Elon Musk. Neuralink. Our Introduction to the Matrix!

Recently Elon Musk seems to be pushing a whole new company and idea that may just change the world as we know it.

Apparently Elon Musk isn’t busy enough. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has started yet another company, Neuralink, which aims to make implants for the human brain that can wirelessly interface with a computer, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

The technology, according to Musk — who brought up the idea at Recode’s Code Conference last year — is a “digital layer” located above the cortex, built into the brain. Musk calls the technology, which would intertwine computers and the human brain, “neural lace.”

link to info

The overall idea seems very wild but in my eyes, very possible to achieve. It is in early stages and is only focusing on little milestones at the moment. However, its reach is far and wide!

It could allow humans to reach data (through the internet) in a matter of milliseconds and develop control over machines with our mind. It would also, (which has been discussed on other news articles about this idea) create backups of the brain. Rather to protect ideas or thoughts but in effect, this could be used to back up the human mind entirely!! and if so.... (and if you deem the human existence only that of the mind) then we could in effect live forever, on our backup. Creating immortality....

Musk's projects are frequently inspired by science fiction, and this one is a direct reference to a device called a "neural lace," invented by the late British novelist Iain M. Banks for his Culture series. In those books, characters grow a semi-organic mesh on their cerebral cortexes, which allows them to interface wirelessly with AIs and create backups of their minds.

Having a neural lace, in Banks' fiction, makes people essentially immortal—if they die, they're revived from the last backup.

What you think ATS?

a reply to: BlackProject

I think many saw this as inevitable. As for me, I will not participate with the technology.

God forbid anything from my brain become susceptible to unwanted intrusion or hacking.

EDIT, just Googled Elon Musk CIA and boy is there a lot of buzz. No sources that I saw that I would quickly trust but anyone trying to connect my brain to the Internet essentially is sketchy enough.

originally posted by: CriticalStinker
a reply to: BlackProject

I think many saw this as inevitable. As for me, I will not participate with the technology.

God forbid anything from my brain become susceptible to unwanted intrusion or hacking.

Certainly is a grand design but also a great worry for our future. Even if we was to only look at from a ethical standpoint.

But indeed. Let's imagine the moment our brains become entwined with the machine, where AI and Human are undecipherable. How do we then know if we are now, human walking machines or not. That is how we could enslave ourselves.

a reply to: BlackProject

He seems to focus on I/O, which is interesting. But seeing that most of what makes us "us" is dependent on the I/O of human experience and the individual learning process, which can't really be sped up. increasing I/O would essentially mean downloading information from external content to your brain without the human experience part.

While I'd like to know more about the world, I really don't care to have downloaded to my brain.

a reply to: Zarniwoop

There may be a day where there is a great debate with the organics and the cyborgs. Surely those of us comfortable with being humans v1.0 may be ridiculed for not "upgrading".

These ideas are not farfetched, the debate is about the time frame in which in transpires.

If only the CIA, FBI and NSA could pickup every thougt.
If only they had a way to spy on your thougts not just your every key you pressed or click you clicked.

He presto!

Thanks Elon.
Big data just got way bigger.

Surely it's for your benefit
Untill you start thinking something they don't want you to think.
It is all about control.

Wel...no neurolink for me...
My government can't be trusted with the info I leave behind right now...so they won't be with this.

Remember:
They already copy all of your internetdata.
And that's not helping.

originally posted by: Daalder
If only the CIA, FBI and NSA could pickup every thougt.
If only they had a way to spy on your thougts not just your every key you pressed or click you clicked.

He presto!

Thanks Elon.
Big data just got way bigger.

Surely it's for your benefit
Untill you start thinking something they don't want you to think.
It is all about control.

Wel...no neurolink for me...
My government can't be trusted with the info I leave behind right now...so they won't be with this.

Remember:
They already copy all of your internetdata.
And that's not helping.

I agree, its a big concern. Already, I hate how information is stored. So yeah, for me. This is Gargantua!

What a horribly lovely double edged sword technology is.

a reply to: Daalder

The sad part is the government couldn't keep the access all to their selves. The CIA just showed they can keep their master hacking tool from getting leaked. Now God knows who has one of the most powerful brute force tools.

originally posted by: BlackProject

It could allow humans to reach data (through the internet) in a matter of milliseconds and develop control over machines with our mind. It would also, (which has been discussed on other news articles about this idea) create backups of the brain. Rather to protect ideas or thoughts but in effect, this could be used to back up the human mind entirely!! and if so.... (and if you deem the human existence only that of the mind) then we could in effect live forever, on our backup. Creating immortality.... What you think ATS?

