Musk announced that the human brain was implanted with chips for the first time, and ＂digital life＂ is about to come true？
In last year’s Spring Festival movie "Wandering Earth 2", Andy Lau’s character Tu Hengyu chose to upload his consciousness when he was dying, and saved the reality through the digital world.
The whole movie is full of discussions about "digital life". When the real world is about to fall, consciousness is uploaded and another sense of immortality is realized, is this digital life still the original self? Is there really a way for human beings to achieve eternal life?
I thought this was a topic that could only be picked up after a long time. Unexpectedly, someone really started this "digital life" action in real life.
On January 30, local time, Musk posted a post on X, saying, "Yesterday, the first human accepted the implantation of Neuralink, and it is now recovering well. Preliminary results show that neuron spike detection is very promising. "
Then Musk added, "You can control your mobile phone or computer just by thinking, and control almost any device through them. The first users will be those who have lost their limbs. Imagine if stephen hawking could communicate faster than a typist or auctioneer. This is our goal. "
It is said that the first product of Neuralink is called "Telepathy".
Implanting a chip into a human brain, what is this, Cyberpunk? Is it true that mankind is moving towards eternal life? ? ?
PART.01
Musk announced the first implantation of a chip in the human brain.
01
How does the brain machine work?
Things should start with a tweet suddenly released by Musk:
On January 30th, Elon Musk tweeted on his personal X account that Neuralink Corp, which he founded, had completed the first operation to implant a brain-computer interface chip into the human brain, and the experimenter recovered well. It is preliminarily proved that neuron spike has great research prospect.
Previously, Musk mentioned that the research purpose of Neuralink will first specialize in two applications: the first one is to help human beings restore their vision, and the second one is to help people whose limbs can’t function properly control electronic devices such as mobile phones.
The so-called brain-computer interface chip is simply to detect the pulse spike potential in the human brain and collect intracranial nerve signals through the chip implanted in the human body.
This Neuralink chip is only the size of a coin. It is implanted into the human brain by a robot surgeon, and its internal small battery can be powered externally to maintain its operation.
If it is successful, the experimenter will use the brain-computer interface to control electronic devices such as mobile phones and computers. That is, as we see in science fiction movies and games, we act with "ideas".
In Musk’s imagination blueprint, he thinks that the initial users will be paralyzed patients who can’t be assisted by modern medical care for the time being. He cited an example in his tweet, hoping that people like stephen hawking could use faster communication speed than typists.
↑ Brain-Computer Interface Theory Demonstration (Image from Zhihu)
This incident caused a lot of revelry among science and technology fans, and some critics thought it was an epoch-making invention. But compared with this, the public opinion with greater influence is deeply worried and uneasy about this technology.
After all, it still takes a long time for human beings to fully accept artificial intelligence. Because at the same time as technology, there is also human nature.
02
Netizen commented: "The route to hell is paved in good faith."
Musk’s remarks caused an uproar in X. Here are some hot comments from the following tweets:
More discussion
1. What is the purpose of implanting this specific chip? Can they download kung fu?
@Billboard Chris
2. Comment on pictures
@Satoshi Club
3. The merger of human and artificial intelligence has officially begun.
@Beff Jezos
4. Elon Musk is probably a false prophet who promises eternal life to the world through digital consciousness.
@Donnie Darkened
5. This absolutely scares me. I wonder where this chip will eventually be used.
@Joey Mannarino
I feel scared at the thought of it.
@Humble Flow
7. The route to hell is paved in good faith.
@American Viking
……
Although some people think that brain-computer chips will help patients with certain diseases, such as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), with the development of chip technology, its disadvantages are also obvious.
Here, I have to mention the company named "Neuralink" founded by Musk.
This company was founded because Musk was inspired by science fiction writer Iain Banks. In Yin En Banks’ novels, "Wen Ming" is an interstellar utopia where human beings and machines coexist. In this world, there is no government, and superb technology can provide people with incomparable material wealth.
"Neuralink" is the "utopia" imagined by Musk.
Their goals are:
"Create a broad brain interface, restore the mobility of patients who cannot be cured by the modern medical system, and liberate human potential.
This just reflects Musk’s long-standing philosophy that human beings and machines will coexist and will become the future. Only by making people’s brains more outstanding can we avoid being dominated by artificial intelligence.
However, Neuralink obviously has a long way to go, and the difficulties they will face are not only technical barriers, but also ethical dilemmas.
