8 ms·

Am I the only one a bit disturbed by this whole communication ? I mean, we all know helping disabled is not the end-game objective of neuralink. And right now,

by wazdra 2y ago

Am I the only one a bit disturbed by this whole communication ? I mean, we all know helping disabled is not the end-game objective of neuralink. And right now, from a very cynical point of view, disabled people constitute a large reservoir of cobayes and free marketing for Neuralink I don’t know how much has been invested in R&D on Neuralink, but I doubt we have ever invested that much money in any other technology to provide autonomy to the disabled. And it is not perfectly clear to me that, for the sole prospect of helping paralysed people, Neuralink is the best way to go. It sure is the one that looks the coolest, but it’s going to be very expensive, hard to fix when something goes wrong, and it is also hard to trust. Those issues do not seem to be avoidable Don’t get me wrong, I admire the huge QoL gain for the three patients. As individuals, they sure benefited from this. Idk if the same is true of the disabled as a social group

andsoitis 2y ago
> we all know helping disabled is not the end-game objective of neuralink. Can you tell us more what you surmise we all think is the end-game objective?
- golol 2y ago
  powerful general BCI, FDVR, cyborg intelligence and so on. Elon Musk clearly stated this many times.
- isoprophlex 2y ago
  Jensen Huang becoming a sandworm from Dune, only he keeps shitting out mountains of NVIDIA cards instead of spice. Elon Musk and the rest of the technorati using neuralink to upload themselves into said mountain of GPUs to become immortal.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Wait... A sandworm with a mountain of GPUs ravaging a country ruined by a Technorati-coup's failed dreams of immortality? The anime movie Vexille (2007) has you covered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Ti8mjRXsc&t=34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Ti8mjRXsc&t=34 Technically the worms ("jags") are unintended junk rather than tools of apotheosis, but the overlap is striking.
- computerthings 2y ago
  Someone who has genuine concern for helping people doesn't cut medical programs in fly-by-night operations to leave people with medical devices in their body and whatnot. Empathy and caring about suffering can be ruled out. Generally speaking, the demo is always about finding the green ball on top of a red cube, or the person who went missing in a land slide, but what sells it is detecting and aiming at the dissident hiding under a truck. And isn't it weird how "think of the children" is always ridiculed but "think of the paralyzed etc." is just fine? I've seen it countless times in the last decades. Just recently when I said on here I want "AI" art to be marked as "AI" made and someone claimed I don't care about the people who have Parkinson's and can't hold a brush, but wouldn't answer why we can't mark it anyway. It's not the people with Parkinson's that want to pass of their creations as hand-made. They're just getting used. Sure, paralyzed people would love to be able to control a cursor with their mind etc., but even more than that they don't want cuts to social programs, that enable them a dignified life beyond "making them as functional as a healthy person", to allow tax cuts for the super rich. They want friends to have time for them instead of working 3 jobs, that sort of stuff. But Musk and his spiritual brethren are gleefully moving in the opposite direction, as fast and ruthlessly as they can. So I say this particular doctor is three butchers in a trench coat. I can't prove it, because I can't read minds, but nobody else can either, and this is the "bet" I'm going with. Vulnerable and sick people can only have things that would a.) help super rich people with the same conditions and b.) enable more persecution and exploitation, and an easier discard of undesirable, unproductive or rebellious members of society.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - yreg 2y ago
    > And isn't it weird how "think of the children" is always ridiculed but "think of the paralyzed etc." is just fine? Isn't the difference that "think of the children" is used to ban stuff and "think of the paralyzed" is used to enable stuff?
    - computerthings 2y ago
      Well, even to genuinely protect children it often means removing things from impacting them. You don't give a newborn honey; we don't invent some kind of pill that allows us to give them honey on day 1, they can't deal with honey, it's fine, just keep it away from them. Then the older they get, the more it's about giving them the tools to make their own decisions -- but children can't consent, so yes, you have to ban adults from doing some things. You can't usually just "enable" something else so they don't harm children. Children grow on their own, provided they get what they need and some stimulus, but also crucially safe space to grow in, from which to extend their feelers so to speak. That must be carved out negatively. And frankly, society totally threw them under the bus even when it was just TV and ads, with phones it's so much worse. But that's a total tangent and besides the point. "think of the children" can and is also be used as a fig leaf, to just ban things or get control, but that fact in turn is then used as a fig leaf for dismissing any concern for children. While "think of the disabled people whose welfare the broligarchy wants to see cut" somehow is just taken without second thought.
- dmbche 2y ago
  Isn't it to sell brain-computer connectivity to the masses?
- consumer451 2y ago
  > Can you tell us more what you surmise we all think is the end-game objective? Musk's original stated end-game objective is to give humans a chance against ASI by removing the biggest impediment that humans have to communicate digitally, the keyboard. This is hard to believe as the truth, as it is extremely short-sighted. If ASI can think 1000x faster than a human brain, and with much more intelligence, then what does giving humans even a 100x improvement in I/O achieve? Also, if ASI is achieved, then it will continue to self-improve. The meat brain is stuck at our current speed. Please see my HN profile for a privacy rant about the downsides, which only assumes a read capability. Once a write capability is introduced, I mean you gotta be kidding me. Who should you trust with that power? The answer is no one.
tdeck 2y ago
Apparently "cobaye" is guinea pig in French. I learn something new every day :).
- Terr_ 2y ago
  My first puzzled interpretation was of a "reservoir of co-pays", as if there was some kind of financial/insurance exploitation going on.

