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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."

32 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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/...

  4. 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

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  5. 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 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.

    2. 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
    3. 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."

    4. 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.

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

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

      --
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  6. 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?

  7. 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 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

    2. 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: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.
  9. 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
  10. 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.
  11. "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!"

  12. No by BankRobberMBA · · Score: 2

    The cake is a lie.

  13. 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....

  14. 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
  15. Direct to brain advertising by ebcdic · · Score: 2

    Is that what you want?

  16. 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.
  17. 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.

    --
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  18. Re:eyePhone by stealth_finger · · Score: 3, Funny

    Asshole

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  19. 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.
  20. 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.
  21. Re:Doom by mark-t · · Score: 2

    This is, unfortunately, probably very true.

  22. 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.