People like to talk about cool stuff related to brain-computer interfaces, and how this could allow us to ‘merge’ with AI and whatnot. I haven’t heard much discussion of the dangers of BCI though. Like, science fiction pointed this out years ago with the Borg in Star Trek. A powerful aspect of a read/write BCI is that the technician who designs the implant, and the surgeon who installs it get to decide where the reading and writing occur and under what circumstances. This means that the tech can be used to create computers controlled by human brains (as it is now used in stuff like neuralink), and also to create consensual hiveminds or mergers with humans more or less in control of their participation in the merged entity.… or.… it can create mind-slaves who literally can’t think things they aren’t permitted to think, who are completely obedient tools of the implant-controller. If there is some weird quantum special-sauce in the human brain that makes human brains somehow more powerful than modern technology will be able to cost-effectively achieve, then this will mean that there would be a huge economic/military incentive for some unethical dictator to turn prisoners into mind-slaves to the state’s AI and use them as unwilling components in a distributed network. Creepy stuff, and not actually all that technologically far off. I haven’t heard any discussion of this from the AI-fizzle ‘bio brains are special magic’ crowd.
The Borg are coming....
People like to talk about cool stuff related to brain-computer interfaces, and how this could allow us to ‘merge’ with AI and whatnot. I haven’t heard much discussion of the dangers of BCI though. Like, science fiction pointed this out years ago with the Borg in Star Trek. A powerful aspect of a read/write BCI is that the technician who designs the implant, and the surgeon who installs it get to decide where the reading and writing occur and under what circumstances. This means that the tech can be used to create computers controlled by human brains (as it is now used in stuff like neuralink), and also to create consensual hiveminds or mergers with humans more or less in control of their participation in the merged entity.… or.… it can create mind-slaves who literally can’t think things they aren’t permitted to think, who are completely obedient tools of the implant-controller. If there is some weird quantum special-sauce in the human brain that makes human brains somehow more powerful than modern technology will be able to cost-effectively achieve, then this will mean that there would be a huge economic/military incentive for some unethical dictator to turn prisoners into mind-slaves to the state’s AI and use them as unwilling components in a distributed network. Creepy stuff, and not actually all that technologically far off. I haven’t heard any discussion of this from the AI-fizzle ‘bio brains are special magic’ crowd.