Slashdot Mirror


Elon Musk Wants To Put An AI Hardware Chip In Your Skull (itmunch.com)

"iTMunch reports that Elon Musk apparently believes that the human race can only be "saved" by implanting chips into our skulls that make us half human, half artificial intelligence," writes Slashdot reader dryriver. From the report: Elon Musk's main goal, he explains, is to wire a chip into your skull. This chip would give you the digital intelligence needed to progress beyond the limits of our biological intelligence. This would mean a full incorporation of artificial intelligence into our bodies and minds. He argues that without taking this drastic measure, humanity is doomed. There are a lot of ethical questions raised on the topic of what humanity according to Elon Musk exactly is, but he seems undeterred. "My faith in humanity has been a little shaken this year," Musk continues, "but I'm still pro-humanity."

The seamless conjunction of humans and computers gives us humans a shot at becoming completely "symbiotic" with artificial intelligence, according to Elon Musk. He argues that humans as a species are all already practically attached to our phones. In a way, this makes us almost cyborg-like. The only difference is that we haven't managed to expand our intelligence to that level. This means that we are not as smart as we could be. The data link that currently exists between the information that we get from our phones or computers is not as fast as it could be. "It will enable anyone who wants to have superhuman cognition," Musk said. "Anyone who wants."
As for how much smarter humans will become with these AI chips, Musk writes: "How much smarter are you with a phone or computer or without? You're vastly smarter, actually," Musk said. "You can answer any question pretty much instantly. You can remember flawlessly. Your phone can remember videos (and) pictures perfectly. Your phone is already an extension of you. You're already a cyborg. Most people don't realize you're already a cyborg. It's just that the data rate [...] it's slow, very slow. It's like a tiny straw of information flow between your biological self and your digital self. We need to make that tiny straw like a giant river, a huge, high-bandwidth interface."

164 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. Smarter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-25/are-pedestrians-on-smartphones-making-the-roads-less-safe/9085160

    1. Re:Smarter? by MitchDev · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Phones and computer don't make anyone smarter, they just give you access to more information. Not necessarily real or accurate information at that....

    2. Re:Smarter? by DarkOx · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Exactly Musk (and he is smart enough to know better) is conflating intelligence with access to information. They two are not the same. While its true the most intelligent person in the world still can't make good decisions without access to timely, and correct information; it does not work the other way round.

      You can't give just anyone access to information and suddenly expect them to be smart. Stupid is as Stupid does. There are lot of smart phone running around this country and all I have to do is flip on the news for 5min to confirm its NOT making people wiser, if anything they are just letting people do more stupid faster.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    3. Re:Smarter? by leomekenkamp · · Score: 2

      In the same context: my parents and my teachers always gave me correct information and my memory works flawlessly.

      With my phone I am able to perform more tasks and perform them faster than without a phone. I would say that would fit the meaning of 'smarter'.

      --
      Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
    4. Re:Smarter? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Exactly Musk (and he is smart enough to know better) is conflating intelligence with access to information.

      He is combining the two. The biobrain will supply the intelligence. The embedded chip will supply the information. So you get the best of both. Human intelligence with immutable memory, ability to lookup any information with just a thought, rapidly perform complex calculations, and find patterns that would not be perceptible to an unaugmented brain.

      Distracted pedestrians walking into traffic are a good example: Elon's chip would fix that problem. The human brain has difficulty focusing on more than one task at a time. But a multi-core embedded chip could do that with ease. One core could focus on situational awareness of the immediate surroundings, while another core focused on scanning messages, and yet another on gathering data about a work assignment.

      If we don't want to be replaced by machines, then we need to merge with them.

    5. Re:Smarter? by greythax · · Score: 1

      Fundamentally I agree with this, I would like to point out that having brain access to something that recorded perfectly what you saw and heard, access to the internet, and a few ai programs that were trained to solve spacial acuity problems would pretty much guarantee that you blew any iq test that you took out of the water.

      Personally, I don't believe that I.Q. test are a conceit that we will look back on like phrenology, but I know a lot of people on here believe in them. I just wanted to underscore that the future might be full of high I.Q. idiots.

    6. Re:Smarter? by TrekkieGod · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly Musk (and he is smart enough to know better) is conflating intelligence with access to information. They two are not the same.

      Although you are correct, it's more difficult to draw the line than you'd think. You show up to your grandparent's place, they ask you to fix the computer. Maybe they have a Mac, and you don't use a Mac. But you have experience, you know your away around computers, you know how to Google. And you have their problem fixed up in a jiffy. They immediately say, "our grandson, he's so smart..."

      Turns out knowledge, experience, and access to information allow you to accomplish things that people without those things can't accomplish. Similarly to how greater intelligence might let you accomplish things others can't. I say might, because a "dumber" person who applied themselves to acquire a lot of knowledge and experience will accomplish more than a highly intelligent person who is lazy and lacks ambition. And now you ask, "is the other person more intelligent, because they planned their life better?"

      In some ways, the answer is yes, and now we're getting into different kinds of intelligence. You take a Rain Man style idiot-savant who can do very complex math in their heads, but can't take care of themselves. Are they more intelligent than you? In mathematics, sure. But now you have a chip in your head, and that hardware can do the complex math for you. Did you become more intelligent? Chess programs are unbeatable by our best chess Grandmasters now, are they intelligent? We used to claim that would be a big milestone in hard AI, but it turned we can make a really dumb, but specialized machine for that task. So we moved the goal posts. I had the opportunity to play Lubomir Ftacnik in a group game when he came to my University's chess club, and the most impressive part wasn't that he beat everyone in the simultaneous game. It's that he sat down with each person later and went over their game with them, talking abut different things they could have done. Every move. From memory. I've later come to find out this is common among chess Grandmasters. Is that type of chess eidetic memory sufficient to make someone into a grandmaster? No. Is it beneficial? Apparently so, since so many of them have it. And that's easy to supplement you with.

      You can't give just anyone access to information and suddenly expect them to be smart. Stupid is as Stupid does. There are lot of smart phone running around this country and all I have to do is flip on the news for 5min to confirm its NOT making people wiser, if anything they are just letting people do more stupid faster.

      Yeah, but now it's not a smartphone, it's in your brain. What if you don't see it as data, but see it as thought. When you're playing chess, it computes a bunch of possible moves, but you're not consciously aware of all those choices, just the ones it deemed best and fed them back to you. When you make a decision, it computes which has the best expected value, and now you get a "good feeling" about the option with the best expected value. This is the best case scenario, imagine the dystopian one. Instead of getting a good feeling about the option with the best expected value, you get a good feeling about the option the chip manufacturer gets paid to promote.

      Basically, it's not the question of what is intelligence and what is not that bothers me. I think the chip can be undoubtedly be used to make us all either more intelligent or sufficiently emulating higher intelligence, whatever that means. What bothers me is that this is root access to my personality. I can be subtly controlled, not know it, and not care once I do find out.

      --

      Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.

    7. Re:Smarter? by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      Exactly Musk (and he is smart enough to know better) is conflating intelligence with access to information. They two are not the same.

      Although you are correct, it's more difficult to draw the line than you'd think.

      True, and I can tell you that if I had the chance to essentially make everything an open book test with the "book" being any information I can find, I'd take it. That being said, I have taken plenty of open book tests where the professor would let you bring anything you wanted (except for another person) as an aid, because if you didn't understand the subject ahead of time, all the raw knowledge in the world wouldn't help you.

    8. Re:Smarter? by lgw · · Score: 1

      Phones and computer don't make anyone smarter, they just give you access to more information. Not necessarily real or accurate information at that....

      The only useful definition of "smart is "able to operate effectively in the world". IQ is just a corner of that that's easy to measure (though one that's positive in the widest variety of circumstances). Easy access to useful information certainly makes you smarter, to the degree you chose to access it. False or misleading information can make you dumber, but there's amazingly little of that outside of politics.

