Scientists learning to 'write' skills to human brain noninvasively, like Matrix | Hacker News Reader

Scientists learning to 'write' skills to human brain noninvasively, like Matrix

interestingengineering.com

21 pointsgregw214 comments

The actual paper:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2410445121

Please make this the submission link. This is interesting, worthwhile work, but not at all "writing skills" to the human brain. It's using external electrical feedback to induce people to see objects as more categorical distinct than they otherwise would have. This is nothing at all like the Matrix, which also wasn't non-invasive and required having a brain implant built into you from birth. They didn't even have a means of using their own technique on Zion-born natural humans.

Beyond which, we may note, even Matrix learning didn't translate outside of the matrix. You "know" kung fu? Great, what does it mean to know kung fu? Because actually performing kung fu requires bodily adaptations that take years to accumulate. Knowledge on its own doesn't do a whole lot, except inside the matrix where you're not bound by the physical limitations of your body's capabilities. In the real non-simulated world, the brain can only do so much on its own. Christopher Reeve knew how to walk. Fat lot of good it did him.

Well, I mean, there are so many things that don't require full motion. And knowing the things that require full motion makes everything much faster: if you know perfect form for stretches and strength exercises needed to achieve the body shape to perform kung fu, the years of training necessary might be way less.

I'd love to have the ability to learning like that

Agreed, thanks. Too late for me to edit.

This is a horrible thing. Imagine being accosted and programmed with stuff like:

- Ideology

- Desires to do bad things

- Knowledge of committing a crime you haven't.

Does anyone here think we really have the wisdom to handle such technology when we can't even handle money properly (50% goes to the 1%, etc.)?

I'm afraid technophiles will jump on this because they currently live in a priveleged bubble that allows them to not sense on a visceral level the atrocities of the world.

This will be used for advertisements first.

Yes, you are probably right.

Porn always is first in tech.

Yes, but they have to advertise for it before people will use it.

This is not how it works though. The thing is based on neurofeedback, so you have to consciously attempt to match the pattern.

Now what this could make easier is training killers. That's sufficiently evil for me.

That really is click bait. And so is the second paragraph of the article:

"They have shown a method to induce learning through the direct manipulation of brain activity patterns. "

There was nothing direct about it, it was a feedback loop mediated by fMRI.

Quite different from all the SF skill and knowledge transfer ideas.

Looks like pretty invasive to me in Matrix though...

Learning new skills at an instant would be amazing, bet you know that they will come with the side dish of ideology. How could we get clean skill files or inspect any of that?

Maybe Kurzweil's brain research predictions are coming along...

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