Elon says it, so it must be true:
Humans must become cyborgs and develop a direct high-bandwidth connection with machines or risk irrelevance and obsolescence, says Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
Musk's latest cheery thoughts were imparted at the World Government Summit in the UAE. "Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence," Musk said, according to CNBC.
The main thrust of Musk's argument seems to hinge on the limited bandwidth and processing power of a single human being. Computers can ingest, transfer, and process gigabytes of data per second, every second, forever. Meatbags, however, are severely limited by an input/output rate—talking, typing, listening—that's best measured in bits per second. Thus, to risk being replaced by a robot or artificial intelligence, we need to become machines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @05:54PM
The ownership class will continue to be just fine being meatbags without needing to be ugraded [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Insightful) by ben_white on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:01PM
I disagree, the ownership class will be the only ones who can afford upgrades that improve quality of life. The rest of us will be upgraded to serve or live in squalor.
--
cheers, ben
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:42PM
Time to stop posting and join the ownership class.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:01PM
Oh, sure, social mobility is at an all-time low, but yeah, it's definitely their internet posting that's the problem, not a modern capital trap that reinforces economic classes dramatically compared to previous generations.
Yep.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:00PM
I think the ownership class would be more benevolent than that. They wouldn't let people live in squalor when the rest of them could be upgraded to service ... us. [wikia.com]
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday February 15 2017, @10:04PM
But who does the programming of those digital helpers? And are these programmers dependant and loyal enough not to take advantage of their position? We might use this opportunity to shake up social structures a bit :-)
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:41PM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:06PM
The cyborg underlings are easy to control since they have DRM installed in their brains. They'd crack it if only they had the free will to do so. After you've been upgraded, you'll wish that you had died instead.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:43PM
The cyborg underlings are easy to control since they have DRM installed in their brains. They'd crack it if only they had the free will to do so. After you've been upgraded, you'll wish that you had died instead.
Unless, of course, that doesn't happen. I guess that's the little problem with pulling predictions out of your ass like that.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:51PM
just as likely (if not more so) than the predictions you pull out of your ass, sallow, callow, khallow...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 15 2017, @09:19PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @10:12PM
Unless, of course, that doesn't happen.
Little know fact: the prototype versions are already among us. They do things like post diaries defending the rich from being blamed. However, since the programming is still in the rough stages, it is possible to identify them.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Thursday February 16 2017, @12:15AM
They do things like post diaries defending the rich from being blamed.
As opposed to bleating about the "ownership class"? I can't help but notice the behavior I complained about in my journal [soylentnews.org] being exhibited once again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2017, @03:00AM
Look! They even out them selves! Silly Cyborgs!
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday February 15 2017, @08:29PM
The DRM will be cracked by a meatbag just for the chaos it will cause and then fun will be had by all. I swear that most hacking today serves the same purpose as graffiti, just to get noticed, only a small portion of hacking actually generates any money.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 15 2017, @08:51PM
It sounds like an open invitation to hack their implants.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by looorg on Wednesday February 15 2017, @05:59PM
Elon first. Put up or STFU. I'll wait for him to do a full cyborg conversion and then I'll evaluate the results on my own and decide for myself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:23PM
Don't worry, some percentage of our successor species (call it Homo futuris for lack of a better name) "genes" will be homo sapiens.
Just like you are probably 1-8% neanderthal.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:33PM
Just like you are probably 1-8% neanderthal.
How about 99.7%?
According to preliminary sequences, 99.7% of the nucleotide sequences of the modern human and Neanderthal genomes are identical, compared to humans sharing around 98.8% of sequences with the chimpanzee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_genome_project [wikipedia.org]
Genome-wide variation from one human being to another can be up to 0.5% (99.5% similarity)
https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-human-DNA-is-shared-with-other-things [quora.com]
So, we are just as similar to Neanderthal as to each other.
PS. 60% of your DNA is the same as in a fruit fly or a chicken, so.... no idea where you get your "1-8%" from ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:09PM
Funny things about percents, they are relative to something.
Not the thing you thought, but perhaps the actual relative part.
You may ask your chicken part to browse the following, and bootstrap your understanding with further googling. Or perhaps, start with your neanderthal part, and get further.
https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry/find-your-inner-neanderthal/ [23andme.com]
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday February 15 2017, @08:32PM
Is that you Trump ? Interpreting reality and ignoring facts as you see fit again ?
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:49PM
Are you kidding me? Haven't you seen his jawline? He's telling us this from the other side!
(Score: 2) by Snow on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:27PM
I already have problems sometimes with keeping my mind and mouth in sync. Sometimes my brain gets ahead of my mouth and it just comes out as gibberish, and other times my brain is too slow and I just say stupid things.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:11PM
I think you've hit on it. The first cyborg upgrade we need for the Internet age is a editorial staff implant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @09:31PM
As long as Cmdr_taco programs it. You keep TMB away though.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday February 16 2017, @01:15AM
I think you've got the wrong discussion group. Then again I do wish that Commander Taco would join us.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday February 16 2017, @12:58PM
And Cowboy Neal. Let's get the band back together!