      If I need to fix a leaky faucet, YouTube makes me smarter, by any useful definiton of that word.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    9. Re:Smarter? by lgw · · Score: 1

      Who says you're not retaining it? Do you instantly forget everything you've ever read in a book?

      People from mostly-illiterate cultures have vastly better memories. However, the rate of progress for literate cultures has been much higher.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    10. Re: Smarter? by saloomy · · Score: 1

      It's not about retaining it. There are many things that computer chips can do much better even in their current state than a human brain can. Recall information is one (you try memorizing a few megabytes, never mind an entire hard drive perfectly), math is another. Imagine if you could think of a math problem and realize it's solution near instantaneously? It would change our understanding of finance, ethics, the arts, and so many other fascets of modern life.

    11. Re:Smarter? by LazarusQLong · · Score: 1

      Questions: Would your 'consciousness' (whatever that is) "move" into the silicon? If so, could you then take the chip out, implant it into a clone and have two of you? An immortal you? If I had two of me, which one is the 'real' me? If I had my chip copied and implanted in a clone, then I was killed, would my clone be legally me? Could he then prosecute the murderer? (presuming society didn't want to I mean). This concept of adding silicon to our biological selves is very complex. Me, I would want to experience the ability to enhance my recall and computational abilities at the very least, at best I would hope for a kind of immortality, mostly because the world is so wonderful, I want to keep experiencing it for as long as I can!

      --
      "Governments have been dominated by the corporate entities and citizens have ceased to matter in public policy" true in
    12. Re: Smarter? by Comrade+Ogilvy · · Score: 1

      You raise an interesting point. One possible counterargument...

      Do calculators that became graphing calculators that were replaced by smartphones make people more numerate in a meaningful way in real world situations? If that were the case, people would become more financially responsible as computers became more readily available, because understanding of the repercussions the numbers tell us would inform better decisions, right? Instead computers are being used to gamify us into better consumers, and that swamps the positive effect of more information for most people.

      Is putting the interface in our skull going to automatically be better at improving humanity, by virtue of its intrusiveness?

    13. Re:Smarter? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > Me, I would want to experience the ability to enhance my recall

      You might want to think about the consequences of what that entails (Black Mirror, The Entire History if You) first.

    14. Re:Smarter? by LazarusQLong · · Score: 1

      thanks for the reply. I am not Liam though. I would not do what he did, it is pointless to do what he did actually. If you suspect your partner cheated on you, then they probably did (or you need mental help) if they did, then you can accept it, or leave. If they did not, then what made you suspect it? once again, do you need mental help? In any case, being violent/drunk over such things is irrational behavior. Clear Ffion was lying to him all along in their relationship, so it was a flawed relationship to begin with and needed to end. Perhaps because, in part, of his drinking and violence? In any case, that would NOT be the consequence for me in the same situation. I have had women cheat on me before and never become violent or drunk because of it. I simply ended those relationships after discovering the infidelity.

      --
      "Governments have been dominated by the corporate entities and citizens have ceased to matter in public policy" true in
    15. Re:Smarter? by bluegutang · · Score: 1

      Wikipedia isn't always accurate. But it's more accurate than probably any person. It's the rare person who can beat Wikipedia's accuracy on even a single page, much less all the pages.

    16. Re: Smarter? by saloomy · · Score: 1

      I would argue, yes. Incalculably. How can you disagree? Do you think without calculators we could have navigated to the heavens, built such precisely engineered structures, or raised an economy every bit as sophisticated, nuanced, and technical as we have today?

      Calculators tell is what will fail, what will work. Everything from climate modeling to civil engineering and urban planning to metal design and bio-technology needed calculators far more fast and accurate than we could possibly hope to do in our minds. Computers have calculated Pi to millions of digits. I'm not sure what applications need that accuracy, but to more than we could by hand, sure. Aerospace, turbine designs, rocketry, circuitry, etc.. etc... etc...

      You are looking at one end of the spectrum, not the entire gamut of human progress since we got a little machine to tell us what 2 + 2 really equals. Imagine how much more we could do if the understanding of those applications moved from years of learning software to just having to think about it?

    17. Re:Smarter? by Falconnan · · Score: 1

      Access to information can feed intelligence. I submit that's not the real concern here (though it's a reasonable question). What concerns me is that the human brain did not evolve to be secure from editing and control. Essentially, it is an open system as far as we have any way to know. I'm not worried about the chip(s) being hacked per se, I'm worried about the chip being used to hack me.

      Unlikely as this may seem, can you imagine a world where people had their most cherished memories held hostage to a cryptovirus? Your memory of your children potentially blocked unless you pay $100k to some hacker in the ether? Governments "pacifying" their populace? Elon may be generally correct, but this needs intense scrutiny.

    18. Re:Smarter? by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      This reminds of that sci-fi book I read where a guy loses his smart glasses and becomes helpless in the middle of the street.

    19. Re: Smarter? by lgw · · Score: 1

      Do you think without calculators we could have navigated to the heavens

      Yeah, so we put men on the \moon with slide rules. Just so you know. More then 3 significant digits in calculation would have been fairly pointless, given the precision of a lot of the input. That's why there were ~4 mid-course correction burns for each leg of the trip.

      There was some electronic calculation for flight control, to be sure, mostly to do with timing the burns precisely, but it wasn't any more accurate, and wasn't strictly necessary. Almost all of the engineering was calculated with slide rules.

      The example you want is GPS, but of course that wouldn't work without relativity, and calculators had nothing to do with its discovery.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    20. Re:Smarter? by lgw · · Score: 1

      How common is it today to memorize every word in a book the length of the Iliad or the Odyssey? How many people can hear a detailed message once and repeat is accurately after a 3 day journey? There are few few people today that can perform feats of memory that were ordinary in cultures from ancient to medieval.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    21. Re:Smarter? by MitchDev · · Score: 1

      What you do with the information and how you process it is what makes you smart, The information itself does nothing, All the chip does is give you more memory to search trying to find useful information, assuming your brain-google-fu even comes up with the right search parameters.....

    22. Re: Smarter? by saloomy · · Score: 1

      Without the computer to actually launch the TLI-bound flights, they wouldn't have been close enough not to either slam into the moon or fly past it. Yes, things have gotten better now, but computers were still needed. That is especially true of launch and engineering the mighty Saturn V.

    23. Re:Smarter? by Waccoon · · Score: 1

      Musk is a marketeer and attention whore. Stuff like this is how he and his enterprises stay in the news.

      Whether he seriously believes that we live in a simulation or not is anyone's guess.

  2. Lots of trust by NettiWelho · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are you sure the chip isn't capable of turning your power switch to off position?

    1. Re:Lots of trust by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yep, trust is the issue. I'd love to have a built in clock/calendar and calculator, but I'm not sure I'd trust anyone to make one for me.

      Then again implants are going to become more and more common, e.g. pacemakers and other kinds of regulators to deal with specific conditions. Given the choice I'd probably accept one, rather than live (or die) without. I'd prefer if they could disable the wifi function though.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re: Lots of trust by illiac_1962 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You first, Elon.

    3. Re: Lots of trust by gx5000 · · Score: 1

      Whoever marked this as flamebait should be the first to receive one!

      --
      End of Line.
    4. Re:Lots of trust by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      Not "off". Just "jump off this bridge".

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  3. his faith in humanity has been tested by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    did he do some introspection

  4. TO DO list by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He seems to have this list of things he thought were important when he was 17 and is simply going down that list.

    Unfortunately eternal September happened. The chip in your brain better have some good filtering capability and come fully loaded with ad block, no script and blacklist any site where you might be influenced by anyone in the negative or median IQ range. So essentially all of it.

  5. He's right of course, but many here won't like it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Whenever AI is discussed, AI researchers chime in: "the AI we have is not AI, merely brute statistics", "this chip is extremely crude", "think of all the down sides", "the current implementation is a joke", etc.

