• starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    Raises uncomfortable questions about consciousness. The only difference between these neurons and your own are the number of them and the structures they form. Of course it doesn’t know what it’s doing, but… Neither do our own neurons

    • KindnessisPunk@piefed.ca
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      2 days ago

      I mean it’s the same question we’ve been asking all our lives about the animals, fetuses and now AI. When does it stop being a flowchart and start being a consciousness.

    • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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      2 days ago

      Nueralink did pretty much the same thing to monkeys that are actually conscious. So it this different only because those are human neurons? Is human consciousness different than animal consciousness?

      • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        I’m not sure this is quite analagous to neuralink’s monkey experiments. That said,

        So is this different only because those are human neurons?

        To my mind, a neuron is a neuron. The only difference between your brain and a monkey brain is, again, the number of neurons and the structures they form. I don’t see this as any different from monkey or rat or ant or entirely digital neurons.

        • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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          2 days ago

          I’m not sure this is quite analagous to neuralink’s monkey experiments.

          Why not? It’s a chip reading inputs from neurons. This meme doesn’t make it clear if the chip was also stimulation neurons but Neuralink has plans for neural stimulation and it’s possible this was also tested on monkeys. So what’s the difference?

      • Paddzr@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Yes. Because it’s us. Anything not us is always going to be less valuable. You’d kill 100 lions if it means saving 1 human.

        • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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          2 days ago

          Lions are not conscious. And I’m not asking about value. Of course we value human consciousness more than monkey consciousness. We don’t grant monkeys any rights. Hell, we assign more value to unconscious (brain dead) humans than to conscious monkeys. But how exactly is human consciousness different?

      • MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        That was just to try and make the equipment work at all, it wasn’t about doing anything with software. It’s the opposite where you’re only worried about the physical damage and infection.

        • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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          2 days ago

          I was focusing more on the “hooking up conscious brain to computer” part than about the damage and infection part.

          Thought experiment: let’s say we have a dead brain patient. You have verified that there is no neural activity in the brain beyond cerebellum. There’s no consciousness in the brain. Legally it’s still considered a person. You can’t for example shoot them.

          We also have a 5kg blob of lab grown human brain tissue. We have verified there is neural activity in the entire blob but we don’t know what it’s doing and we can’t communicate with it.

          Which one is more conscious? Which one should be considered more human and should have more rights?

          • MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca
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            1 day ago

            Hooking up to a computer is just installing a software keyboard in your brain, that doesnt really mean or do anything. It’s what software you load after that’s relevant.