Two Minds Blog

My most recent blog post suggested that we aren't going to be able to upload human consciousness to the cloud anytime soon, for various reasons that have to do with the technical differences between human and AI information processing, and the physical differences between computers and human brains. So what about a simpler task, reading people's minds? That's another common trope of fantasy and sci-fi literature, and it seems close to recent advances in the mental control of prosthetic devices . The Neuralink company has also reported successes in this area, along with some ability for people with communication impairments to generate words or phrases on a computer. This seems like it is getting close to reading people's thoughts. Let's leave aside the medical challenges of implanting electrodes in the brain, which are considerable: metal needles can damage sensitive brain tissue, so the body treats the electrode as an injury and attempts to build scar tissue aroun...

It’s a popular sci-fi trope : The human consciousness now residing in a computer, trading physical life for machine-based immortality. In The Matrix this works both ways: You can not only upload your consciousness to a vast multiplayer online world, but also instantly download digitized knowledge from the cloud to your brain (“ I know kung fu! ”). A digitized consciousness might have some acknowledged limitations, sure – you don’t eat anymore, and you can’t smell the flowers. Even that seems ridiculous by modern technology standards, though: Couldn’t we design appropriate sensors, or simply simulate those experiences? Indeed, there’s a school of thought that claims we are already living in some type of simulated reality , whether computer-generated or otherwise. Let’s confine ourselves to currently existing digital technologies, and examine the question of whether it really might be possible to upload our consciousness to the cloud. China is investing a lot in brain-computer interf...