    AI researchers are too close to the problem. If you are at the cutting edge of X, and have tried and failed to solve X a thousand times, naturally you see X as unsolvable. But step back. Some other guy is bypassing it. Decade by decade, machines are getting better at doing stuff. Eventually they WILL either get our abilities, or make our unique skills irrelevant. At that time you better hope you are wired in.

    As for the argument that "humans will always be needed, because our economy is built around humans", wake up and look at the rest of the universe. Stuff happens without humans. Once machines don't need you, they don't need you.

    Still reading? You haven't downvoted me yet? You're slipping.

  6. Re:Supercomputer from Choose Your Own Adventure? by craigwilkie · · Score: 1

    And it's pretty much a large part of "Manna" by Marshall Brain (well worth a read, by the way)...

    http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

  7. eyePhone by Tomahawk · · Score: 1

    Reminds me of this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    1. Re:eyePhone by Tomahawk · · Score: 4, Informative

      In actuality it'll be more like the BrainPal from the Old Man's War series, I guess.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    2. Re:eyePhone by stealth_finger · · Score: 3, Funny

      Asshole

      --
      Wanna buy a shirt?
      https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
    3. Re:eyePhone by sheramil · · Score: 1

      Digital sphincter control could be a big thing, particularly for the incontinent, or for gamers who don't want to take the time to void their bowels. There might even be an option to direct audio files to it, in order to modulate your farts. That could be used as a kind of biological ring-tone.

    4. Re:eyePhone by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      There might even be an option to direct audio files to it, in order to modulate your farts. That could be used as a kind of biological ring-tone.

      Finally, something with some practical applications XD

      --
      Wanna buy a shirt?
      https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
  8. Re: He's right of course, but many here won't like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    After decades of research on cognition, computation, philosophy, and ethics we have managed to create an AI that will follow you into the break room with cake.

  9. Next Minute... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Just walking down the street minding my own business when a cerebral advertisement scrolls across my eyesight "Buy vigara today. Only $499 Ameribucks a pill. Double your penis size!". The bright pink flashing background gives me a seizure.

  10. One job at a time by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

    Maybe focus on actually making an AI first before worrying about chips in your head, also, no thanks. This is like him creating spacex but only just after the wright brother made their flight.

    --
    Wanna buy a shirt?
    https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
    1. Re:One job at a time by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually a little before the Wright Brother's famous flight, in the same year, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky published The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices. It was the first serious proposal to explore space, offering a somewhat practical method of doing so.

      He went on to design things like multi-stage boosters and life support systems. It's incredible to think that there were people seriously thinking about exploring space when powered flight wasn't even possible yet.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:One job at a time by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 1

      Maybe focus on actually making an AI first before worrying about chips in your head, also, no thanks. This is like him creating spacex but only just after the wright brother made their flight.

      Honestly would prefer a dumb chip in my head that can instantly supply me with facts and do computations instantly that takes my bio-brain too long to do (and often makes mistakes with). Expert AI like that I'm all for, and exists today. I'm not looking to change my CPU, just add a peripheral.

      It's when you throw in the "artificial consciousness" part of AI that I get nervous. There are already enough voices in my head, I don't need one more. Fortunately I don't think we're very close to that.

    3. Re:One job at a time by Red_Forman · · Score: 1

      Fuck off, dumbass. That's my job.

    4. Re:One job at a time by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      But where is the Principle of the Mind [or Theory of the Mind, if you will]? AI can't be done without it.

      Throughout history, there have often been practical benefits to technology long before the theoretical basis was understood. The Romans knew how to temper steel, cure cement, and ferment wine, but knew nothing about the chemistry behind these processes.

  11. Not the skull by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    In the skull? No, but I've got suggestion for another body part that he can stick this up. Last thing I want is a news article in my brain titled 'That guy in Thailand was totally a pedo, trust me.'

    I mean, the NSA is already watching you masturbate, let's not give them a first person view while we're at it.

  12. Re: He's right of course, but many here won't like by stealth_finger · · Score: 2

    After decades of research on cognition, computation, philosophy, and ethics we have managed to create an AI that will follow you into the break room with cake.

    Huge success

    --
    Wanna buy a shirt?
    https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
  13. Oh my dear Elon.... by Computershack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Being able to get an answer from Google or a calculator doesn't mean you're smarter Elon, in fact it often means the opposite. Its no good being given an answer if you don't know what to do with that information.

    --
    I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
    1. Re:Oh my dear Elon.... by atherophage · · Score: 1

      We aren't fully using the intelligence to which we have access now. We we could use is more compassion and empathy.

    2. Re:Oh my dear Elon.... by Katatsumuri · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You don't have to be so condescending. It may not make you an omniscient space opera superintelligence, but just being able to learn a language quickly, or remember a unique password for every website is a useful upgrade. Use your imagination, there are thousands of useful applications for a neural interface that can save you the time and unnecessary mental effort, allowing you to think more about "what to do with that information", effectively making you "smarter" by many practical definitions.

    3. Re:Oh my dear Elon.... by RobinH · · Score: 2

      If I believed I could have total control of that chip, then sure, maybe. However, if some other entity can push advertising into my head, or interrupt me while I'm doing work, or (worst case) track my internal state of mind... no thanks.

      --
      "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
    4. Re: Oh my dear Elon.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Every day, Elon and Donald prove that intelligence and wealth are uncorrelated. Musk said you can't achieve anything significant in less than 14 hours of work a day. Only a sleep deprived idiot who can't work intelligently would say that, and putting a chip in his head wouldn't help with that misperception in the slightest. A couple moments if actual thought would lead to the realization that intelligence has very little to do to with humanity's chances of survival. In fact, it's the second biggest risk. The biggest risk is our collective inability to do what we know is right when it's not convenient and has long-term undesirable consequences, but has short-term benefits. Addiction is a fine example of that. This is why I am confident that Musk is an idiot, or to be fair, a fairly unintelligent man with money. He has grandiose ideas that ignore the obvious facts about human beings. He worships at the Altar of Intelligence and styles himself to be an adherent, but then displays a dearth of the very quality each time he opens his mouth. "My cell phone makes me so intelligent because Google can answer any question...except why I didn't put my phone down in the car and got myself killed driving into a tractor trailer."

    5. Re:Oh my dear Elon.... by sinij · · Score: 2

      We we could use is more compassion and empathy.

      No, we could use a lot less emotional bullshit and a lot more logical and reason. Your feelings at best could described by a fuzzy logic with a lot of hysteresis. It is very lousy system for making any kind of decision.

    6. Re:Oh my dear Elon.... by ath1901 · · Score: 1

      I think a calculator, dictionary or just a copy of wikipedia would make you smarter if the access was just as natural as remembering your own name or the capital of France. It would free up a lot of resources for actual smart thinking and possibly the ability to make new brain connections between topics. So, yeah, I would love to have direct brain access to a classical computer (assuming no safety and security issues).

      An AI on the other hand... um... why? I can already accurately recognize a cat. I don't need an AI to tell me it is probably 96% cat but perhaps 4% cucumber. What matters are the features the added hardware provides. Even a human-like intelligence would perhaps not be the best addition since we already have one of those and more of the same might not be better.

      So, before we consider adding "AI" to our brains, can we perhaps start with a pocket calculator?

    7. Re:Oh my dear Elon.... by Bradmont · · Score: 1

      > just being able to learn a language quickly Please, tell me how. I've been living and working in my second language for a decade and I'm still learning... If you mean being able to decipher a street sign, or order breakfast, fine, but that isn't language learning...

    8. Re:Oh my dear Elon.... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      You can get phone apps that let you measure things just by pointing the camera at them. Accuracy isn't as good as a ruler but it's good enough for a lot of purposes. Imagine being able to just look at something and have it's dimensions and a 3D model stored...

      Actually sounds like a privacy nightmare. Dashcams for people, they never forget anything.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    9. Re:Oh my dear Elon.... by DarkOx · · Score: 1

      As a practical matter there may be limits to the speed we want to interact with the world around us. Just think of Twitter without the fraction of second delay between composing a message and tabbing over to the post button... Sometime a little friction is a good thing

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    10. Re: Oh my dear Elon.... by OneSmartFellow · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that response speed in humans is *significantly* slower than that of microchips.

