45 replies to this topic

[RighteousReason]

For a second I thought that read "Chips in computers will control brains by 2020"

[Reno]

Not in a decent school. You learn how to solve problems, how to weigh evidence. You learn judgment. You learn to work with other people. You learn how to write, how to analyze. There is a lot more going on in school besides cramming facts in people's heads.

College teaches all that through experience. People are presented many problems which involve manipulating information. The more creative problems require creative solutions. Higher education tends to cram a higher workload on the student to force the student to develop new ways of solving problems. If you have all the answers available via brain chip this renders higher education in its current form pointless.

Edited by Reno, 21 December 2010 - 07:15 AM.

[hivemind]

Education is not about learning things. Education is about competition and separating yourself from other people.

[RighteousReason]

Education is not about learning things. Education is about competition and separating yourself from other people.

Fuck meant to vote that down. What the fuck is this nonsense?!?

[TelepathicMerg]

On a totally different note, and i'm just bringing this up here so i don't have to create a new topic, i have some thoughts regarding the consequences of such technology.


What will be the impact on school and university and formal education in general once we can finally google up everything we want and need in our heads? Pedagogues will argue that the purpose of education is not just to teach people facts. But the reality is that in school and even university, the vast majority of what we learn is facts, facts, and more facts. Exams test how much we memorized. What happens when we can just google whatever we want, whenever we want to?

Mostly positive impact. Even those who see the current system in good light must admit the impact will be enormously positive. Possibly this will be the end of the traditional ways; great news of itself. I was hoping for this already for some time, actually not just hoping but being actively involved... without much success though...

[hivemind]

Education is not about learning things. Education is about competition and separating yourself from other people.

Fuck meant to vote that down. What the fuck is this nonsense?!?

Let's assume you want to be a lawyer for example. Doesn't matter what you know. You need a high LSAT-score to get into the best schools.

http://en.wikipedia...._Admission_Test
"Adjusted scores resemble a bell curve, tapering off at the extremes and congregating near the median. "

[niner]

Education is not about learning things. Education is about competition and separating yourself from other people.

Fuck meant to vote that down. What the fuck is this nonsense?!?

Let's assume you want to be a lawyer for example. Doesn't matter what you know. You need a high LSAT-score to get into the best schools.

How do you think one gets a high LSAT score? I'm pretty sure it involves knowing stuff.

[hivemind]

How do you think one gets a high LSAT score? I'm pretty sure it involves knowing stuff.

No it doesn't. It's like an IQ-test. It measures relative performance not knowledge.

[niner]

How do you think one gets a high LSAT score? I'm pretty sure it involves knowing stuff.

No it doesn't. It's like an IQ-test. It measures relative performance not knowledge.

Oh, so even though I don't know much at all about law, I could get a good score on the LSAT? C'mon. Setting aside the LSAT, and just speaking about testing in general; tests are usually objective. There are known correct answers, and you either get them right or you don't. A numerical score is produced, like you got 70% correct. The school could go further and compare your score to everyone else's, resulting in a percentile score. Maybe 70% correct is a 98th percentile score, if it's a hard test. The role of a university is both to educate and to accredit. They teach you stuff, then they try to ascertain whether or not you know it, usually via testing. Accreditation is an objective measure; it really doesn't have anything to do with rank, although some institutions do obsess over rank.

[hivemind]

How do you think one gets a high LSAT score? I'm pretty sure it involves knowing stuff.

No it doesn't. It's like an IQ-test. It measures relative performance not knowledge.

Oh, so even though I don't know much at all about law, I could get a good score on the LSAT? C'mon. Setting aside the LSAT, and just speaking about testing in general; tests are usually objective. There are known correct answers, and you either get them right or you don't. A numerical score is produced, like you got 70% correct. The school could go further and compare your score to everyone else's, resulting in a percentile score. Maybe 70% correct is a 98th percentile score, if it's a hard test. The role of a university is both to educate and to accredit. They teach you stuff, then they try to ascertain whether or not you know it, usually via testing. Accreditation is an objective measure; it really doesn't have anything to do with rank, although some institutions do obsess over rank.

Yes, to score a high score on the LSAT you don't have to know anything at all about the law. It's a verbal IQ-test.

Testing in general is a different thing, if it measures knowledge. LSAT measures performance, and it decides who gets into law school. It's all about being more intelligent than other people. Knowing things is secondary.

[AgeVivo]

Has anyone here bought NeuroSky's brainwave mindset?
I find it quite interesting (interacting with computer) and wonder if I will buy it. It is described here: http://www.pcworld.c...headphones.html
Still a bit expensive: 200$ currently: http://store.neurosk...roducts/mindset


The much better Intendix hat is extremely expensive: 12000$:
http://www.geek.com/...r-you-20100310/

[Lazarus Long]

People won't want to do the surgery unless there is social pressure to do it. There won't be social pressure unless it becomes something everyone is doing. Hence, getting holes drilled into the head will never be "popular." What might happen though is an injection of some sort into a person's scalp, or a nanotechnology based solution. There are companies who specialize today in RDIF chip injections. People get an RDIF chip injected right under the skin of their wrist. That way all the have to do to get into a club is wave their wrist with all their ID and credit card information on it. The same is true for IDing dogs and mental patients. I have a friend that was talking about getting one installed so he could use it to unlock his front door.

I think it will boil down to the balance of benefit vs. safety vs. cost. If it's just a matter of drilling a tiny hole in your skull and injecting a little chip, that might not be such a big deal. If they have to saw off the top of your head, that's another story, but I wouldn't expect that. I thought about the door opening/car starting chip in the hand a long time ago. The technology is there, but it's too expensive ATM. It would be cool though.

I happen to agree with you both but qualify it to suggest the cost/benefit ratio will be dramatically changed with two aspects of nanotech relatively near term.

The first is the building of molecular scale chips that is progressing faster than most realize and the second is the ability to get these chips into cells through novel techniques involving such things as microbubbles as described in this recent Sci-Am article.

Microbubbles Used to Breach the Blood-Brain Barrier Tiny bubbles may help lifesaving drugs cross a crucial boundary By Jeneen Interlandi - December 29, 2010

The use of ultrasound and MRI to manipulate into location and even activate/charge chip based devices (not to mention wireless and natural sugar based powered)in the brain rather than through wires, will both dramatically reduce the biological downside to the implantation of chips as well as improve the efficacy of those chips through the ability to build complex computational prostheses inside the cells one circuit and one cell at a time, as well as disassemble and dispose of them if necessary.

This cybernetic approach will be more passive and essentially indistinguishable externally, however there might be far more concerns involving random Wi-Fi interference and hacking, not to mention issues involving security at airports and other high gauss magnetic fields. However I expect the improved synthetic intelligence possible through these methods will also develop solutions to these problems relatively quickly, including I suspect the manipulation of DNA as computational molecular scale intracellular devices sooner than previously expected.

Initially this will be a prosthetic approach to rebuilding stroke victim and other types of brain damage, as well as the development of what I call "Rain Man treatments", but as the treatments are proven safe and reliable, as well as the initial costs going down I suspect the widespread dissemination of the tech will accelerate faster than most today can imagine.

[ihatesnow]

http://www.rdmag.com...rtificial-brain

[pleb]

hope Microsoft don't write the OS

[Mind]

If rats can use electronically assisted telepathy in 2013, then direct brain to computer control in 2020 seems plausible.

[mikeinnaples]

I want this brain controlled helicopter.