AI MIND INTEGRATION

SOURCE: https://giphy.com/search/blade-runner

Bloggers edited photo

The time is nigh to grasp all conceptual understanding for mind and machine integrations. Brain-computer interface (BCI) is direct communication between a wired brain and external artificial intelligent devices, and the rise of such technologies are upon us. 

An article by Sue Halpern, ‘Mind Control & the Internet’ debates opposing arguments such as the use of these technologies having both risks and benefits of restoring human function yet can also be seen negatively as unleashing ghastly threats to humanity. 

Merging man and machine is a “product, which will be developed within the next four years [that] will eventually lead humans to be able to communicate by ‘consensual telepathy’” Elon Musk, CEO of Neuralink proclaims as he speaks of BCI. These ‘noninvasive brain scanners’ David Pogue (HowFar Away is Mind-Machine Integration? 2012, Scientific American) with no understanding for defects or health risks these devices may have on the human brain, not to mention the questions raised about ethics, privacy and credibility are still in complete early days of testing. Tom Mitchell and Marcel Just of Carnegie Mellon University told Pogue “Our Machine is our Monster”.

People of the internet, the future is here and ready to tap into the devices we were born with; our minds.

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/elon-musk-neuralink

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/06/23/mind-control-and-internet/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-far-away-mind-machine-integration/

TO READ: "THE SYSTEM OF OBJECTS" BY JEAN BAUDRILLARD

Since class last Tuesday, I have been frantically googling and oogling over the works and words of the Frenchman Jean Baudrillard. A cultural theorist, sociologist, philosopher, political commentator and photographer he is best known for his analyses of contemporary culture and media, technological communication and concepts of hyperreality. But what I’m most excited to get into are his diverse subjects on gender relations, social history, art and popular culture.

In touching on the topic of bygone objects and the romanticisation of antique technologies that leave us feeling nostalgic or moved by the presence of the past, Baudrillard’s name came into conversation and with a little bit of research a very interesting book of his called “The Consumer:Society Myths and Structures” came up.

AND IT LOOKS FANTASTIC! Especially that he wrote it in the 70’s (My favourite era to romanticize and dream (ironically) of what it was to live in a time of the glitterati, opulent establishment, the disco, the punk, to be inundated with consumerist feeding frenzies and the way media was revolutionised.

The book includes Baudrillard's most organized discussion of mass media culture, the meaning of leisure and anomie in affluent society. But alas, the book was $65(AU). And a cool sixty on a book is not something a poor student can afford as yet, so I opted for the next cheapest, ever interesting and post-modern. “The System of Objects” A cultural critique of the commodity in consumer society, which brilliantly communicates to us all the live ideas of the day.

I'll let you know what I think when it arrives! I purchased my copy on Booktopia.