Part One: The Human Colossus
Part Two: The Brain
Part Three: Flying Over the Nest of Neurons
Part four: neurocomputer interfaces
Part Five: The Neuaralink Problem
Part Six: Age of Wizards 1
Part Six: Age of Wizards 2
Part Seven: The Great Fusion
Promotional video:
The Age of Wizards: Internal Control
Communication - the flood of information flowing into and out of your brain - is just one way the magic hat can serve you.
A brain-wide interface can stimulate any part of your brain - it should be able to input for half of all the communication examples above. But this ability will also grant us a whole new level of control over our brain. Here are some of the ways people of the future can take advantage.
Win with both sides in your head
Often times, the battle in your head between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system boils down to the fact that both parts are trying to do the best for you - it's just that the limbic system doesn't know which is best for us because it thinks we live in a tribe 50,000 years ago.
Your limbic system isn't forcing you to eat the fourth slice of cake in a row because it's a bastard - it is forcing you because it thinks that a) any fruit that is sweet, dense, and cuddly must be very high in calories, and b) you might you won't be able to find food in the next four days, so it would be a good idea to stock up on calories in advance (or better, whenever possible).
Meanwhile, your prefrontal cortex simply observes in shock: "WHY ARE WE DOING THIS."
Moran believes that a good brain interface can fix this problem:
This “sensory separation” concept would be very helpful if we could implement it. It would be possible to enjoy even trashy food, which would be extremely beneficial for the body. Our body will receive nutrition that is customized for each person based on genomes, microbiomes and other factors, and we will receive tremendous pleasure from it. Physical diets will stop being tyrannical.
The same principle can be applied to things like sex, drugs, alcohol, and other pleasures that get people into trouble, for medical or other reasons.
Ramez Naam believes that a brain interface can help us win the battle of discipline when it comes time:
Get control of your mood
Ramez also points out that a lot of scientific evidence suggests that moods and distress are related to what chemicals are doing in your head. We are currently taking medications to change the ratio of these substances, and Ramez explains why direct stimulation of neurons is a much better option:
Depression, anxiety, OCD and other disorders can be easily eradicated if we can better control what is going on in our brains.
Playing with feelings
Would you like to hear what the dog hears? As easy as pie. The range of what we can hear is limited by the size of our cochlea - but sound can be transmitted directly to the auditory nerve.
Or maybe you want a new feeling. You love bird watching and want to be able to feel when a bird is nearby. Therefore, you buy an infrared camera that can detect the location of birds by their heat signals, communicate with your neural interface and stimulate neurons so that you can immediately feel the approach of the bird. I have no idea what it is like to feel the bird with a new sense of the warmth of its approach. But in the future we will find new words for these new feelings, if the words are still relevant.
You could also turn off or darken certain feelings, such as pain. Pain is body language in which it tries to communicate something, but in the future we will learn to receive these messages in a less unpleasant way.
Deepen your knowledge
Experiments in rats have shown that it is possible to speed up brain learning - by a factor of two or even three - simply by forcing certain neurons to prepare for long-term connections.
Your brain also has access to all the knowledge of the world. What would accessing information in the cloud look like? Ramez and I went over four levels of capability, each requiring a more advanced brain interface than the last.
Level 1: I want to know a fact. I turn to the cloud for this information - like googling something with my brain - and the answer appears in my imagination. Basically, everything happens only in my head.
Level 2: I want to know a fact. I turn to the cloud for this information - and in a second I already know it. You don't even need to read - I seem to remember something.
Level 3: I just know the fact that I want to know the second I want to know it. I don't even know where it comes from, from the cloud or from my head. I can use the whole cloud as my brain. I do not know all the information - my brain will never contain all of it - but whenever I want to learn something, my consciousness imperceptibly and quickly loads the necessary fact, as if it was always with me.
Level 4: Besides knowing the facts, I can deeply understand everything I want in a comprehensive manner. We discussed Moby Dick's example. Can I load Moby Dick from the cloud into my memory and suddenly get the impression that I just read a whole book? So that I have thoughts and opinions so that I can quote passages and discuss topics?
Ramez thinks that all four options are possible after a while, but the fourth will take a very long time, if at all.
So there are 50 adorable ways to put the magic hat in your brain. Now let's talk about the sad things.
