross-checks it with her dictionary in English and Japanese (since she is bilingual, and soon to be trilingual if everything goes according plan.)

    She has become more efficient at writing her homework reports (while learning how to spell faster) without inducing cheating or sloppy work. It has reduced her frustration while helping her focus on the topics she needs to write. This, at 2nd grade.

    This type of efficiency increases a lot more for older students and adults.

    Pretending that people now are useless because they leverage electronic searches and social media is like pretending farmers today are useless for using tractors instead of hand-held plows.

    In other words, this line of reasoning is both simplistic and stupid.