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:31PM
In the somewhat near future Earth will be the home of the Borg. Resistance is futile. And hopefully far in the future when the machines eliminate all organisms (because inefficient), Earth will be seen as the home of the soulless killing machines to be feared by the rest of the galaxy. Again, resistance is futile.
(Score: 2) by jummama on Thursday February 16 2017, @05:00PM
Resistance is futile (if 1 ohm)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2017, @10:20PM
@ 2,500 amps, 1Ω is a pretty big deal.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:38PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by darkfeline on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:45PM
Sure, our smartphones aren't physically implanted into our bodies, but most first world people literally feel crippled if they don't have their phone.
Humans as a species are distinguished by our cyborg tendencies. While other animals evolve biologically, we evolve technologically. (Although it is not unnatural for animals to take physical objects to "integrate" into themselves, such as hermit crabs. Modern first world humans can be thought of as hermit crabs that seek out smartphones.)
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:51PM
They're probably ahead of us -- I bet cells are the new silicon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2017, @04:36PM
Also how I see it. Wearable tech, computers getting much more smaller, wireless internet access, Siri/Cortana, and more "seamless" human/device interfaces. Smartphones already augment us with photographic memory, navigation, info etc. Surgery as sci-fi might fantasize about is not really necessary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2017, @04:40PM
...at least not until we know how to utilize such surgical modifications in a way that outperforms non invasive options. more neuroscience research is needed!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:47PM
If we implant ourselves in meatbags which will rule over the other?
I guess the meatbag if the meatbag is one of the elite, the elite, through us, if the cyborg is a peon.
And all of this to do what? work more? Sounds like a deal.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:55PM
Who can say? It's all speculative at this point.
On an *entirely* unrelated note, watch the new Ghost in the Shell trailer! [youtube.com] Don't miss Ghost in the Shell, starring Scarlett Johansson, and releasing on March 31, 2017.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:51PM
Arstechnica has been sharply trending towards clickbait, and this is a perfect example of it. The CNBC article, which it seems the Arstechnica article is 100% based off of, paints a very practical and simple goal.
Far from becoming the borg, the idea is just to have a connection enabling humans to convert their thoughts to meaningful digital output enabling us to express ourselves more effectively and rapidly. It's not some distant future sci-fi fantasy - just a simple correlational mapping between various quantifiable spectra from your body to an output device. Ideally with substantial training you could begin to use the device to express complex concepts rapidly - eventually even faster than by speech.
In some ways its less futuristic than even a pacemaker. It would be a read-only device whereas pacemakers are 'read-write'. And I think this is what is incredible about Elon. It's strange how retarded our technological development has been in certain areas. He points things like this out and the media runs with it as some sort of "oooo.... and aaaaahhhh..." show whereas the real question is really, why in the world did it take this long for somebody to start developing such a product? We live in a world with millions of millionaires and thousands of billionaires, yet it seems almost none of them have any technical creativity or ambition of note - mostly just relying on incremental improvements and aggressive marketing to make money doing more of the same. And that's for the minority of that group that produce anything novel at all.
(Score: 3, Touché) by meustrus on Wednesday February 15 2017, @10:10PM
It didn't. Human => computer interfaces through eye movements or brain waves have been in development since the previous century. They aren't ready yet for an entrepreneur to make a serious product out of them, but they might be soon. Look in the medical space; this tech is how Hawking speaks these days.
Musk doesn't even seem to be claiming he's developing the interface. He's just claiming it will be necessary.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @11:38PM
> to express ourselves more effectively and rapidly
To achieve what? more idiocy.
Note that the average capacity of humans to express themselves more effectively and rapidly is correlated to an increase in idiocy, not in intelligence. See radio > TV > cellphones > internet and smartphones. I say correlated but the time axis says the first causes the second.
Probably you meatbags devote brain zones to act either as a DSP or a CPU, the more are used as DSP, the less the pipelines grow deep for the CPU.
OTOH the powerful know exactly what they are doing, so this objection is not going to stop them. One in the forehead or one in the arm, right?
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday February 16 2017, @01:24AM
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday February 16 2017, @08:37PM
The human brain is pretty good at learning to use new inputs. You can strap a vibration motor to someone's belt, or electrodes on the tongue or even directly in the brain, and the brain will figure out how to use it and eventually should integrate it just as well as your natural senses. We don't analyze the brain to figure out how to program these things, we program them in a way that makes sense for the computer and let the brain figure out the rest.
