Last Friday Elon Musk showed off his neural implant chip for pigs, and expressed hope that one day people with silicon chips in their brains would be able to summon their Tesla automobile just by thinking about it.
You Musk be joking: A mind-reading Neuralink chip in a pig’s brain? Downloadable memories? Telepathy? Watch and judge for yourself
‘The future’s going to be weird’ says startup’s founder Elon
Sat 29 Aug 2020 // 00:52 UTC
Iain Thomson in San FranciscoVideo In a late Friday evening reveal, Elon Musk updated the world on his Neuralink brain-to-computer interface startup, with the help of three little piggies. Specifically, his team revealed it has implanted a mind-reading gadget in a live pig’s brain.
The porcine test subjects were: a control animal; one who has had the implant in place for a couple of months; and another who had had one removed and looked healthy, presumably to reassure people who want to eventually wire a Neuralink gadget into their gray matter that the process is reversible.
As Gertrude, the pig with the coin-sized implant, walked around, ate things, broke wind, and did other things pigs do, what was said to be her brain activity appeared on a screen, revealing real-time neural network activity observed by Neuralink’s embedded tech.
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Essentially, the plan is: you think a command, it’s detected as electrical signals by the Neuralink electronics fitted in your brain, and then wirelessly passed to a computer or some other device to interpret and obey. The system could also read your mind, help you overcome brain injuries, etc.
“You could store your memory as a backup and restore the memories or download them into a new body or a robot body. The future’s going to be weird,” Musk said in a web broadcast, embedded below. He added it was like having a “Fitbit in your skull.”
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Read more: https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/29/neuralink_pig_brain_interface/
The following is a video of Musk’s presentation;
Before you dismiss this as pure science fiction, there appear to be some remarkable things happening with neural interfaces, back in 2013 scientists claimed they could decode mental images, by training a MRI machine to recognise different neural firing patterns with a series of training images.
Scientists ‘read dreams’ using brain scans
By Rebecca MorelleScience reporter, BBC World Service
4 April 2013
Scientists have found a way to “read” dreams, a study suggests.
Researchers in Japan used MRI scans to reveal the images that people were seeing as they entered into an early stage of sleep.
Writing in the journal Science, they reported that they could do this with 60% accuracy.
The team now wants to see if brain activity can be used to decipher other aspects of dreaming, such as the emotions experienced during sleep.
Professor Yukiyasu Kamitani, from the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, in Kyoto, said: “I had a strong belief that dream decoding should be possible at least for particular aspects of dreaming… I was not very surprised by the results, but excited.”
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Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-22031074
I do have one fairly major reservation about having a Musk chip implanted in my brain. Musk does not appear to be a trendsetter when it comes to quality control.
A lot of customers appear to complain about Tesla’s quality control and customer service. Obviously it is possible all of these problems eventually achieved a happy resolution. But the following article from Extreme Tech is unsettling;
Tesla Has Some Serious Quality Control Problems With the Model Y
By Joel Hruska on June 18, 2020 at 7:30 am
It’s not unusual for a car manufacturer to have difficulty ramping up production on a new model, but reports concerning Tesla’s Model Y suggest the manufacturer is having far more problems than is normal. The Model 3 may have been compared with a 1990s Kiawhen it launched, but at least a few people have gotten Model Y’s delivered to them without the backseat being attached to the frame of the car.
Reports of remarkably shoddy workmanship have been surfacing ever since Tesla restarted production of the Model Y at its California factory. Tesla has itself indirectly confirmed that the model is having problems, though it hasn’t officially responded to these most recent articles.
In an email to production employees last week, Musk made several references to Model Y production, writing: “It is extremely important for us to ramp up Model Y production and minimize rectification needs.” He thanks the production workers for “bearing with tough conditions,” and says they should be alleviated soon.
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Read more: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/311842-tesla-is-having-major-quality-control-problems-with-the-model-y
As a tech nerd I love the idea science fiction technology like neural interfaces. But I don’t plan to be head of the queue when it comes to having a Musk chip implanted in my brain.
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Will I be able to summon a Maserati?
🙂
That pig is now the VP of marketing…
I’d always hoped for an implantable math co-processor.
Not sure experiments on animals are exactly ethical?
https://youtu.be/gF98UWQ9juc
Ot but if anyone is able to stomach the inner works and plans of the Maine Climate Council…or maybe offer some real science..
https://www.penbaypilot.com/article/webinar-maine-climate-council-coordinator-working-group-members/137900
Speaking of quality control, a house block away from us burned down just before the lockdown in March. The battery of the Tesla car in the garage ignited.
Apple, Samsung and co have done it, people carry large chip in their pocket or a handbag , look at and don’t realise that the neuro-visual processing system is picking subliminal messages to which person gets addicted, while the effectiveness is in inverse proportion to the age of the proprietor.
For many teenagers life without it is unbearable, looses its meaning and on numerous occasions has induced bouts of depression and long lasting mental aberration.
It clearly has not worked with me, I hate leftist scumbags even more now than before I got a smartphone. Before they just bored me, now I wish death upon them.
That’s why my smartphone never leaves the house.
For many teenagers climate has a big problem and in less than 10 years it will be all over. So what future are we talking about?