by wazdra 2y ago

andsoitis 2y ago

> we all know helping disabled is not the end-game objective of neuralink. Can you tell us more what you surmise we all think is the end-game objective?

golol 2y ago
powerful general BCI, FDVR, cyborg intelligence and so on. Elon Musk clearly stated this many times.
isoprophlex 2y ago
Jensen Huang becoming a sandworm from Dune, only he keeps shitting out mountains of NVIDIA cards instead of spice. Elon Musk and the rest of the technorati using neuralink to upload themselves into said mountain of GPUs to become immortal.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  Wait... A sandworm with a mountain of GPUs ravaging a country ruined by a Technorati-coup's failed dreams of immortality? The anime movie Vexille (2007) has you covered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Ti8mjRXsc&t=34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Ti8mjRXsc&t=34 Technically the worms ("jags") are unintended junk rather than tools of apotheosis, but the overlap is striking.
computerthings 2y ago
Someone who has genuine concern for helping people doesn't cut medical programs in fly-by-night operations to leave people with medical devices in their body and whatnot. Empathy and caring about suffering can be ruled out. Generally speaking, the demo is always about finding the green ball on top of a red cube, or the person who went missing in a land slide, but what sells it is detecting and aiming at the dissident hiding under a truck. And isn't it weird how "think of the children" is always ridiculed but "think of the paralyzed etc." is just fine? I've seen it countless times in the last decades. Just recently when I said on here I want "AI" art to be marked as "AI" made and someone claimed I don't care about the people who have Parkinson's and can't hold a brush, but wouldn't answer why we can't mark it anyway. It's not the people with Parkinson's that want to pass of their creations as hand-made. They're just getting used. Sure, paralyzed people would love to be able to control a cursor with their mind etc., but even more than that they don't want cuts to social programs, that enable them a dignified life beyond "making them as functional as a healthy person", to allow tax cuts for the super rich. They want friends to have time for them instead of working 3 jobs, that sort of stuff. But Musk and his spiritual brethren are gleefully moving in the opposite direction, as fast and ruthlessly as they can. So I say this particular doctor is three butchers in a trench coat. I can't prove it, because I can't read minds, but nobody else can either, and this is the "bet" I'm going with. Vulnerable and sick people can only have things that would a.) help super rich people with the same conditions and b.) enable more persecution and exploitation, and an easier discard of undesirable, unproductive or rebellious members of society.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- yreg 2y ago
  > And isn't it weird how "think of the children" is always ridiculed but "think of the paralyzed etc." is just fine? Isn't the difference that "think of the children" is used to ban stuff and "think of the paralyzed" is used to enable stuff?
  - computerthings 2y ago
    Well, even to genuinely protect children it often means removing things from impacting them. You don't give a newborn honey; we don't invent some kind of pill that allows us to give them honey on day 1, they can't deal with honey, it's fine, just keep it away from them. Then the older they get, the more it's about giving them the tools to make their own decisions -- but children can't consent, so yes, you have to ban adults from doing some things. You can't usually just "enable" something else so they don't harm children. Children grow on their own, provided they get what they need and some stimulus, but also crucially safe space to grow in, from which to extend their feelers so to speak. That must be carved out negatively. And frankly, society totally threw them under the bus even when it was just TV and ads, with phones it's so much worse. But that's a total tangent and besides the point. "think of the children" can and is also be used as a fig leaf, to just ban things or get control, but that fact in turn is then used as a fig leaf for dismissing any concern for children. While "think of the disabled people whose welfare the broligarchy wants to see cut" somehow is just taken without second thought.
dmbche 2y ago
Isn't it to sell brain-computer connectivity to the masses?
consumer451 2y ago
> Can you tell us more what you surmise we all think is the end-game objective? Musk's original stated end-game objective is to give humans a chance against ASI by removing the biggest impediment that humans have to communicate digitally, the keyboard. This is hard to believe as the truth, as it is extremely short-sighted. If ASI can think 1000x faster than a human brain, and with much more intelligence, then what does giving humans even a 100x improvement in I/O achieve? Also, if ASI is achieved, then it will continue to self-improve. The meat brain is stuck at our current speed. Please see my HN profile for a privacy rant about the downsides, which only assumes a read capability. Once a write capability is introduced, I mean you gotta be kidding me. Who should you trust with that power? The answer is no one.

tdeck 2y ago

Apparently "cobaye" is guinea pig in French. I learn something new every day :).

Terr_ 2y ago
My first puzzled interpretation was of a "reservoir of co-pays", as if there was some kind of financial/insurance exploitation going on.