Ask HN: If one day AI brain chips become a thing, would you get it?
I see this as becoming part of "The Borg", I doubt I'd be down with it. But I want to know how other people feel. The idea is open to interpretation - my view is its basically augmenting your cognition with AGI-cloud, so rather than going through a device, it can "live next to your thoughts", and you can access it at will.
Implants to regain communication or movement capabilities lost to brain injury are one thing. But since you asked about:
> basically augmenting your cognition with AGI-cloud
Being able to (somehow) mentally query the web (or some knowledge source) and wait for the result (which I imagine might be like touching an object to see if it is hot) would be maddening. I can imagine subjects getting stuck in loops, or the mental equivalent of doom-scrolling. The reward seeking mechanisms in our brains would just lock-on this stuff like mainlining a drug.
As for just having knowledge just appear in your mind, effortlessly - this could be even worse. There would be no boundaries. What happens to everyday activities? If you look at a sunset (say) or the face of someone you love, what does the implant's overlay do to the subjective experience? Of anything? It would be like never being alone or being eternally distracted, only exponentially worse.
I can easily imagine subjects being driven to psychosis or suicide.
And, of course, there will be advertising and porn, and malware and memetic replicators. Because there always are.
With his hands in the pockets of his jacket, he stared through the glass at a flat lozenge of vatgrown flesh that lay on a carved pedestal of imitation jade. The color of its skin reminded him of Zone’s whores; it was tattooed with a luminous digital display wired to a subcutaneous chip. Why bother with the surgery, he found himself thinking, while sweat coursed down his ribs, when you could just carry the thing around in your pocket?
We're firmly in sci-fi territory here, hence my quoting of Neuromancer. 95% of the benefits of tech seem achievable via exterior devices, whether that be glasses, a phone, or some other thing. I don't see much reason to up the invasiveness 100x while only gaining a little bit of cognitive advantage.
That's nice. It's like the "batteries you can take out" vs "batteries that are soldered in" divide (I miss my die-able smartphones). I can't imagine people would want their bodies to be "Authorized Repairs Only".
The details matter. Will it hurt? Is it subsidized and will be more expensive later or the other way around? How's the latency? What killer apps? Is it under health privacy laws or typical internet privacy laws? What likely side effects are there besides laziness?
It does sound useful. Like go to the mall, look at a keyboard, immediately search up the reviews, then the price elsewhere, sort by nearby. Or in an interview or during a meeting, just search the answer on the spot.
Re pain: the brain "lacks pain receptors" according to standard thought (tho same can't be said for the meninges, so I guess all bets are off). Tho what about emotional pain? Increasing the signal/inputs might increase possible negativities (tho chips would probably monitor and adapt your "recommended content and styles" to increase pleasantness - taking "brain hacking" to whole new level I guess). And interfacing with it might might consume more "mana" making your brain hurt due to depleted resources. Idk.
> The total EM would probably be less than the brain itself.
Brains do not produce electromagnetic radiation. Neuronal activity in the brain is electrochemical, not the result of electrons moving through conducors - and EEGs (for example) measure aggregate changes in potential, not fluctuations in electromagnetic fields.
In that case, it would be compelling to "type" a million lines of code, "compose" every symphony, "paint" every masterpiece, "read" every classic, and "write" every screenplay [1].
And then finally, I could create games.
[1] Surprised Wikipedia does not have an article about copywork.
The iBrain is a confident next step in your computing experience, priced at the $699 bracket we know consumers love. The headlining feature is it's ability to record visual sensation and memories through a proprietary Spatial Aperature located at the front and rear of the device. It runs all of your favorite apps in a secure environment; if anyone ever attempts to compromise or steal the iBrain, it enters a lockdown mode until a trusted technician can restore your unit. It's just another part of why consumers love the iBrain ecosystem.
Of course, recording your thoughts is only a fraction of the power we could be harnessing with iBrain. When you log in, your most-recent memories will get synchronized with the cloud, and are catalogued on-device in a trusted compute environment. This makes it simple to collect and share your thoughts, whether it's with your iPad or friends online. Your ideas go places, and we want to appreciate that with the architecture of iBrain.
We just know that consumers will love the iBrain. Our focus groups can't get enough of it, and we can't wait to open for pre-orders this September.
You could record memories then because of generative ai you could relive them making different decisions constantly second guessing everything in your life. Then you stream this all on twitch.
You are a creative second order effect thinker. I like it!
I thought you were going to say "You could relive them and then pretend the past didn't happen" in a kind of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind kind-of way.
Implants to regain communication or movement capabilities lost to brain injury are one thing. But since you asked about:
> basically augmenting your cognition with AGI-cloud
Being able to (somehow) mentally query the web (or some knowledge source) and wait for the result (which I imagine might be like touching an object to see if it is hot) would be maddening. I can imagine subjects getting stuck in loops, or the mental equivalent of doom-scrolling. The reward seeking mechanisms in our brains would just lock-on this stuff like mainlining a drug.
As for just having knowledge just appear in your mind, effortlessly - this could be even worse. There would be no boundaries. What happens to everyday activities? If you look at a sunset (say) or the face of someone you love, what does the implant's overlay do to the subjective experience? Of anything? It would be like never being alone or being eternally distracted, only exponentially worse.
I can easily imagine subjects being driven to psychosis or suicide.
And, of course, there will be advertising and porn, and malware and memetic replicators. Because there always are.
We're firmly in sci-fi territory here, hence my quoting of Neuromancer. 95% of the benefits of tech seem achievable via exterior devices, whether that be glasses, a phone, or some other thing. I don't see much reason to up the invasiveness 100x while only gaining a little bit of cognitive advantage.
It does sound useful. Like go to the mall, look at a keyboard, immediately search up the reviews, then the price elsewhere, sort by nearby. Or in an interview or during a meeting, just search the answer on the spot.
Black Mirror series 7 episode "Common People" shows such a future which I believe would not be far off the actual experience.
Brains do not produce electromagnetic radiation. Neuronal activity in the brain is electrochemical, not the result of electrons moving through conducors - and EEGs (for example) measure aggregate changes in potential, not fluctuations in electromagnetic fields.
And then finally, I could create games.
[1] Surprised Wikipedia does not have an article about copywork.
Of course, recording your thoughts is only a fraction of the power we could be harnessing with iBrain. When you log in, your most-recent memories will get synchronized with the cloud, and are catalogued on-device in a trusted compute environment. This makes it simple to collect and share your thoughts, whether it's with your iPad or friends online. Your ideas go places, and we want to appreciate that with the architecture of iBrain.
We just know that consumers will love the iBrain. Our focus groups can't get enough of it, and we can't wait to open for pre-orders this September.
I thought you were going to say "You could relive them and then pretend the past didn't happen" in a kind of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind kind-of way.