    11. Re: Oh my dear Elon.... by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 1

      Your emotions should never take over control of your body. If this is an issue for you, please remand yourself to psychiatric care immediately, you are a danger to yourself and others.

      Emotions have a place, their place is to inform, not to decide. They may be very powerful and very compelling, but higher reasoning should always be in charge. Are you an animal or human?

    12. Re: Oh my dear Elon.... by sinij · · Score: 1

      In evolutionary terms, speed of response was of paramount importance while accuracy, specifically overabundance of false positives, was not at all important.

      We evolved to knee-jerk emotionally overreact to about anything, because at some point our ancestors had to be afraid of tigers, snakes, and large predatory birds and false negative was fatal. None of this is relevant today, but neurological mechanism are still in place.

      Optimal response strategy balances false positives and false negatives trying to minimize both. When you have a system that only optimizes one of these, it is sub-optimal in overall minimization of false responses.

    13. Re: Oh my dear Elon.... by sinij · · Score: 1

      Your emotions should never take over control of your body.

      If only. You can get angry, sad, happy, moody... and it absolutely impact your decisions.
      If this is not the case for you, please remand yourself into nearest robotic overlord reclamation facility, your human emulation matrix is malfunctioning.

    14. Re:Oh my dear Elon.... by sinij · · Score: 1

      The above is a bunch of feel-good nonsense.

      Emotional response is along "Lets get worked up about our feelings, the lash out at perceived injustices" lines. Rational response is along "Lets consider available evidence and determine most beneficial possible course of action".

      I stand by my original point that we can use a lot less emotional and a lot more rational decision making.

    15. Re: Oh my dear Elon.... by mapkinase · · Score: 2

      What a stupid idiotic snappy answer. You are an imbecile.

      --
      I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
    16. Re:Oh my dear Elon.... by schweini · · Score: 1

      Well, in research circles, intelligence is generally regarded as multidimensional (in contrast to the gross oversimplification that is IQ). IIRC, one of the dimensions is generally regarded as being memory performance - i.e. you can have the best logical apparatus in the universe sitting in you brain, but if your memory capacity is basically zero, you still wouldn't be considered 'overall intelligent'. Same goes vice versa - only having a great memory doesn't make you smart.
      So, if an implanted chip could somehow serve as a co-processor for these sub-dimensions if "intelligence" starting with memory, this could make us overall smarter.

    17. Re:Oh my dear Elon.... by lgw · · Score: 1

      Intelligence is the ability to operate effectively in the world. IQ is the part of that that's measurable. No other idea about what should be included in "intelligence" stands up to scientific analysis - many have been proposed, but none were more predictive than IQ alone. It's a frustrating situation for research psychologists, unable to explain the rest of "intelligence". Perhaps they need higher IQs.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    18. Re:Oh my dear Elon.... by schweini · · Score: 1

      Ah, hell no!
      IQ might be useful for populations, but IQ definitely doesn't measure "intelligence", because intelligence is way more multi-faceted than a simple rather silly number. And IQ doesn't really belong into the field of "scientific analysis" - it's a crutch to have some kinda number that can be correlated with other stuff. But it doesn't go near trying to explain or accurately measure what sub-factors "intelligence" consists of.
      Hell, even the definition of "intelligence" is wonky, if it even exists. Some people correlate it with surveys, some try to link it to neurological processes, etc. A famous phrase at the end of a thick book about the topic ended in "intelligence, basically, is whatever the brain does".

    19. Re:Oh my dear Elon.... by lgw · · Score: 1

      IQ definitely doesn't measure "intelligence", because intelligence is way more multi-faceted than a simple rather silly number.

      As I said, IQ is the part of intelligence that measurable. Much like the Standard Model of physics, thousands of alternatives have been proposed, but none were more predictive. Researchers in both fields will keep proposing new ideas, never doubt it, but your intuition that "there must be more" isn't worth much. What is that "more", and how can it be measured such that it successfully predicts what we expect intelligence to predict (and do so better than IQ alone).

      it's a crutch to have some kinda number that can be correlated with other stuff.

      Yeah, that's just how science works. Science works pretty well, so I'll stick to that approach. Predictive models have value, good stories are merely entertaining.

      "intelligence, basically, is whatever the brain does".

      Well, if you're using "intelligence" in a very broad sense to mean "self-awareness" or "sapience" then, sure, but that's not the "general intelligence" that most people are talking about in this context,

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  14. It's official... by frootcakeuk · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...Elon Musk has lost his fucking mind and is trying to replace it artificially.

    --
    Remember kids: What's right isn't as important as what's profitable.
    1. Re: It's official... by muffen · · Score: 4, Funny

      My faith in humanity has been a little shaken this year," Musk continues, "but I'm still pro-humanity."

      What happens when he is not pro-humanity?

    2. Re:It's official... by Daralantan · · Score: 1

      Actually, he's lost his mind and now wants to replace YOURS.

  15. He is not wrong by Kokuyo · · Score: 1

    However, the smartphone is easier to upgrade and it's easier to secure it if you don't trust it.

    And as it stands in the current climate, I don't see any reason whatsoever to trust anyone. So unless I acquire the knowledge to thoroughly check such a chip's specs and am enabled to actually do that, I don't think this is going to be a thing for me.

    OTOH, if they ever build a better digestive system or bionic eye, I'll probably get one of those but then my biological factory devices are rather suspect already.

    1. Re:He is not wrong by Whorhay · · Score: 1

      I agree that actually implanting the complex hardware into the body seems foolish. Having the computer implanted makes upgrading, and patching it monumentally harder. Why not just install a dumb neural interface that provides for an external port or something. Then the chip or computer could be a very small wearable device that can be upgraded, patched, repaired, or even replaced without any more inconvenience to the user than unplugging it.

  16. Re:Being intelligent is overrated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Trolling and truthfulness aside (self discipline seems the most important factor for success, intelligence being a nice extra) we are not talking about being a little smarter here.

    It's about using essentially a AI co-processor to change our innate form of intelligence. For instance certain forms of reasoning are quite inherently alien to us, as our stone age mammalian brain didn't evolve to process them. We have difficulty with truly intuitively grasping and thinking in non-linear terms. At the same time our ideas of quantity seems pretty logarithmic with one, two, three, a few, quite a few, lots.

    Executed in the right way, implants as envisioned here would be quite transformative of how we are able to think, and the routes of inquiry we'd become capable of. What if more people were able to intuitively grasp concepts and results from calculus? The way how infinitesimals add up to real values, areas under non-linear curves, especially exponential terms, intuitively grasp imaginary number arithmetic and even higher order number systems. Currently there seems to be an effort to reformulate our known physics into some (to us) rather exotic arithmatics. Imagine having a co-processor part to our intellect to give us more palpable access to that sort of mathematics.
    There are people who can handle that sort of stuff already, but imagine the effect on say politics it could have if many, many more (ideally all of us) could routinely think in such a manner?

    And well, in this particular case the thinking is about letting humanity remain relevant assuming certain forms of AI being technically possible for us to achieve.

  17. Not needed to save humanity by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

    Humanity can get along fine without implanted supercomputers, but they would make capitalism viable for longer.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  18. Just a rehashed old interview by Katatsumuri · · Score: 1
    No new information here, just a rehash of the Axios/HBO interview from two months ago: https://www.axios.com/elon-mus...

    Also, I think "AI hardware chip" is just a made-up clickbait title. It is more about an interface. One may lead to another, but this misrepresentation makes the Neuralink mission sound more outlandish than it is. There are already "we are nowhere near true (general) AI" trigger responses in this thread.

