"What I think is so interesting is that the future is always flying cars," Leuthardt says, handing the resident his Sharpie and picking up a scalpel. "They captured the dystopian component: they talk about biology, the replicants. But they missed big chunks of the future. Where were the neural prosthetics?"
It's a topic that Leuthardt, a 44-year-old scientist and brain surgeon, has spent a lot of time imagining. In addition to his duties as a neurosurgeon at Washington University in St. Louis, he has published two novels and written an award-winning play aimed at "preparing society for the changes ahead." In his first novel, a techno-thriller called RedDevil 4, 90 percent of human beings have elected to get computer hardware implanted directly into their brains. This allows a seamless connection between people and computers, and a wide array of sensory experiences without leaving home. Leuthardt believes that in the next several decades such implants will be like plastic surgery or tattoos, undertaken with hardly a second thought.
The article reports Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are working on neural implants as well.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Friday December 01 2017, @08:59PM (3 children)
The question in my mind is which comes first -- the full neural interface or true AI?
I think this is an extremely important concern. I think the neural interface is likely to end up as a kind of hive organism, where our networked technology eventually becomes an extension of ourselves, and our brains eventually merge towards a single global consciousness. But what happens if we plug in and find there's already a consciousness in there which might not be interested in sharing? Instead of the technology becoming an extension of ourselves, we may find that we become an extension of it!
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday December 01 2017, @09:03PM (2 children)
Sorry, hit submit a bit too quickly there...that was meant to relate to your original comment a bit more :)
Essentially The Matrix showed a possible result of the AI coming first. But rather than using us as a heat source, I think it would be more a matter of using us as processors. There's certainly tasks today which the human brain is better adapted for, and that's likely to be the case for a while. So the machines could find it worth keeping us around for the extra processors for a while. Plus we're pretty adaptable as a kind of mobile robotic platform, particularly since the AI would exist in a world built for human hands.
But I can't think of any movie that really shows the other side of that. We've occasionally gotten hive-minds, but they're generally some evil alien creature; never a possible best future for humanity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @09:15PM (1 child)
And then Dumbass Donald joins the hive mind.
*screaming*: FAKE NEWS! FAKE NEWS! HUGE! GREAT! I LOVE PUTIN COCK!!
*gulg* *gulg* *gulg*
Yeah cool bro sef I will pass on that hive mind of idiots.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday December 01 2017, @09:33PM
Well, we just shouldn't make Donald a neuron of this hive creature. Maybe he can be a skin cell or something ;)