I agree that electrode-based BCIs don’t scale, but electrode BCIs are just the first generation of productized interfaces. The next generation of BCIs holds a great deal of promise. Depending on AGI timelines, they may still be too far out. They’re still probably worth developing with an eye toward alignment given that they have primarily non-overlapping resources (funding, expertise, etc.).
There’s interesting possibilities with BCI that you don’t list. But the bandwidth is too low due to the butcher number. https://tsvibt.blogspot.com/2022/11/prosthetic-connectivity.html
Not doing things because AGI comes soon is a mistake: https://tsvibt.blogspot.com/2023/07/views-on-when-agi-comes-and-on-strategy.html
Germline engineering is feasible, but society anti-wants it.
I agree that electrode-based BCIs don’t scale, but electrode BCIs are just the first generation of productized interfaces. The next generation of BCIs holds a great deal of promise. Depending on AGI timelines, they may still be too far out. They’re still probably worth developing with an eye toward alignment given that they have primarily non-overlapping resources (funding, expertise, etc.).
Butcher number & Stevenson/Kording scaling discussed more in the comments here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KQSpRoQBz7f6FcXt3#comments