AI Tech Like Neuralink Could be 'Suicide For the Human Mind'

Some scientists are worried about technology like Elon Musk’s Neuralink. Cognitive psychologist Susan Schneider wrote an op-ed (paywall) that it could be “suicide for the human mind.”

The worry with a general merger with AI, in the more radical sense that Musk envisions, is the human brain is diminished or destroyed. Furthermore, the self may depend on the brain and if the self’s survival over time requires that there be some sort of continuity in our lives — a continuity of memory and personality traits — radical changes may break the needed continuity.

I’m no neuroscientist but I subscribe to emergentism, which is the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. An easy explanation is here, but basically it means that consciousness isn’t a property of the physical brain, but rather something that happens when you get enough neurons interconnected. This isn’t something that could be replicated with code.

SpaceX Postpones Starlink Due to High Winds

SpaceX has postponed its Starlink project due to high winds Wednesday night. Starlink is Elon Musk’s plan to provide global, low-cost satellite internet.

Sixty Starlink satellites have been packed into the nose cone of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that’s waiting to launch. Over the next eight years, the company plans to deploy around 12,000 of the satellites into low-Earth orbit to create its widespread broadband network as part of a project said to be costing the company $10 billion.

Its first goal is to deploy 4,425 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit at an altitude of between 690 miles (1,110 km) and 823 miles (1,325 km). These will act as the backbone of Starlink’s internet service.