  19. Re: He's right of course, but many here won't like by Meneth · · Score: 1

    Huge success

    It's hard to overstate my satisfaction

  20. An Of Course These Chips Are "Unhackable"... by dryriver · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What happens when the AI chip in your brain gets compromised by a hacker? Every day, companies with deep IT pockets ranging from banks to hotel chains get their customer databases pwned by nefarious hackers. Is it really wise to put a - of course completely "unhackable"... cough cough... - internet connected hardware chip inside your SKULL? Even something simple like flooding your brain with too much contradictory or distracting info for a few seconds could cause anything from a car crash to you falling down a staircase and seriously injuring yourself. How, Mr Musk, are you going to make this technology safe from hacking, sabotage, remote tracking or technical malfunction? And will - at some point - only "ChipHeads" be able to do things like drive a car or buy a loaf of bread at the nearest store?

    --
    Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
    1. Re: An Of Course These Chips Are "Unhackable"... by argStyopa · · Score: 1

      ...or less maliciously,, what about simply being outdated?

      I mean this would be great in a utopia where there are such things as un hackable chips, but even then, how would you feel today having, say, a 2011 era chip buried in your skull?

      --
      -Styopa
    2. Re:An Of Course These Chips Are "Unhackable"... by vyvepe · · Score: 1

      What happens when the AI chip in your brain gets compromised by a hacker?

      That is easy to answer. The Hacker will control you. Either directly (if the hardware allows it) or indirectly by feeding you the properly adjusted information. The brute force information overload is a minor issue. It is like the virus pranks from the times of early internet. Current internet spread viruses are more subtle.

    3. Re: An Of Course These Chips Are "Unhackable"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I remember the 2019-era brain chips. It's a sad story. Completely non-removable and the fatal....

      Never mind, I've said too much already.

      -Time Traveler

    4. Re:An Of Course These Chips Are "Unhackable"... by gx5000 · · Score: 1

      I guess Elon got the Cyberpunk 2077 pre-release and loved it, it's full of people with implants (that also get hacked.

      --
      End of Line.
    5. Re:An Of Course These Chips Are "Unhackable"... by greythax · · Score: 1

      All I need the chip to be is fast access to an external device. The kind I can turn off or reboot if I need/want to. The ai can run on that.

    6. Re: An Of Course These Chips Are "Unhackable"... by Altus · · Score: 1

      you just use a socket adaptor, you don't mind a big bump on the side of your skull right?

      --

      "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

    7. Re: An Of Course These Chips Are "Unhackable"... by Codeyman · · Score: 2

      I remember the 2019-era brain chips. It's a sad story. Completely non-removable and the fatal....

      Never mind, I've said too much already.

      -Time Traveler

      Traveller 5642: You are in violation of protocol 2

    8. Re:An Of Course These Chips Are "Unhackable"... by dargaud · · Score: 1

      The onboard software for such a beast, at the very least, should be upgradable only locally. With a wire, or a magnet nearby or somesuch. I understand it will need remote access, but not remote upgrade capability. Doesn't mean it's unhackable, though... sigh.

      --
      Non-Linux Penguins ?
  21. Re:Being intelligent is overrated by dryriver · · Score: 2

    He is NOT proposing a "understand Math better co-processor". Musk wants to fuse your conscious mind with that of an AI chip - hopefully NOT one with a Mind Of Its Own. What this effectively means is that you won't become a "human calculator" but rather a human-AI mind-meld of sorts. What happens when the AI in your skull displaces the biological YOU inside your skull? If it makes you do things an un-augmented you would never do? Are YOU still in control of YOU then? And who is responsible of any damage cause by the YOU-AI fusion? Lots of ethical problems here... A mere "dumb" Math Co-Processor for the brain would be something else entirely. You'd simply be able to see Mathematical relationships better/instantly, add 10 digit numbers together in an instant and so on. But that does not seem to be ALL the people at Musk's company want to do.

    --
    Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
  22. Integration barriers abound. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    While we have lots of tech that can detect biologic activity, measure it, and report on it, there are some serious barriers in the way before this can become anything resembling Musk's vision. We have had limited success in simulating vision by stimulating areas of the visual cortex. We can stimulate the auditory areas of the brain. There has even been some success at stimulating parts of the brain to trigger motor action in other parts of the body. However, we are a very long way from being able to implant knowledge. When we can implant a chip into a pizza delivery person in Des Moines and have them recite even portions of D. H. Lawrence's book "Lady Chatterley's Lover" without having actually seen the book previously we will have made significant progress.

  23. Re:No such thing as "the human RACE". by johnsie · · Score: 1

    That's like saying you can't have an object made up of objects. It's subjective and just depends how far you want to break things down.

  24. we're already cyborgs by sad_ · · Score: 1

    The idea is to have a higher data transfer rate, because the transfer rate of the current phone input-output mechanism is not fast enough.
    I would argue that most people will not be able to handle the speeds at which data will be delivered if they need to manage that real time.

    --
    On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
  25. Smarter? by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "How much smarter are you with a phone or computer or without? You're vastly smarter, actually," Musk said. "You can answer any question pretty much instantly. You can remember flawlessly.

    .

    Of course, since Google searches only return correct information, Wikipedia is never wrong. Everything you read or see on the internet is true.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  26. "I'm still pro-humanity" by misnohmer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "I'm still pro-humanity"... until I'm not. I have tunnels under your cities, satellites over them and rockets able to strike anywhere on earth. "You will be assimilated, resistance is futile!"

    1. Re:"I'm still pro-humanity" by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Man gives birth to the Machine. The Machine construct artificial life and seeds space via panspermia.

      Lather, rinse, repeat. The cycle of reverse-entropy (aka LIFE) continues.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  27. Re:Being intelligent is overrated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Oh, but the way i understand it we are talking about the same thing.
    Our consciousness is not monolithic. We have lots of "modules" doing individual tasks and the resulting computations are represented as sort of a unified experience.

    With an AI module essentially processing math for us, and database look-ups and merges, and what ever we believe AI based computing might do better than our own grey matter, they would create the ability to have such processing and decision making become merged into our consciousness as part of the integrated total.

    You might be thinking of essentially the AI having it's own personality that will boss around our own personality? Even such things seem to be able to occur within our own brain after certain trauma, indicating that our own personalities aren't quite as monolithic as we think.

    As long as it's integrated in a way that's transparent to our consciousness and not manipulated or biased by an external entity (government, corps, some fucker with a keyboard that got past "security") we shouldn't be worse for the wear and larger than the sum of our parts.
    We also would start down the path of trans-humanism, for all it's benefits and risks.

    As for a gradual shift of emphasis from grey matter to silicon: as long as it's integrative for the consciousness and a seamless experience gradually moving over: I'm not sure it's really different from the human experience of aging. None of us are the same person we were 10 years ago. As long as we are not "killed" by some non-continuous event leading to that, it probably would represent a fairly pain-free path of evolution, provided such strong AI is even possible in silicon.

    tldr: I believe it depends on it being done in a way that's transparent to our total consciousness and experience creating a mind that is neither human nor machine but a merged total that's larger than the sum of it's parts.

  28. MLJ by gringer · · Score: 1

    I think that the device Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen is creating is a better technology, because it's a lot less invasive, and can be removed by hand without the use of surgical tools:

    https://www.openwater.cc/techn...

    We use an utterly unconventional approach that enables us to leapfrog MRI technology by using the scattering of the body or the brain itself to focus infrared light to scan the brain or body bit by bit or voxel by voxel. This is enabled by LCDs with pixels small enough to create reconstructive holographic images that neutralize the scattering and enable scanning at MRI resolution and depth coupled with the use of body-temperature detectors. These LCDs and detectors line the inside of a ski-hat, bandage or other clothing.

    --
    Ask me about repetitive DNA
    1. Re:MLJ by fox171171 · · Score: 1

      I think that the device Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen is creating is a better technology, because it's a lot less invasive, and can be removed by hand without the use of surgical tools:

      I heard that one problem with it is that you can't get the song "Call Me Maybe" out of your head.

  29. No by BankRobberMBA · · Score: 2

    The cake is a lie.