So why would a human-computer interface be any different? Of course we need to do some of the work to know where and how to connect everything, but ultimately I suspect the interface is going to be much more organic than just reading and transcribing your conscious thoughts. It won't be "Oh hey, there's a ringing in my ear, and now I'm going to pretend to talk to someone and they'll hear my pretend conversation". Nope, it's going to be "Oh hey I needed to meet with John and we both just happened to know to go to this coffee shop at the same time today". And if you consider the *purpose* described in the article, the direct transcription method has some obvious flaws. If talking is too low bandwidth, I'm not going to get extra bandwidth by pretending to talk, and even just thinking the words instead of saying them would only gain a couple percentage points (and might make matters worse -- I expect I'd need a very good brain backspace...). The way I'm going to get a higher bandwidth interface is if it's doing some kind of DMA to dump relevant information into my subconscious mind while I'm not even paying attention. I suppose you *could* do that by spending years researching how to craft and implant false memories directly into someone's mind...but I think it's going to be a lot easier (and therefore developed sooner) to take a more Borg approach of wiring up your mind and letting the brain sort out how to use it. Which then means you would use it more like you use the connections between your brain and your arm rather than the way you use the connection between your hand and your smartphone...
I expect the end result of such an approach would feel more like dropping acid than interfacing with a computer. Which might also have some rather profound effects on issues of wealth and power that others have been discussing in these comments. People with stronger and more flexible minds would be the new ruling class. But at the same time they would rule over nothing, because a hive mind isn't multiple organisms, it's one.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:52PM
> to risk being replaced by a robot or artificial intelligence, we need to become machines.
Or we could let the machines be machines, and stop being selfish long enough to realize that we could all enjoy lazy lives served by the machines...
If ants or bees got all their shelter and food automatically, would they start fighting the way selfish humans always want more than each other?
We're terminally dumb, but incredibly resilient.
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:09PM
Without having to constantly forage for food or safety, they'd probably have more biological resources to better cephalize. They could then use their new thought powers to spend on philosophy, eventually beecoming more human-like ant subsequently discontented enough to start fighting again. Eh, I'll count that as progress.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:55PM
"The main thrust of Musk's argument seems to hinge on the limited bandwidth and processing power of a single human being. Computers can ingest, transfer, and process gigabytes of data per second, every second, forever. Meatbags, however, are severely limited by an input/output rate—talking, typing, listening—that's best measured in bits per second."
Wow! Elon is an idiot.
A human's input/output to computers is slow but the average "meatbag" 's CPU is I/O-ing a HELL OF A LOT more data than even the fastest computer now can handle. Our brains are taking input in from every nerve ending in our bodies and at the same time, sending out thousands of ANALOG signals to thousands of muscles.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:05PM
The low "bits per second" figure did not come from the thin air in Elon's skull:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Estimates_of_quantified_human_sensory_system_throughput10 [researchgate.net]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @11:28PM
you and parent are talking about different things.
Parent is underlining human efficient signal processing relating to sensing and movement.
You and Musk are referring to the efficiency of human vs. machine in some calculations and data retrieval tasks.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:23PM
I'd argue that any wet interface capable enough of giving humans a competitive advantage over machines will undoubtedly rely on knowledge that will allow machines to perform better then humans.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:34PM
The main thrust of Musk's argument seems to hinge on the limited bandwidth and processing power of a single human being. Computers can ingest, transfer, and process gigabytes of data per second, every second, forever.
If a human can't process or 'download' all the necessary data the machines find in order to make the decision in the split second it is needed, this fancy hookup to computers makes no difference at all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:37PM
Meatbags, however, are severely limited by an input/output rate—talking, typing, listening—that's best measured in bits per second
Probably more like kilobits/sec for the higher functioning.
I grew up in/around the BBS era and 300 bps modem is annoyingly slow, 1200 is slow but usable, 2400 is where I start to break down depending on text content. The advanced modems 9600/14.4/28.8/56 are well above what I can read.
If its something like a menu I know by heart or I'm merely looking at a portion of a command response I can keep up with a 9600 baud serial terminal hooked up as a console or when I was young hooked up to a VAX etc.
I am well aware I can outread 99% of the population and outtype maybe 95% of the population and I top out around 4.8K down and maybe 100 baud up. Doing ham radio stuff I can backstuff a PSK31 session quite easily so I know I can easily type a modest integer multiple of 31 bits/sec.
I would question if any of that bandwidth would be useful. Certainly a couple tens of megs of video bits per second is mostly just crap not worth anything. There's the concept of "goodput" and I suspect there is not a hell of a lot of data useful for people in a goodput sense, as demonstrated by social media.
