[simonh]

We already have calculators and spreadsheets for enhanced mathematical ability, and rich people have had assistants and advisers to enhance their knowledge and help them work more efficiently.

The interesting thing about AI and machine learning is it's actually becoming available to everyone very democratically. We all have access to Siri and Google Assistant because the best way to extract value is through massive scale. Developing a billion dollar AI and then only letting one person benefit from access to it is absurdly inefficient, partly because access to more people and more data and interactive usage it can learn from at massive scale is actually necessary to train the AI. Keeping it private also cripples it.

I know what you mean, you're thinking without any external mechanical interface like keyboards and such, but those things don't matter by themselves. A direct brain interface might provide an incremental advantage in latency, but we've had incremental improvements for ages. Unless it provides some sort of sudden multi-orders of magnitude advantage it's really just more of the same.

[cfcosta]

You've made some fair points, but there's an underlying assumption: that we are only going to be able to do what we are doing today. Of course, my example is not that good, but imagine things like increased spatial sensing, instant data analysis, better (supervised) sleep, bigger muscle and organ efficiency.

Are those in your opinion still more of the same?

[simonh]

Pretty much, yes. That just sounds like better sensors or information presentation, faster computers, medical advances and maybe some genetic engineering. We've been doing all of that stuff for decades.

The way I see it brain interfaces aren't necessarily a huge game changer by themselves, in fact it's conceivable they might actually be slower than existing interfaces but more convenient for some tasks. It's more likely to be about overcoming bottlenecks that might arise in our existing technological advance trajectory, so we don't stall out.