  30. Call out to Tesla employees by WhatHump · · Score: 2, Funny

    Can someone at Tesla please get a urine sample from Mr. Musk? My daughter, a chemist, would like to run an analysis on it to see what the hell is in his coffee.

    --
    "Could be worse...could be raining." Igor
    1. Re:Call out to Tesla employees by leonbev · · Score: 1

      Yeah, this is an especially odd comment coming from him, considering that he's been warning about a hostile AI takeover for awhile now.

      Maybe Joe Rogan spiked his blunt with something.... I don't know.

    2. Re:Call out to Tesla employees by olau · · Score: 1

      Why do you think it's odd? If AIs can be super-AIs because of man-made hardware, then perhaps humans can pull the same trick and not end up with the short end of the stick?

      All he's saying is that for this to actually work, we probably need a better hardware interface than eyeballs and keyboards.

    3. Re:Call out to Tesla employees by q4Fry · · Score: 1

      Yeah, this is an especially odd comment coming from him, considering that he's been warning about a hostile AI takeover for awhile now.

      And this has been his solution since I remember him first talking about it. You need to read some of the books he names his unmanned landing-pad boats after. They'll provide some context.

  31. Elon wants a pony by sacrilicious · · Score: 1

    Elon Musk Wants To Put An AI Hardware Chip In Your Skull

    And I wanna fuck Angie Dickinson. Let's see which one of us gets lucky first.

    --
    - First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
  32. Very necessary. Will help Tesla a lot. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

    You see, normal human beings do not walk into or bump into parked fire engines. That makes the occasional interaction between a Tesla and a fire truck reflects badly on the Tesla. Once all the humans have the same AI, they too will casually bump to random objects. That will normalize Tesla's behavior. Just saying why we need this.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  33. Direct to brain advertising by ebcdic · · Score: 2

    Is that what you want?

  34. Please, don't speak for all by edis · · Score: 1

    I wish there was separate planet, which all human species of this particular kind could inhabit, and subsequently destroy in completely separate manner. My personal smartness of the phone stopped at Nokia 6120c for the sufficiency and actual undemanded surplus of features - I've grabbed it for free from electronics' waste bin. You can call me, though, and have me exchange short messages. I experience enormously larger pleasure by listening to 78" shellac records than from live digital stream, also feel more bemused by French-polished cherry wood and mahogany camera than of your iPhone expensiviest, which I could not name because of having privilege in being poorly informed. Yet I am technically literate by having gone trough Macro Assembler on RSX-11 and VAX/VMS, also C, Java, Perl, HTML and even Cobol, while today I can cope with Windows 10.

    Good luck with anybody's personal intelligence at sorting things!

    --
    Servant of karma
  35. Go right a head... by bobbied · · Score: 1

    Go right ahead and stuff one in your head sir. You try it first, I'm going to sit back and watch the show.

    Like the failed experiment we knew as "Google Glasses" didn't really take off after all the hype, so this little idea will go. Some folks will try it, others will scoff at them while the majority will realize how foolish the idea is and ignore it all. However in this case, what are you going to do with it when technology upgrades and the chip in your head ages like an unfortunate tat?

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  36. Become a Borg IS great! by v1 · · Score: 1

    It's not so much a loss of control but a loss of individuality. No different than how your billions of cells have given up "control" as they are part of the collective of your body.

    It's easy to argue that your body is capable of accomplishing things several orders of magnitude more complex than any of your individual cells can accomplish. I think almost by definition it's impossible for us to begin to imagine what a collective of people is capable of.

    Favoring our own individuality over what we're capable of as a collective is an incredibly selfish desire, although it's one we by our nature all have ;)

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    1. Re:Become a Borg IS great! by mark-t · · Score: 1

      The problem with a collective is that, over time, it would tend to deteriorate towards the lowest common denominator - everyone would eventually be mediochre, and very little, if any, new accomplishments would be achieved from inside of it.

      Like global thermonuclear war, the only way to win is not to play.

    2. Re:Become a Borg IS great! by v1 · · Score: 1

      Again drawing on the biology model, I would expect a collective NOT to become more generalized, but instead to become more specialized. Like we have skin cells and liver cells and blood cells etc. Our society is already far down that road, we have plumbers and farmers and bakers and teachers. We, even as individuals, aren't able to do a good job at a very wide variety of things that our lives depend on. We have already gotten pretty specialized. I just see this as a trend that will become more and more pronounced as time passes, especially with how so much of our lives is becoming automated. A few decades from now, the average person may be as skilled at cooking a meal as the average person today is at sewing. And that's a pretty tame example.

      Everyone's going to be a specialist, and nobody's going to be a generalist.

      --
      I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    3. Re:Become a Borg IS great! by mark-t · · Score: 1

      Originality depends, inherently, on individuality. Lose individuality, and all originality goes away with it. Nothing new will ever be done, ever again.

  37. Yes on Chip; No on Elon by Fluffymuffin+Cocobut · · Score: 2

    I will take the AI chip after reasonable clinical trials; I would rather a skilled neurosurgeon or at least a well-tested autodoc install the chip, though. Elon is *literally* asking to put things into my body all the time and I keep telling him "no, Elon, it's over, god, I am sorry it didn't work out but you have your life and I have mine now - go back to Grimes; she is talented and I think she really liked you" but he just keeps showing up with bioenhancements with which to curry my favor. I've had to change my phone and email SO many times... "no, I will not colonize Mars with you I like it here and I think humanity can pull ahead of the death spiral curve of Earth's crashing biosphere"

    --
    imagine a soft, buttery paw gently pressing down onto a sleeping soldier's face. forever.
  38. Doom by ZipXap · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Make people more intelligent? This spells doom for the Republican party...

    1. Re:Doom by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Naw, man, it'd just make people be stupid, but faster. :-(

    2. Re:Doom by mark-t · · Score: 2

      This is, unfortunately, probably very true.

  39. How much? by sabbede · · Score: 1
    And how does it get upgraded when better chips are available? Should I wait for one that "grows" into place like the NN 1 inskin from Daniel Keys Moran's "The Long Run" ("The Continuing Time" series)?

    Is that where Musk got the idea? Because that's exactly what he describes.

  40. Argument from ignorance by sjbe · · Score: 1

    AI researchers are too close to the problem.

    Oh so we should listen instead to people (like yourself I'm guessing) who aren't involved in AI at all? You could substitute AI researcher with Physics researcher and your argument would be basically unchanged and equally bogus.

    As for the argument that "humans will always be needed, because our economy is built around humans", wake up and look at the rest of the universe. Stuff happens without humans. Once machines don't need you, they don't need you.

    You see a lot of machines out there in the universe doing stuff? You are making an argument from ignorance. Just because you can imagine some dystopian future doesn't mean it's actually possible for it to happen. I can imagine warp drives and teleportation and photon torpedos and other things that haven't been conclusively determined to be impossible. Doesn't mean they actually do or can exist in the real universe we live in. People like to imagine all sorts of fanciful ideas about how the machines are going to conquer us and for the most part they are pure nonsensical fantasy.

  41. why? by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    Faster ads?

    1. Re:why? by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Nah, dude, they'll just feed malware directly into the goddamned thing in your head so your brain gets programmed to buy, buy, buy whatever the hell it is they're pushing.

  42. Social processing unit by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

    I'd like an SPU. Geeks don't have dedicated hardware for social situations, so we have to do our socializing in software on the CPU, which is very exhausting.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    1. Re:Social processing unit by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      Or you can learn.

  43. Elon, you so crazy by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    Great idea, dude. Then Facebook, Google, Twitter, $THE_COPS, $YOUR_GOVERNMENT, and whoever the ever-loving fuck else there is, can just hoover up everything in your brain directly instead of tricking or beating it out of you. Also imagine the utter unmitigated joy of having a ransomware attack on hardware that resides inside your goddamned skull, or Microsoft feeding ads directly into your brain while you're trying to fucking SLEEP, and so on, and so on, and so on.