Scary about magic hats
As always, when the era of the wizard begins to come, all sorts of freaks will do their best to delay it. But this time the stakes will be extremely high. Here are the thin spots on the ice that can break:
The trolls will be ecstatic. Trolls have been ecstatic in general since the advent of the Internet. They still don't believe their luck. But with brain interfaces, they'll be beside themselves with ecstasy. A close bond between people means a lot of good - empathy, for example - but a lot of bad too. Everything is like on the Internet. All bastards will find more opportunities to spread hatred or just piss people off. The Internet has become a godsend for terrorists, and a world with connected brains will become just a promised land for them.
Computers break down. And they have bugs. Usually, no end of the world happens, because you can always restart the car or buy a new one. But you can't buy a new head. You have to be very careful.
Computers can be hacked. Only this time will they provide access to your thoughts, sensory input and memory. It sucks.
Your mother, computers can be hacked. It's one thing when bad guys can hack and steal information from the brain. But neurocomputer interfaces also put information into it. And that means that a smart hacker can change your thoughts, your voice, your personality, make you do terrible things. And you won't even know it will happen. You will be sure that you are making decisions yourself, completely unaware that you are a victim of manipulation. In the worst case scenario, one would expect a terrorist organization that controls the lives of millions of people. This is, of course, creepy. Let's not talk about it.
Why the era of wizards will be cool despite all the bastards
Advances in physics have allowed bad guys to make nuclear bombs. Advances in biology have allowed bad guys to make biological weapons. The invention of cars and airplanes leads to accidents that kill over a million people a year. The Internet spreads false news, allows terrorists to recruit people, trolls to thrive …
And yet who in their right mind would agree to abandon our science, return to the days when we trampled horse dung on the streets where sewers flowed, or give up the Internet?
Nobody.
Yes, some people would love to get rid of the Web. But if they knew how many people in this world are happy and live only thanks to the Internet, they would change their mind.
New technologies always come with real dangers and always harm people. But they also help, and even more than they harm. Emerging technology almost always has a positive effect.
People are also used to hating new technologies - because they worry that they will be harmful to our health or make us less human. But the same people, if given the choice, would not want to return to the days of George Washington, when half of the children died before the age of five, when travel to other parts of the world was impossible for almost everyone, when women and ethnic minorities had much less rights than they are today, when many more people lived below the poverty line than today. They would not want to go back 250 years - to a time when the greatest explosion of science and technology has not yet occurred. People are grateful for technology. But still they say the same thing: they say, technologies destroy our lives, but in the old days people were wiser, the grass is greener, our world is mired in shit … blah blah blah. One gets the impression that they are simply too lazy to think well on this topic.
Therefore, when we get to the complete list of the dangers of the era of wizards, there is nothing to say, because we are used to blowing an elephant out of a fly. War never changes - the bad guys will take up arms, and the light forces will deal with "brain safety." And believe me, people in the era of wizards will not think for a second about returning to 2017.
* * *
Timing
I know one thing: when people don't know what's going on, it means that all the experts are arguing among themselves. The timing of the era of the wizard is difficult to determine, largely because no one knows when we will make Stevenson's Law more like Moore's.
My conversations have generated a wide range of opinions regarding timing. One neuroscientist thinks we will have a brain interface before I die. Mark Zuckerberg said that "it will be very upset if in 25 years we do not make significant progress towards computers for thinking." Ramez Naam believes that people will not only begin to install TCIs for the treatment of disabilities in 50 years, and mass adoption will take even longer.
When I asked Elon about the timing, he said:
“I think we are eight to ten years away for people without disabilities to use it. It's important to note that a lot depends on regulatory approval and how well our devices work for people with disabilities.”
In another conversation, I asked him why he decided to move into biotechnology rather than genetics. He replied:
Different people in this industry have different motivations, but very rarely they are motivated by the issue of urgency. Elon's haste to bring us into the era of the wizard is the final piece of the Neuralink puzzle. We'll put it in the last box:
Elon's companies always have some kind of "goal outcome", his true reason for founding a company is the part that links the company's goal to a better future for humanity. In the case of Neuralink, this part is too many branches to be understood. But the road will be mastered by the one walking - we have everything we need for the final section of this path.
ILYA KHEL
Part One: The Human Colossus
Part Two: The Brain
Part Three: Flying Over the Nest of Neurons
Part four: neurocomputer interfaces
Part Five: The Neuaralink Problem
Part Six: Age of Wizards 1
Part Six: Age of Wizards 2
Part Seven: The Great Fusion
