https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23899981/elon-musk-ai-neuralink-brain-computer-interface
Neuralink has implanted a chip in its first human brain. But it’s pushing a needlessly risky approach, former employees say.
At the same time, I feel like we shouldn't let that happen because imagine if he actually succeeds? And then we just have immortal crackhead Lex Luthor with a hallucinating ChatGPT whispering further delusions directly into his brain. That can't be good for any of us.
If anyone is dumb enough to put anything from that dude into their head, that brain was already damaged!
If definitely seems dystopian, but hopefully this ends up helping some people who are quadriplegic.
Except it doesn't.
Don't overlook the 'Fi' in 'SciFi.'
Aspects of tech are often correctly predicted in SciFi going all the way back to Lucian writing about a ship of men flying up to the moon in the 2nd century.
But surrounding what they often get right the authors always get things wrong too. For example, contrary to Lucian's ideas, in reality the ship of men that flew up to the moon didn't find a race of human like aliens that were only men who could carry children and had a bunch of gay sex with the men of Apollo-11.
TL;DR: Correctly predicting a technology in a story doesn't mean correctly predicting the social impact and context for that technology.
It will for sure.
In the short term.
The problem is the implants can and very likely will cause very serious complications in the long term.
My SO is a neurologist who visibly cringes wherever I mention brain implants as we discuss emerging tech (my wheelhouse).
He's obviously desperately trying to revive the image of being a genius again. But everybody knows what kind of charlatan he is.
Advertisers would absolutely love to augment your reality with ads or even just the ability to accurately confirm you've actually watched a traditional ad along with how you "felt" about it.
At that point people would absolutely sign up for free implants so they can access ad supported services that may otherwise become unaffordable within a society further strip mined of wealth by the then trillionaire class.
Knowing advertisers, at least here in the US, they would bypass confirming you watched ads by just beaming them straight to your implant and making it impossible to get rid of the ads.
It's not the advertisers doing that, it's the publishers.
The advertiser has no real say in how a publisher decides to pimp their audience other than lining up with cash on hand like an eternally and unhealthily addicted John.
In fact, on the advertiser side it's mostly a prisoner's dilemma driving their addiction, pushed to spend money on poorly converting and too wide channels out of fear that if they don't and their competitors do that they'll lose market share.
Advertisers suck for a variety of other reasons, but let's not turn a blind eye to the publisher greed either.
Advertisers would absolutely love to augment your reality with ads or even just the ability to accurately confirm you've actually watched a traditional ad along with how you "felt" about it.
Your reality is already augmented with ads most places you look, and advertisers already do have significant ability to accurately identify how a sample feels about the ads.
Most don't bother because they don't actually care, and because it's easier and cheaper to just run an ad mix self-optimizing around sales results or conversions than to try and over-engineer the advertising impact.
Anyone betting on neural implants to make money because of 'advertising' is going to lose a lot of money themselves.
You may be underestimating the role of targeting in conversion optimization, and I'm not sure how you could better target individuals than based on what they're thinking at any given moment (literally).
For instance, it's not hard to imagine a future where gen-ai inserts product placement for a drug like ozempic into your favorite show, just for your view, while you're actively paying attention, even though you didn't realize at that moment you're still a bit upset about a negative comment someone made about your weight earlier that day. An advertiser didn't have to select this scenario, but instead you were targeted by an ML algorithm at that moment based on brain activity correlated with others who ultimately were successfully nudged to have a conversation with their doctor about their weight. Simultaneously, another ML optimized the product placement generation to minimize viewer disgust while maximizing its visibility. Your behavior becomes immediate feedback to further optimize these algorithms, as you're tracked for how much attention you paid to the placement, what was your emotional state before and after, did you schedule an appointment with your doctor over the next 3 days, were you prescribed ozempic, etc.
That is just a simple example which isn't that far removed from advertising approaches today. I'm certain there are plenty of clever techniques to turn your thoughts and perceptions into conversions far more effectively once advertisers have real-time access to your brain.
What do you think the install base for neural implants is going to be such that Madison Ave is going to bend over backwards to rework multiple ad platforms to support it.
You are overestimating the industry.
Why would anyone want the cybertruck? Yet at present, it'll take them over a year to clear their backlog.
Some people are just dumb - that applies doubly for those that love Musk because he speaks the Nazi conspiracism Truth™.
The general technology seems very useful for people with severe disabilities.
Even just being able to "speak" or move in a wheelchair is something that millions of people in the world can't do.
Of course the money will be in mass implanting this on the general public, for that I'm not sure they will manage to convince me
Sacrifice yourselfers for the eternal future Emperor God Elontron Musk.
He will insert his X in all of our hearts.