    Seriously, Elon Musk, I'm not at all convinced you think about it for more than 2 seconds before you open your mouth and let some shit just fly out of it like this. WORST IDEA *EVER*, ELON.

  44. Re:He's right of course, but many here won't like by DrSpock11 · · Score: 1

    He is completely right. We are nothing but biological machines. Our brains are not some form of magic, they are corporeal organs with advantages and limitations. Barring some kind of cataclysm, it is inevitable that humans will one day design something as good or better than our own intelligence. Whether this takes 50 years, 100 years, or 1000 years is irrelevant; it remains almost a certainty.

    And when that happens what role is left for humanity? If we don't self-evolve to integrate our technology into ourselves we will become pointless.

    Will there be opposition? Of course. But as others have pointed out we're already installing technology into ourselves. Medical uses are how this sort of thing will slowly become acceptable. Say artificial eyes are invented. Will people really stand in the way of restoring sight to the blind? Of course not. And then what happens when those artificial eyes are superior to human eyes? Soon some sighted people will replace their healthy eyes. And before you know it, human augmentation has become acceptable.

    I've always thought Star Trek had it backwards- the Borg, not the Federation, is much closer to what humankind's future will likely look like.

  45. We already know better right? by gx5000 · · Score: 1

    Wasn't the point of Black mirror, The twilight zone and such TV shows to avoid this lunacy?

    --
    End of Line.
  46. We hardly knew ye by Kreplock · · Score: 1

    What he describes is just an ancillary computing resource, not a direct extension of consciousness. Say, a lightning fast calculator instead of a physical one. But it would still indirectly affect your brain - what would a human brain look like after years of never doing any math, but having it automatically done for you? I expect some typically strong neural pathways would atrophy. Is there a chance the other neural nets would grow stronger with higher level thinking afforded by ready access to facts? Possibly, for the diligent. In most cases probably not enough to break even.

    So you're looking at abandoning grey matter as the end game. You'll want a better understanding than mankind currently has of what you're losing.

  47. Interesting juxtaposition by Epeeist · · Score: 1

    In my view of the site this is right next to an article on a data breach involving hundreds of millions of people.

    Obviously nothing like this would happen with Musk's technology...

  48. No, hell no! by DaMattster · · Score: 1

    Over my cold dead ass will they ever be able to put an implant like that inside of me. If Elon ever tried to force this on the human race, I am going to put up one helluva fight to the death.

  49. Re:He's right of course, but many here won't like by Red_Forman · · Score: 1

    If you think about what he's proposing, it's going to be much closer to the Bynars.

  50. Oh no by Daralantan · · Score: 1

    "make us half human, half artificial intelligence," "My faith in humanity has been a little shaken this year," Musk continues, "but I'm still pro-humanity."

    A year ago he said something about AI destroying mankind. I think he's turning on us!

  51. Old Movies by oldsaint · · Score: 1

    The idea is not new. See The President's Analyst, 1967. And think of Trump.

  52. Bigger picture: Post-scarcity & aesthetics by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In a post-scarcity world full of abundance of most basics and no big need to work if you don't want to (like with a basic income or a gift economy or 3D printers and personal robots), why do some unaesthetic and likely unpleasant thing to your brain like stick some hackable chip in it? Why not accept some reasonable limitations put in place by millions of years of evolution about how to have a stable mind and brain? Musk is missing the bigger post-scarcity picture here -- as are most technologists.

    A different world view is possible:
    https://www.pdfernhout.net/pos...

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
    1. Re:Bigger picture: Post-scarcity & aesthetics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      We live in a "post-scarcity world" already. This enabled us to have communities and entire towns of people living almost entirely off public assistance. It does not change much for the working class (except making them even poorer). Evolutionary pressures are still here, and their forces are as strong as ever. If you don't augment your mind with implants, other people will, and at that point good luck competing with them at work or in academia.

      You could join the public assistance crowd, but even there the implants are going to provide advantage, such as in gang shoot outs, etc.

  53. Black Mirror by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

    Phones and computer don't make anyone smarter, they just give you access to more information.

    That was my initial reaction too but phones can process information as well and the ability to process and sift through information is arguably a component of intelligence. For example, while an embedded chip in your head has many serious problems, if you could perform mathematical calculations rapidly or instantly recall details of memories you might appear smarter. This does not happen with a phone because everyone can see it is the phone, not you, doing the work.

    Black Mirror already covered some of the consequences of instant memory recall though so we might want to think carefully about the wisdom of this...

  54. Merely another way to push advertising by petes_PoV · · Score: 1
    The key thing here isn't the AI component it is the implied brain - internet link. All I can see the AI doing is being a host for more invasive (can you get any more invasive than this?) advertising, tracking - not just your location, but what you're thinking - and "status" information.

    I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it would be possible to get imaging data from a person's eyes, through their brain out to the AI chip and then to the world. Stuff that a person would have no control over and no ability to disable.

    It sounds like a cute idea on the surface, but if the history of the internet teaches us anything it would be that control passes to third parties and that monetising a feature is the primary driver. At least with an invasive phone, you have a a last resort of flushing it!

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
  55. Not everyone will want this by Clomer · · Score: 1

    There are certain advantages to having a computer chip incorporated into our minds to be able to seamlessly transfer data between each other quickly without the meatspace limitation on bandwidth. I could see a certain portion of the population jumping on something like this.

    That said, how long will it be until those who are part of this network collective decide that their way of doing things is obviously superior, and therefore try to force those not part of it into their collective?

    Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

    --
    Intelligent responses welcome, flames will be met with marshmallows.
  56. The question remains... by TRRosen · · Score: 1

    Is Elon looney tunes or batshit crazy?

  57. Re:He cant even fix the panel gaps in a freakin ca by TRRosen · · Score: 1

    He hired 1000 battery engineers and one guy that worked at a body shop once. Teslas are poorly designed and built crap vehicles.

  58. he is "special" by TRRosen · · Score: 1

    Musk is one of our times greatest dillusionaries.

  59. Musk is exploiting the media for advertising by bussdriver · · Score: 1

    This stuff gets you in the news and gets people thinking of you as being visionary and it it doesn't take much effort to do it once you've got people's ear... you try to keep that impression going. The image helps business. Edison did it like crazy and Tesla probably not even on purpose.

    Sad to see Musk's view on being smart is such that having a smart phone makes you smarter. It's quite functional; that is, his definition is functional. Having tools makes you more capable and perform/function better. You are not smarter at math because you have a calculator... but that is the kind of reasoning he is doing with this view on smarts.

    A brain hook up would then appear to make you smarter as your interface with existing software tools would presumably be faster and easier; so you would function faster--- not likely any measurably better or more capable than before; but simply faster. So you get more done and from his perspective, you are smarter.

    People WILL adopt the fad and get addicted just like the smart phone. It need not be any more capable or easier to use. Simply having to not carry a big glass sheet around all the time and worry about losing it would get a bunch of people to do it. Make an app that just gives your brain the dopamine and you've killed off freemium gaming, most drugs, pointless hobbies/activities, most shopping... but that would get it banned... better make that an "unknown" feature of rooting the device...

  60. I was a skeptic but the logic is sound by Torontoman · · Score: 1

    I laughed it off the first time I read about the Neuralink project - this is a moonshot from Elon - but it's interesting. I'm still a skeptic - but some interesting things could result from the work. The Waitbuywhy.com guy convinced me a year or so back that it was at least an interesting thing for a guy with a lot of cash laying around to strive for. Worth a read: https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04...

  61. Religion ... by fish_in_the_c · · Score: 1

    This is your religion here. Spoken from faith in .... 'humanity'... or technology and in no way connected to hard science or objective evidence.

    --
    âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
  62. A reallllllll jerk! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    It will have to have hardware safety governors (or firmware not updatable sans extermal stimulation, and ideally both) to prevent "real jerks" not just from messing around, but also from launching a secret zero day attack during a war.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  63. Common sci-fi theme ..... by King_TJ · · Score: 1

    This has been a concept (or even a dream) for many people for decades. Cyberpunk novels treat this idea as almost a staple item in their fictional societies, and that goes back as far as at least the 1980's.

