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> Brain implants can let me think pictures and music and feelings directly into/with other people. So this hypothetical device can insert images, sounds, and e

> Brain implants can let me think pictures and music and feelings directly into/with other people. So this hypothetical device can insert images, sounds, and emotions directly into a person's mind? > Lets us record and replay memories, including tastes and smells. Any device that can do this can implant false memories as well. > Instantly solve drug addiction. In other words, it has an extreme degree of control over one's emotional state. You don't even mention a single downside of this tech, only your grand utopian vision. Have you thought about them at all? Handwaving them away with "well airplanes used to crash more, I'm sure we'll figure it out" doesn't count.

wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
Thats not hypothetical those are pretty obvious functions of the tech. If two people have it implanted in similar regions and have record,playback, and can send files to the other person for playback、then you get thought transmission. Probably lossily. Two people with internet enabled laptops. (more useful if both of them can read and write a common language) There are downsides of course, but the benefit vs downside of most new technology is assymetricaly in favor of the upsides, primarily due to human nature being assymetrically good natured. You can use an iphone to organize terrorist attacks and scams, or to call your loved ones. Thats up to the users. 99.9999% of users are just using it to do normal human social stuff. Probably same for implants, but cooler. That doesnt make an iphone utopian. Thats your words not mine. paper and conversation, and audio recordings, cameras and video do many of these things. Just with lower bandwidths. As for new vulnerabilities, I dont know if we will be able to interpret incoming signals via brain interface as foreign, but id guess like any other input, if you didnt grow up with it youd be susceptable to manipulation. But if you grew up with it youd probably have some sense in discerning between your ideas and others ideas. (Sort of like how my grandma thinks scam emails are from honest people, but for younger folks its obviously malicious) Could be wrong though. Only one way to find out. Put one in grandma.
- roarcher 3y ago
  I don't think this: > the benefit vs downside of most new technology is assymetricaly in favor of the upsides Follows from this: > primarily due to human nature being assymetrically good natured. Even though I agree with the second one. How many people are involved in adtech, finding new and ever more cynical ways to collect, mine, and exploit your data to manipulate consumer behavior to their benefit? A tiny minority. And yet their work influences nearly everyone in the developed world every day. How many people are willing to use nuclear weapons against their fellow humans? Again, a tiny minority, but it only takes a few. If the majority of people being good natured was a safeguard, the existence of nuclear weapons would be of no concern to anyone. There's an asymmetry you're not accounting for: the asymmetry of power wielded by those who are willing to use a technology for nefarious purposes. It only takes a handful of people (relatively speaking) to buy and sell the personal information of billions, to deploy a weapon, or to exploit for personal gain what is essentially a mind control device as you've described it. Also, while people may be "asymmetrically good natured", I would argue that they're also asymmetrically naive and ineffectual. Just look at domestic spying in the Five Eyes nations. That was considered a wild conspiracy theory for years until Snowden proved it was happening. Then after he proved it, tons of people just shrugged and said "well they're doing it to protect us, and I have nothing to hide anyway". A lot of that "good nature" people have isn't goodness, it's harmlessness. They're not good like Batman, they're good like a bunny rabbit. That's part of the reason it's so easy for the evil minority to wield such power over them.
  - wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
    you have provided some of the water drops of counterexamples in an ocean of cooperatively used technology. Fire, buildings, wheels, hammers. You are so used to this world of assymetrically positively used technology that you dont even notice it. I would not forego the internet itself in fear of adtech existing. Acceptable consequence. worth it. same for implants. All of the unimaginable malicious avenues provided by the internet,and I still would rather it exist amd be ubiquitous than not.
    - roarcher 3y ago
      As would I, and I work in tech myself. Technology is a wonderful thing, when used wisely. My argument is not that technology is bad. It's that every technology isn't automatically good just because it's technology and "people are nice". There's a reason nerve agents aren't available over the counter at your local pharmacy.

wegfawefgawefg 3y ago

Thats not hypothetical those are pretty obvious functions of the tech. If two people have it implanted in similar regions and have record,playback, and can send files to the other person for playback、then you get thought transmission. Probably lossily. Two people with internet enabled laptops. (more useful if both of them can read and write a common language) There are downsides of course, but the benefit vs downside of most new technology is assymetricaly in favor of the upsides, primarily due to human nature being assymetrically good natured. You can use an iphone to organize terrorist attacks and scams, or to call your loved ones. Thats up to the users. 99.9999% of users are just using it to do normal human social stuff. Probably same for implants, but cooler. That doesnt make an iphone utopian. Thats your words not mine. paper and conversation, and audio recordings, cameras and video do many of these things. Just with lower bandwidths. As for new vulnerabilities, I dont know if we will be able to interpret incoming signals via brain interface as foreign, but id guess like any other input, if you didnt grow up with it youd be susceptable to manipulation. But if you grew up with it youd probably have some sense in discerning between your ideas and others ideas. (Sort of like how my grandma thinks scam emails are from honest people, but for younger folks its obviously malicious) Could be wrong though. Only one way to find out. Put one in grandma.

roarcher 3y ago
I don't think this: > the benefit vs downside of most new technology is assymetricaly in favor of the upsides Follows from this: > primarily due to human nature being assymetrically good natured. Even though I agree with the second one. How many people are involved in adtech, finding new and ever more cynical ways to collect, mine, and exploit your data to manipulate consumer behavior to their benefit? A tiny minority. And yet their work influences nearly everyone in the developed world every day. How many people are willing to use nuclear weapons against their fellow humans? Again, a tiny minority, but it only takes a few. If the majority of people being good natured was a safeguard, the existence of nuclear weapons would be of no concern to anyone. There's an asymmetry you're not accounting for: the asymmetry of power wielded by those who are willing to use a technology for nefarious purposes. It only takes a handful of people (relatively speaking) to buy and sell the personal information of billions, to deploy a weapon, or to exploit for personal gain what is essentially a mind control device as you've described it. Also, while people may be "asymmetrically good natured", I would argue that they're also asymmetrically naive and ineffectual. Just look at domestic spying in the Five Eyes nations. That was considered a wild conspiracy theory for years until Snowden proved it was happening. Then after he proved it, tons of people just shrugged and said "well they're doing it to protect us, and I have nothing to hide anyway". A lot of that "good nature" people have isn't goodness, it's harmlessness. They're not good like Batman, they're good like a bunny rabbit. That's part of the reason it's so easy for the evil minority to wield such power over them.
- wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
  you have provided some of the water drops of counterexamples in an ocean of cooperatively used technology. Fire, buildings, wheels, hammers. You are so used to this world of assymetrically positively used technology that you dont even notice it. I would not forego the internet itself in fear of adtech existing. Acceptable consequence. worth it. same for implants. All of the unimaginable malicious avenues provided by the internet,and I still would rather it exist amd be ubiquitous than not.
  - roarcher 3y ago
    As would I, and I work in tech myself. Technology is a wonderful thing, when used wisely. My argument is not that technology is bad. It's that every technology isn't automatically good just because it's technology and "people are nice". There's a reason nerve agents aren't available over the counter at your local pharmacy.