Apple, Samsung and co have done it, people carry large chip in their pocket or a handbag ,
which they can choose to not carry with them at any time. The amount of time in each day that my “Apple, Samsung and co … large chip” is on my person (in my hands or in my pocket) can be measured in minutes (and most days you won’t even need to take off your socks to count those minutes, Vuk).
Even those people who are “addicted” to their smartphones manage to put them aside from time to time (when they take a shower, sleep, or perform other activities in which that “large chip” would merely be in the way or impractical to handle, when the phone is being charged during waking hours because they forgot to charge it at night, etc). A chip that’s implanted in your body can’t be put aside ever, so really not comparable.
This would seem to be the first step on the road to being able to download your mind into a virtual reality after life like in the series, “Upload.” on Amazon Prime, and I’m sure many other TV shows and movies.
Far better than simply scanning your brain wholesale, it would record and store all your life experiences over decades and upon death that could be used to resurrect you in your virtual after life.
Long, long, way into the future.
Oh boy. For a 60’s take on this idea, see The President’s Analyst starring James Coburn. There’s a scene that will tickle anyone who remembers the old Frank Capra / Bell Telephone educational films like Hemo The Magnificent.
You can see a clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2NNZdigSXg
Some things never change — Everyone hates TPC.
If Elon Musk has already implanted a chip in his brain, it could exlain a few of the odd things that one notices about him.
I am normally leery of having any kind of computer chip implanted in my brain for fear it might take control of my mind and make me do something crazy… like vote Democrat. But I’m also a multiple sclerosis sufferer. For the last 25 years I’ve been watching my physical abilities deteriorate to the point where I will soon be in a wheelchair. So would I allow a brain implant if it would allow me to walk again? Absolutely!
And voting Democrat!?
Indeed David. It all comes down to what the chip is designed to do. A chip designed to override/bypass parts of the human nervous system that are no longer functioning properly, so as to allow someone to walk again, is a good thing. A chip designed to “communicate” with the human mind such that “thoughts” that aren’t one’s own could then be “downloaded” into ones mind, not so good.
Suurreee. Not to mention we would all have to have USB pillows so it can recharge wirelessly while we sleep.
Wasn’t that how the Emperor got all the clones to follow Order 66 to kill all the Jedi?
Something similar to pet chip implants was trialled by a Reading University Professor a few years ago. It’s coming! We already have in Australia bio-metric passports. And there is talk about if you don’t have a valid COVID-19 vaccine certificate, digital of course, you don’t get paid.
Things must be desperate at Tesla. Musk seems to be moonlighting as a gay male stripper.
Unrelated? Here are two pig quotes, or rather quotes involving pigs:
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it” – G.B Shaw
“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look uo to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” – W. Churchill
Winnie was a wise man.
This is a fabulous idea. Can you just imagine all the hilarious Tic Tok videos of Walmart shoppers who put them selves on autopilot and proceed to act like bumper cars, colliding over and over again at the checkout line to the point where not a single shopper get’s home without serious brain injury.
Could we manage to have it made some sort of requirement that first its Elon Musk that has the chip implanted, so that all Tesla owners with a problem can signal him directly. Second in line would be all the politicians so that constituents can signal them directly whenever there is a problem needing responding to, like say in California when the lights go out because they have destroyed their base load grid. About then, I reckon they will be banned completely.
As for the chip in my pocket, I can and do turn off my phone and it is up to parents, like me, to teach their kids the phone is a tool not a crutch.
Imagine that your laptop is a product of a mysterious advanced civilization. You hook up a few wires to its CPU leads and soon can record some signals, which seem to be somewhat correlated to what the laptop is doing. Now all you have to do is reverse-engineer the mysterious device to read and control it- sounds easy, right?
Except our brain is at least 100 times more complicated as a CPU. It will be a long time before anyone can figure it out. Sure, it can summon your car- every time the topic of cars or driving comes up in a conversation.
I gave my daughter one piece of advice I said she could never go against no matter what.
“If anyone wants to put a microchip in you, no matter the reason, the answer is always a hard NO”.
Cannot think of anything more terrifying than being chipped.
Cows don’t seem to mind being chipped, nor dogs or sheep. Goats get a real attitude over the process. Take from that what you will.
Depends on what the chip does. Not all chips are evil. If your daughter was in an accident that caused her to loose the use of her legs and the doctors could implant an chip that would circumvent the damaged section of her spinal cord enabling her to walk again, would that still be a hard NO?
Those who refuse the chip will not receive health insurance discounts and may have their tax refunds reclaimed. Hold still while we scan for your chip before boarding the plane. Do you believe in the climate change god and his political disciples?
I don’t get those things and stopped flying when the leftarded morons ruined it so they are going to have to find a different approach.
Those who refuse the chip will not receive health insurance discounts
What health insurance discounts?
may have their tax refunds reclaimed
good thing I have my tax withholdings set so that I make a payment to the government at tax time rather than the government giving me back my own money. Why should I give the government an interest-free loan every year?
Hold still while we scan for your chip before boarding the plane
Haven’t been on a plane since the 1990s, and have no plans to do so any time soon. So really no penalties there for not having the chip as far as I’m concerned.
Sounds like the show Altered Carbon on Netflix. Season one was great…Season two was good. Worth a watch if this is our future.