    I think all of this augmented reality tech you see on smartphones and past projects like "Google Glass" also point to a desire to head in that general direction.

    The fact is though? We really have no idea how to tie our electronics in to the human brain so they'd seamlessly inter-operate. Modern medicine is still trying to figure out the chemical reactions in the brain and what leads to various malfunctions (like Alzheimer's disease). There's a disease (although extremely rare) that causes one to have continual seizures (hundreds per day), and the only cure we know for it right now is cutting out one half of the brain completely. ("When in doubt, rip it out." is not usually an indicator that you have a strong understanding of how a thing is supposed to really work.)

    You could easily imagine putting data on a microchip that holds, say, a complete set of language information for a foreign language. But how would you get the brain to *access* what's on the chip and to automatically query that chip when appropriate?

    When you start looking at the details like that, you realize nobody on this planet is going to see such a thing working in Elon Musk's lifetime.
     

  64. Re:He's right of course, but many here won't like by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

    > And when that happens what role is left for humanity?

    What role is left for animals? Do we go around killing ALL the animals on the planet simply because we are superior? Of course not.

    Humans 1.0 (Flesh) and Humans 2.0 (Cyborgs) are unique life forms. They serve a purpose. The _medium_ is irrelevant.

  65. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back by tcc3 · · Score: 1

    The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!

  66. Move My Legs Again... by brian.stinar · · Score: 1

    I'd try this, if I could move my legs again...

    Just kidding, my legs are fine. But seriously, there are some disabilities / diseases / problems that the risks associated with letting Elon Musk split open your skull, and start adding hardware, might be worth it. The cochlear implant is effectively such a cyborg implant, and many (formerly) deaf people are very grateful for this piece of technology.

    I believe these types of decisions are best left to the individual, or the individual's parents, and not to governments, slashdot, or AI Cyborg Zombies, to decide.

  67. Why do we bother by Holi · · Score: 1

    Why do we bother listening to him? It's not like these are his ideas, he's just pulling up sci fi tropes and then saying we have to do these crazy things.

    I don't like the idea of just giving people knowledge. Knowledge should be earned since the process of learning also tends to give you the wisdom to use it.

    --
    Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
  68. Re:He's right of course, but many here won't like by Agent0013 · · Score: 1

    AI researchers are too close to the problem. If you are at the cutting edge of X, and have tried and failed to solve X a thousand times, naturally you see X as unsolvable. But step back. Some other guy is bypassing it. Decade by decade, machines are getting better at doing stuff. Eventually they WILL either get our abilities, or make our unique skills irrelevant

    Except, I heard that all the improvements in AI capabilities has come about from CPU improvements. The computers are more powerful, so the same AI we had 50 years ago can do more now. But there has been no real improvements to the AI algorithms itself. So, when computer power hits a plateau, so does the strength and capabilities of AI. So maybe the researchers who are close to the problem actually know what they are saying.

    --

    -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
  69. Kingsman plot by TJHook3r · · Score: 1

    This ended badly in the film 'Kingsman'! Seriously though, most jobs will and should be done by AI instead of Humans. The discussion we should be having is how we share resources between a massive population who will be gradually redundant over the next 30 years, not how we compete with the robots!

  70. I saw this episode by BKDotCom · · Score: 1

    I saw this episode of Black Mirror.
    It didn't end well.

  71. Re:He's right of course, but many here won't like by pjk · · Score: 1

    We seem to be having a pretty good attempt at killing all the animals on the planet. Not always deliberately, but not sure the animals care for the distinction.

    --
    pjk
  72. The Borg: Resistance is futile ... by Forever+Wondering · · Score: 1

    We are the Borg ...

    You will be assimilated ...

    Resistance is futile ...

    --
    Like a good neighbor, fsck is there ...
  73. Do the research by The+Snazster · · Score: 1

    It's just too easy to make snarky remarks based on what little is said here. Go read about Neuralink and what it aims to do (the Wait But Why website has an interesting piece on it). But yeah, if you believe AI is inevitable and that it might be dangerous, it actually makes sense to form a symbiotic relationship early on. If you can't beat them, join them, etc. but do it while you can still dictate terms.

  74. The Number of the Beast! by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

    Apparently Elongated Muskrat is actually the Antichrist!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  75. One step closer... by jccosmetics · · Score: 1

    Ah yes, one step closer to become the freaking BORG! I'm telling ya, we don't need to worry about terminators and such with the rise of AI what we really need to be concerned with is gradually augmenting our bodies with tech to the point that we become the Borg. Add a chip in your brain to augment your intelligence, then let's hook that up to the cloud controlled by Alexa - next thing you know we are all Alexa drones!

  76. faith by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

    My faith in humanity has been a little shaken this year," Musk continues

    Well, I'm with you in thinking that humanity is not where to put your faith. You are right that we should put it somewhere else.

    And that's why you (and others) are flailing around looking for where to put your faith.

    We diverge however when you think that we should put our faith in "AI" ...

  77. This again... by Trimaz · · Score: 1

    PayPal has been good and all, but isn't it time for ol'Musky to finally just fuck off?

  78. How to really emphasize "Oh *HELL* No!" by Mike+Van+Pelt · · Score: 1

    Do you want a zombie apocalypse?

    Because this is how you get a zombie apocalypse.

  79. Upgrade Blues... by David_Hart · · Score: 1

    As soon as I put an AI chip in my brain, they will come with with version 5.1...

    Well, not this guy, I'm waiting for 5.1 because I've heard that that's 10% faster in getting the movie listings....

  80. One could argue... by sajavete · · Score: 1

    ... that in a way, humans became cyborgs (that is, animals with non-animal components participating i their behaviour) back when they started wearing clothes and using tools. In this sense, being a cyborg has been the very definition of humanity right from the start.

  81. He's wrong. by kaatochacha · · Score: 1

    This is silly. you don't become smarter. You just have access to more data. Imagine your idiotic relative suddenly backing up his crazy ideas with "facts" gleaned from the internet instantaneously.

  82. Nice idea, gets destroyed in practise by philmarcracken · · Score: 1

    The immune system we all have is none to pleased with non-self material, getting something like that to work in your brain without complications seems pretty far fetched. And from what little I know about the current methods for the disabled, they all required unique training meaning the brain comes with all of 'you' scattered. Can't design a simple chip that hits all known points since they're not all known, 6 month 'calibration' times or whatever it might be per person is a hard sell.

  83. Ad supported, monthly lease, or hardware license? by WolfgangVL · · Score: 1

    Who owns your thoughts?

    --
    You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
  84. "Main Goal" ? by John.Banister · · Score: 1

    Who knew Elon Musk had a single "main goal" ? I don't need an AI chip in my skull. I need an interface module in my skull. It can connect to AIs, robot arms, vehicle control modules, media sources, etc. Over time it can be used to transfer my consciousness beyond my skull, so that by the time my skull goes offline, I won't need a skull.

  85. No to AI, no to in-brain ads by fox171171 · · Score: 1

    I would not want an AI on a chip in my head, but a long time ago I imagined that a math coprocessor would be nice.

    A bunch of "skills" modules would be cool too. Want the skills of a ninja? Helicopter pilot? Fixed wing aircraft? Doctor? Race car driver? Chess grandmaster? Physicist? Engineer? All of the above? It's just a quick download.

    Maybe you want to be a do-it-yourself kind of person? Download the plumbing, electrical, electronics, welding, mechanic, woodworking and construction modules.

    That would be great.
    An AI in your head telling you what to do/think? Maybe won't shut up? Maybe takes over? No thanks. Lightspeed briefs in my dreams? No thanks.

    1. Re:No to AI, no to in-brain ads by sabbede · · Score: 1
      I was hoping you'd bring up the briefs.

      No, I'm sorry, that's a lie. I was hoping you wouldn't so I could.