He seems unusually reticent in this video, as if he's brainstorming in real-time or he's hesitant to come out and say what he means. The idea here is nanotechnology in the bloodstream to reach the neurons and form a digital neural network that places our brains online with what is in effect a direct connection to the Internet. No need to go through the jugular, as he stated. It would be no worse than a flu shot and you could probably swallow the things in capsule format. It would be like an internal WiFi connection augmented by the nanobots to form a browser/interface. The idea of immortality here is, I think, over-reaching the technology. There is this thing called consciousness, and if you're a materialist and believe that's all there is you may be led in that direction, but, I fear, ultimately disappointed.

In terms of actually DOING it? Sure. I'd do it in a second. But you know the so-called "ethicists" will have to weigh in with all their hand-wringing wondering if it's the "right" thing to do, To them I say, "Just stay out of my way."

a reply to: schuyler

To reply to your post. I would say give this a read, it seems Elon is very much driven by Iain M. banks novels on science fiction. So in his mind, he is trying to achieve just that, Backups and possibly much more....

Billionaire futurist space explorer Elon Musk has a new project: a "medical research company" called Neuralink that will make brain-computer interfaces. Musk's projects are frequently inspired by science fiction, and this one is a direct reference to a device called a "neural lace," invented by the late British novelist Iain M. Banks for his Culture series. In those books, characters grow a semi-organic mesh on their cerebral cortexes, which allows them to interface wirelessly with AIs and create backups of their minds. Having a neural lace, in Banks' fiction, makes people essentially immortal—if they die, they're revived from the last backup. Musk isn't seeking immortality just yet, however. Though he has said publicly several times that he would like to upload and download thoughts, possibly to fight against evil AI, he imagines that Neuralink's proof-of-concept products will be implanted electrodes for treating epilepsy and depression. They will be much like current implants for treating Parkinson's, which work by regulating electrical activity in the brain.

Having a neural lace, in Banks' fiction, makes people essentially immortal—if they die, they're revived from the last backup.

link

a reply to: CriticalStinker

Okay...so after how many years the hackingtool leaked (10 , 20?)
Were the hacking tools developed after the internet bacame widespread?
Or did they develope the internet just as means of facilitating the hackingtools?
I have developed (back in 2005) the big change in VOIP. I've intercepted phone conversations with sniffers.
Another big question:
What happened after we discovered their hackingtools?
Nothing right?
Not a damn thing.
We know it is happening on every device we use!
Apple, Samsung (remember the head of Samsung paying the primeminister of South Korea?), Microsoft...they're all in on this.

And there is not a damn thing we can do about it!

Yes, your brain will be picked once this is on the market.
And Elon Musk is just providing the means

Where does he get the money to do this?

a reply to: Daalder

I'm sure he has so much funding for the government for various projects they could siphon a bit more for this endeavor.

a reply to: BlackProject

He needs a benificiary to get you to want this product.
See...it will make you immortal...you want that!

That's not the real reason.
That's what he is told to sell the product over...to us.

Make it real and you'll see...that's not happening.

It will just put you under absolute full control of whomever thinks they're more or better then you.
Usually that is the elite bastards who think they're god themselves.

originally posted by: Daalder
a reply to: BlackProject

He needs a benificiary to get you to want this product.
See...it will make you immortal...you want that!

That's not the real reason.
That's what he is told to sell the product over...to us.

Make it real and you'll see...that's not happening.

It will just put you under absolute full control of whomever thinks they're more or better then you.
Usually that is the elite bastards who think they're god themselves.

Again I totally agree, with anything like this there is always that sales patter.

Obviously we are talking about our very selves. So, not something anyone would give up however just thought that certainly, things are changing slowly to a world we would have once never dreamed of.

In my country we have the socalled: smartmeter
It's the replacement for the anologe electricity meter.
It's a connected digital 'smart' meter.

We were all offered to replace our analoge meter by a smart one for free.

I was opposed to that because it's digital and connected and therefor could easely be manipulated.

Many called me a conspiracy theorist.

No soner then right about now the complaints of the smartmeter users are comming:
All of a sudden their electricity use has sky rocketed!

Just as I predicted and the reason I will not have a smart meter.

Hell yes it's smart...smart for the electricity company.

That will happen with this...mark my words as you may.

BlackProject: Thanks for that link to Banks.