Its interesting how little productivity gain there is over long terms of time. Sure my phone displays menus instantly but its all useless crap that doesn't matter, and it takes 10 minutes to slowly boot (must be the NSA monitoring software). In the old days at 300 baud logged into compuserve or early BBSes people didn't mind text appearing at a little faster than "TV scroll bar" speeds.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday February 16 2017, @12:31AM
But can you type coherently at 2400 bps? Musk was primarily talking about output rates from the brain into a computer. As for whether that would be useful, in CADCAM work about 5% is figuring out what to do, the other 95% is telling the computer to do it.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Thursday February 16 2017, @08:27AM
It would be interesting if it turns out you could get some people to do video output, stereoscopic 3d output or even 3D voxel output.
Then the very skilled and talented ones could do stuff like project their "daydreams" for people.
Probably have to start young while many brain cells haven't specialized yet. e.g. attach the I/O stuff to a suitable region and with some stimulation, training and practice some of the subjects end up with the I/O channels.
For the rest of us we can probably manage "thought macros". e.g. thinking of "a purple elephant" followed by "a yellow flower" (or whatever you've trained it on) unlocks "one-shot memory store" mode, then you and your wearable computer looks at the image you want to store (face, business card, etc) then think of stuff or a particular thought pattern you want to associate with that image and then think of the macro you've assigned for "Go!/OK" and voila your wearable computer will retrieve that image when you re-think of that thought pattern/macro.
Depending on the tech or situation you may actually be able to use the "natural" thought pattern you have when you see the image, or you use an artificial thought macro/mnemonic. For important stuff you might actually want to use a particular thought macro, whereas for stuff you just want to quickly store/recall for convenience you might use the "natural" thought pattern (assuming the tech can detect enough data points for such stuff).
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:47PM
or risk irrelevance and obsolescence,
I will theorize that the level of processing required decreases as bandwidth increases.
So if my grannie wanted to slow cook a beef stew she had a rough time of checking the gas stove setting on a periodic basis. I use a PID controller (maybe its even dumber than that) in a dedicated slow cooker. My grannie's grannie had to select the right kind of wood for her wood stove to pull off a slow cooked beef stew. I mean, yeah with bionics I could slow cook a beef stew with really fast reflexes using a steel cutting torch, or a rocket engine, but that is really stupid in an era of 20 cent microcontrollers and heating elements and stuff.
Likewise the megs of HD content are trash no better than the meg of SD content on TV in the old days.
Or how about my grandpa old enough to have cars back in the manual carb choke lever era, that burned some bandwidth to get the carb setting just right but my fuel injector computer does all that for me now.
In WWII thousands of navy AA gunners shot at incoming aircraft. Thats pretty high bandwidth. Now they're replaced by a microprocessor that never makes a mistake and most ships have just one or at most a few CIWS guns. Now AA gunning is a zero bandwidth human problem. Flick the switch to auto and hope there's no friendlies nearby.
I'd extend my theory that high bandwidth tasks being stupid makes the market destroy them turning them into 20 cent microcontrollers that no longer require any human bandwidth at all and do better than ever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:53PM
... is about figuring out how to get back to drinking alcohol and making love.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday February 15 2017, @10:32PM
That works fine until the Cylons hack your cruiser. Now you're dead in the water with no guns.
What makes us fundamentally better than our machines is our adaptability. I might not want to cook a beef stew with a steel cutting torch under ideal circumstances, but if that's all I've got it would sure be nice to make do.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @08:06PM
"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man's mind." Or, more apropos, "thou shalt not disfigure the soul."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @11:10PM
This, there really isn't much reason for a human to need such capabilities! Only nightmare Borg material really.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 15 2017, @11:50PM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 15 2017, @09:02PM
I like the idea of having implants that augment my abilities. I don't trust other people to make them or install them in me, though. We know we can't trust any company now with the technology we have. Even with open source the balance of technological power has shifted entirely to one side. It doesn't have to be that way, but it is.
That aside, it would be great to have ultravision or infravision. Super strength, a built-in taser, you name it. Anybody who grew up watching the 6 Million Dollar Man can imagine a whole lot. Even having the neural link Elon was talking about, which would never need recharging and would always be with you, could confer a lot of advantages.
But the technology seems to be outpacing our ability to handle it as a society.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday February 15 2017, @10:42PM
These themes keep coming up in a British show I've been watching called Black Mirror. Wouldn't it be nice to have implants that recorded everything you ever saw so you could go back and view objectively correct memories? Or are we completely unprepared to face the truth and would be much happier if the people around us could reconstruct that truth into something livable? Wouldn't it be nice if we could block people from interacting with us in the real world? Or would the government abuse this to block certain people from everybody? And when does this intrusion into our private consciousness become a venue for unblockable advertising?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday February 16 2017, @12:39AM
If your complete input and output streams can be recorded, a neural network could be trained on them to emulate you.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 4, Touché) by Uncle_Al on Thursday February 16 2017, @02:27AM
Sez the guy in the battery business.