In April 2021, Neuralink showed an experiment with macaques. A macaque with a chip device was playing video games through "ideas". Brain-computer equipment records the activated neuron signals of macaques, which truly realizes the "brain-computer connection", which is also a major breakthrough of Neuralink.
But this is the first time to do experiments on human bodies.
On may 23, 2023, Neuralink officially announced that it had been approved by the FDA and was allowed to conduct real human experiments. However, Neuralink was exposed to rough treatment of primates before, and this operation requires the removal of a part of the skull. The complications and side effects caused by the operation will accompany the volunteers who underwent the operation for a long time.
No one can tell where this experiment will go, which is bound to sacrifice a lot. But the "eternal world where human beings and artificial intelligence coexist" imagined by Musk is undoubtedly the end point that many people are looking forward to.
PART.02
Zhejiang father wants to "resurrect" his only son with AI: I hope the deceased relatives can get eternal life in digital life.
At the beginning, we talked about Tu Hengyu of Wandering Earth 2. He used quantum computer to upload his daughter’s consciousness, turned her into a digital life, and wanted to give her a complete life. Recently, the topic of "resurrecting deceased relatives with AI" on a platform is also very hot.
A fatherless father in Zhejiang wants to "resurrect" his only son in the form of digital life through AI. He tried many ways to "resurrect" his only son in another sense by collecting images, voices, photos and other information before his death, and using this information to train AI to perform highly realistic imitation behavior.
Although the trained AI has the basic appearance and sound line of the deceased, the dialogue process is still a bit stiff because the AI does not have independent thinking ability and emotion. But as long as you can see the voices and smiles of the deceased relatives, it is almost irreplaceable comfort and great comfort for the relatives who miss the deceased extremely.
However, in this regard, the comment area does not think that this is a good thing. Most people think that the Sri Lankan has passed away, and indulging in the fantasy of AI shaping will only increase troubles.
It can be seen that most people think that what AI presents is just a false illusion. If this technology of "digital people live forever" is popularized, it will be more difficult to erase the pain of losing loved ones, and the process of dialogue with AI will also become a poison to quench thirst, leaving potential mental illness hidden dangers.
According to the current technology, the death of the body is the end of life. And the birth of digital life seems to question this theory-
So even if the technological level of human beings can realize digital life, does that mean that we have eternal life in another dimension?
PART.03
Can human beings really achieve eternal life? Is digital life still life?
CHATGPT was born last year and immediately caused an uproar all over the world. Its powerful imitation and learning ability make many people feel threatened. And if one day the human brain completes the construction of the brain-computer link, and the human brain really controls the electronic equipment, then can human beings reproduce their thinking and memory in the code through technical means? Achieve immortality in a sense? At that time, is this life still life?
Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, believes that people with biological systems actually have the same feedback mechanism as machines, so people can be controlled like machines, and machines can also become human through learning.
But is a digital life infinitely approaching perfection a continuation of our life, or does it just exist as a replica?
In this regard, global person magazine wrote in a report on digital life-
With the progress of artificial intelligence, ordinary people can also create digital life by means of certain technical means. Digital life will make virtual reality more and more real, and even blur the boundary between life and death.
This will undoubtedly lead to ethical problems, and in addition to ethics, privacy leakage is also one of the hidden dangers that digital life may bring.
When people die, all their memories and data will be uploaded to the digital life, so their personal privacy is at risk of being leaked.
In addition, if digital life is popularized, the cost of maintaining these systems is also huge. At present, there are no strict legal provisions to support digital heritage, so these companies that deal with digital life lack effective supervision and are more likely to have privacy leaks.
Source Code
source code
The film "Source Code" released in 2011 tells the story of an air force pilot who was killed in Afghanistan and was selected to perform a special task, that is, to use brain-computer link equipment to load the memory of a terrorist attack for 8 minutes and find the suspect in the attack.
The protagonist finally found the suspect by his own will, but he also learned that his body had been damaged on the battlefield and was chosen to continue to complete the task because he still had the value of being used. However, in real life, he only has half a mutilated body, and he is trapped in the rest cabin to barely maintain his vital signs.
If no one takes the initiative to end his physical life, then his consciousness will be trapped in the digital life forever, and he will continue to suffer for a long and painful time.
Digital life is undoubtedly a great leap in the history of human science and technology. But at the same time, what needs our attention is the ethical, moral and psychological hidden dangers that follow.
Because one of the most important things that distinguishes human beings from artificial intelligence is that we are individuals with human nature and rich emotions.
There is always something above life.
Wen by | Rong Yu
What do you think of this?
Do you think digital life is really eternal?
What do you expect to see in the future?
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