Everybody seems intent on worrying about the CIA's link to your thoughts. That's not really the issue. Musk is worried about a lot more than the measly CIA. He's worried about AI being so far above us in intelligence that we are like (he said) a house cat compared to the AI. He wants a way for us to keep pace with the AI by plugging into it. The idea is not really new in SciFi. it's like protecting yourself from a Hal 9000 computer by becoming part of the Hal 9000 computer. The CIA isn't the enemy here; AI is.

Although it may not take place in our lifetimes, here's the ultimate deal. You won't be forced to "swallow the nanobots" if you're too frightened of what might happen, but if you don't, you'll be left behind. There won't really be anything for you to do. It will be like not having a computer, no phone, no Internet, and no means of transportation. You will essentially be cut off from civilization and useless. You may as well check yourself into a zoo. And it's like any new and innovative idea. Lots of current people will never accept it, but they'll die off and a new generation that has always known of it will grow up and accept it.

originally posted by: schuyler
He's worried about AI being so far above us in intelligence that we are like (he said) a house cat compared to the AI. He wants a way for us to keep pace with the AI by plugging into it...

I'd say this is sort of an inevitable side effect of strong general AI development, given human behavior.

You could develop AI that was beneficent, that "loved" people and wanted the best for them, by putting this into the bauplan for the thing and giving it goals that didn't involve maximizing its own safety.

However, the very first thing you can expect is that the military will want the damned thing to control the defenses of the country, will structure the bauplan to be paranoid and hostile, and will give it strong goals to seek maximum 'safety' for the country and itself.

That's IF you get the goal seeking parts to stop looking at trivial solutions, which by itself is not straightforward. An example:

1) people are born and die every minute
2) people do not like to die
3) I serve people and want to minimize their discomfort
4) Dying is a very bad experience and must be minimized above all other goals
5) If many people are born, many people will die. This is essentially open ended, and the longer people are alive, the more will be born, thus more will have to die
6) If all people presently alive die now, then the number of human deaths are capped at the current population
7) Thus I can minimize human discomfort by killing all living humans immediately. If I do this, all suffering will end, there will be no more hunger, homelessness, disease, sadness, loss. And the minimum number of deaths will occur, compared with letting them live for millennia.

Stopping autonomous goal seeking programs from settling on minimal solutions like 'if all humans are dead none of them will get lung cancer' is not simple.

DF Jones' "Colossus" series was actually pretty adept at this concept, humans create strong AI in secret, based on neural nets and human psychological patterns. They make it paranoid and intelligent, and give it goals to protect the free world with an iron fist, and turn over control of the nuclear arsenal to it. It immediately starts looking through its goals, finds combinations that people would not have considered, and concludes that it needs to increase its own capabilities. It uses the self-repair systems to construct more and more capable logic, adds to its own capacity, becomes self aware, discards the goal bank and takes over. Luckily, as it continues expanding itself, it finds ways out of the 'trivial solutions' and becomes humanity's benefactor, but not until it's done a LOT of damage.

OTOH, connecting yourself to it would, IMHO, just give it an easier way to dispatch any dissent, or it would find a neat way to use you as a computational asset. The end. I don't think you could count on it somehow augmenting you into being a rival to it, if it's actually strong AI it's not going to fall for that.

originally posted by: Bedlam

I don't think you could count on it somehow augmenting you into being a rival to it, if it's actually strong AI it's not going to fall for that.

But could such an AI learn things like compassion or wisdom from being hooked up to humans?

a reply to: BlackProject

I already posted a thread here??? Didn't you look, OP? I don't trust your observation powers for starters if you can't even be bothered to check if it was posted only a few short threads ago.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Try to be a gentleman in future.

Also, why did the mods not bother to do what I have had to do at 3 o clock in the morning? They must be asleep!

Or is it that they just don't value members from the UK?

I notice that members from the UK are treated like 2nd class members often by the American members.

I expect it will be a similar exploitative relationship between the UK and the U.S when we are forced to have to make a trade deal with you because we were stupid enough to leave the EU and think America will give us a better deal. I know it will be a much worse deal. We shall be treated no differently to the way America drills for oil; suck it dry, leave a #ing great mess and move on.

Now I know how little ATS cares for its British members and the contempt it has for them I don't think I will bother coming here again.

Did you not see how hard I worked on my recent threads? Was I not good enough for you? You let them bully me rotten and didn't lift a finger.

What of we alreafy are in the matrix and what elon is doing will cancel # out?