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This makes me a bit uneasy, I must say — 15 Comments

  1. Not too surprising. If I understand correctly, the scientists created an experiment where neural cells exhibited the function of neural cells. This may be good news for spinal injury patients, and others suffering nerve damage as this research could lead to breakthroughs in growing and replacing damaged cells.

  2. Even reading the summary at the link doesn’t quite give me an idea of what the positive / success signal is. The “unpredictable [Red] stimulus” when the ball is missed vs. the “predictable [Green] stimulus” when the ball is hit.

    But it’s cool.
    And scary. Both.
    Adding chips to humans, they remain human.
    Adding human cells to robot chips – do they become human?

    The incentives are very interesting, and also fit into thoughts about The Mind Club as reviewed by Arnold Kling
    https://www.econlib.org/library/columns/y2021/klingtheoriesofmind.html

    The good tech lit about such topics seems to be growing faster than the tech is progressing – still no Hal 9000.

    On a lighter note, I looked for and found a short (5m) parody called Star Drek, heard on Dr. Demento years ago. Relevant comment from the talking elevator:
    “I’m fine, how are you…”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtZS8JAfNE4

  3. Thanks, Rufus T. Firefly, for a suggestion about why researchers might be doing this. I’m not sure I’m convinced, however.

  4. The human race is incapable of playing God. It is the height of hubris to imagine otherwise.

    Just because we can do something doesn’t mean that we should. The potential positives are very likely to be greatly outweighed by the negatives.

    I’m sure the ChiComs are interested in any technology that might lead to the creation of cyborgs. Nor are they alone.

    The Australian and Austrian totalitarian authorities are merely the current western front runners of those equally inclined.

    Cloning is a totalitarian’s wet dream.

  5. I was thinking the same as Tom Grey. Learning requires recognizing something as good or bad. You can be wrong about what is good or bad, but you need that signal. Otherwise, the game could be avoid being hit by the moving object.

  6. When humans become a spacefaring people, they will become not human so they might as well be cyborgs.

  7. Humans are not going to become a spacefaring people without artificial gravity, as well as ways to deal with the extreme radiation in space. Solving those issues will allow humanity to remain human.

  8. Why would this blob be interested in the game at all? Is there punishment? Reward?
    I know, water for the rat in a Skinner Box But this thing?

  9. I’ll be more impressed when it learns to play Super Mario Kart™ and invents its own form of cursing.

  10. }}} The human race is incapable of playing God. It is the height of hubris to imagine otherwise.

    Oh, we’re quite capable of **playing** God.

    Succeeding in those efforts is, however, quite beyond us… But liberals are sure that “it just hasn’t been done right so far”…

    When it inevitably fails, you can count on them to say, “He wasn’t REAAAAALY playing ‘God’…”

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