Tim Tyler: Against cyborgs

This video discusses the liklihood of cyborgs being an important phenomenon in the future.

Transcript: http://alife.co.uk/essays/against_cyborgs/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• cyborgs
• machines
• implants

[FreddyFuFu]

How does it feel to be a computer simulation? Do simulations have a subjective experience? To me, the existence of the hard problem of consciousness is indicative that I am not a simulation, and that my senses perceive an objective reality.

So uploading your brain to me, is a risk, until we solve the hard problem of consciousness.

[tmtyler]

@FreddyFuFu We can't easily tell if we are in a simulation or not. Consciousness is not really evidence on this issue. There is no "hard problem of consciousness" - see Dennett, Hofstadter, etc.

[zachpmorgan]

Hay. Enjoyable vid.

How do you say when brains are likely to be uploaded & run in a simulation? How can you say that it will even be possible to run a brain in real-time on a computer?

It seems less useful and much, much harder than just wiring a programmable computer to some neurons. That might not even involve brain surgery. It could just involve an injection.

So are you against brain-computer interfacing (as opposed to virtualization) if that's the best that technology will offer?

[tmtyler]

Re: Will brain emulation in real-time be possible?

Sure - of course.

[tmtyler]

Re: are you against brain-computer interfacing

My brain is interfaced to a computer right now - via a screen and keyboard. The main problem is the human-output bandwidth. Speech recognition will help with that - as will gestures, lip reading, etc.

Highly direct interfaces will make little practical sense for a long while - except for the handicapped.

[sjatkins]

To be able to think a question and immediately get the answer from the world wide net in a form as if it was your own mind contents.

Your argument seems to be hung up on whether the tech is in your brain or outside. This is an arbitrary distinction. Also ultimately only by upgrading the brain itself can we transcend our own limitations.

[tmtyler]

I do discuss "fyborgs". I see no problem there - e.g. see my video on intelligence augmentation.

Whether the technology is inside your body is the main issue I was trying to address.

"Brain upgrades" are not the only possible way forwards - civilisation could switch to using machine intelligence instead.

[trakkaton]

@tmtyler

Everyone who denies the hard problem of consciousness suffers from a severe lack of introspection. If you would build an identical copy of me and expose it to the very same experiences I had in an advanced simulation what you would get is a twin who reacts in the same way, but not a second person that is me. I would still be in my body, not in the body of that clone. Identity is not subjected to matter. That is also the reason why "mind-uploading" is a smokescreen.

[trakkaton]

To implant technology into the brain solves the bandwidth botleneck. It can circumvent the senses. Makes the computation of feelings possible. It shortens the distance. There is no physical barrier between millions of neurons and millions of nanocomputers. On the other hand, the problems are not bigger than that of a pacemaker.

The human brain can't be replaced because a computer simulation wouldn't inherit one's identity. It can only be enhanced in a genetic or electronic augmentation.

[zachpmorgan]

I believe there may be paradigms for human-machine interaction that we have not yet discovered. Who's to say that every book on record can't prove useful in the middle of a conversation, or that computers can't be instructed neurally somehow, or that literal telepathy isn't within our grasp, so to speak.

I don't see how human-output bandwidth is a problem when input/output ports can be circumvented.

[zachpmorgan]

Of course? I expect that you've looked into the issue, but can you honestly say that brain activity doesn't depend on zillions of intricate chemical and/or quantum physical interactions that are ridiculously difficult to simulate? Remember that there are fundamental limitations to computation--It always increases entropy which cannot be reversed. Even if it is possible for one brain, I have a hard time believing that it could be practical for thousands or billions.

[djadvance22]

The repulsion people have with the idea of uploading and their embrace of drugs and computers means that consumers will drive augmentation technology and, even if uploading becomes possible before complete tandem brain-computer processing, most people will much rather wear an earpiece that connects their brain to their computer than leave their body entirely. Uploaded humans will spend their time developing better augmentation.