Re:Bryan Johnson invests $100M in Kernel to unlock the power...
by edanm on Saturday October 22, 2016 @03:59AM
(#12767730)
"And "all" one has to do with a new sensor is plug it in: the brain is very good at making sense of any new signal, and using it, without prompting or training."
That doesn't sound right. E.g. see stories of blind people who have gotten sight at a late age - I think the tendency is for them not to be able to really utilize sight the way sighted-from-birth people do.
Human intelligence, while fallible and easy to turn off, is arguably our best feature. It's also very versatile.
Bryan Johnson can spend his money any way he likes of course, but one has to wonder why there aren't more initiatives to augment our senses instead of working on intelligence (our own or the intelligence of machines).
I would love to gain a permanent ability to see in the dark, hear ultrasounds, know where North is at all times, etc.
And "all" one has to do with a new sensor is plug it in: the brain is very good at making sense of any new signal, and using it, without prompting or training.
The plugin-in part is non-trivial, of course (although there are shortcuts, such as using the tongue as a crude V0); but one can imagine that once we're able to build a general API to the human brain, many gadgets could be developed for it.