[random4369]

There's a huge bandwidth bottleneck on both input and output sides. Your imagination of what a neural lace would do is too limited. It wouldn't be 3d, it wouldn't be auditory.

It would be having a perfect recollection of every single moment of your life.

It would be knowing the entire contents of wikipedia off by heart.

It would be understanding and speaking every language on the planet.

It would be looking out the window and seeing exactly where a friend living 1000km is in your field of view.

It would be sharing thoughts and feelings with other people in the literal sense.

It would be the ability to suppress short term urges by being constantly aware of your long term goals and your progress towards them.

It would be the ability to open an enterprise project you're working on, and instantly know the layout of their codebase.

If you're imagining the neural lace interface to be sensory, you're way off the mark. Sensory interconnect is just the beginning. The real revolution is giving your brain a low level IO bus that allows a computer to transparently extend it beyond the physical limits of whatever number of neurons are in your head.

[mannykannot]

All this speculation ignores the fact that we don't have a practical theory of how the mind works, an therefore no way to know what, specifically, would need to be done to produce a specific outcome. For example, Lieber talks about the development of 3D transistors, so they can be implanted in neurons, but he does say what they would do once there.

To be fair, pharmacology, in its application to mental issues, is at about the same level, but it is also struggling to demonstrate unambiguous successes. As research tools, these devices are great, but it is premature to suggest that we have a technology that is going to change the way we think.

[jjaredsimpson]

But that's the point of basic research, no?

Minds are things that function in a physical universe. At some point in the future there will be a description of function, followed by a plan for modification or augmentation of existing minds, as well as bottom up design of new minds.

All minds are matter performing some computation. Molecules move around and change in time. In concert with this physical process, subjective experience takes place. There will come a time when physical systems are designed with the goal of creating a particular form of subjective experience.

[lsc]

> Sensory interconnect is just the beginning. The real revolution is giving your brain a low level IO bus that allows a computer to transparently extend it beyond the physical limits of whatever number of neurons are in your head.

The point is that you need some way of interfacing. A fast bus doesn't do me any good if I don't have drivers and then interfaces to interact with the thing on the other end of that bus.

I mean, yes, ideally we'd have some kind of thought-based interface... but you've gotta design that, too.

[_Microft]

I think the solution might even turn out to be something like build-it-and-the-drivers-will-come. Neuroplasticity is enormous. There are reports about a conjoined twin pair in Canada that supposedly can "think inside the others head" (they're connected at the head!).

[barischrooneyj]

Agree absolutely, a step toward new research related to "drivers". I think it will be interesting how age might affect early usage of such a neural lace. Perhaps a link operated from a young age (even birth) will operate better as the baby's other "drivers" (for the usual IO operations like sight and hearing) havn't developed as much. Also for AI-safety it is important to begin interfacing between between digital and neural as early as possible.

[lsc]

>Also for AI-safety it is important to begin interfacing between between digital and neural as early as possible.

I see no evidence that we're going to get anything like machine consciousness in the near future. Moore's law was going to get it for us, but... that isn't looking so clear anymore. Sure, machines can do more and more tasks that used to be human-only... but there's not a clear path from that to consciousness.

On the other hand, speculative brain surgery is super dangerous, and shouldn't be done to people who are too young to give informed consent.

All that said, I'd personally be willing to take some significant risk myself, if it gave me a credible chance at a useful neural interface. But I'm an adult; I think it would be ridiculously unethical to make that decision for an infant. Even as an adult, I would personally need a lot more education than I currently have to decide what was 'credible' at this point.

[darawk]

The bandwidth of your memory is substantially higher than reading, though, is the point.

[lsc]

sure, I'm not saying it wouldn't be great. but my point is that you still need an interface, and my understanding is that we're pretty far away from building an interface that feels like it's just your memory. I mean, it'd be great, sure, if you could do it... but that's an interface that needs to be designed, and it's an interface that we, as humans have no idea how to design.

How would you record a memory? how would you replay that memory? how would you index the memory?

I mean, sure, the idea is to emulate how the brain works now... but how does the brain work now? I don't think we really have a very clear idea on that level.

[hobofan]

I agree with your point, and that probably has to be a more long-term milestone that has to be achieved for it to work well and integrate seamlessly.

I think the short-term idea is to use the extreme adaptability of the human brain to reprogram itself to send and receive data from external machines. There are already prototypes of robotic arms that are not only controlled via a brain interface, but also give sensory feedback via it.

[XorNot]

A practical way to imagine the use here would be snapshotting your short term memory state.

Rather then trying to remember where your keys are you just load the last few snapshots until suddenly it's fresh in your mind that you want to remember where your keys are.

[lookACamel]

In short, it'd be magic.

[red75prime]

Violation of conservation laws would be magic. It is an intricate information processing.