18 korrents from this recording
Every claim below is a statement made in this recording, quoted word for word and linked to the second it was said, so you can hear it rather than take our word for it. The wording comes from the transcript published alongside the recording; the sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording.
Their wordsIt's like, you know, when we went to the moon, we did it. And so, historically, the success rate of moonshots is higher than I think people give them credit for.
Their wordsPeople have spent huge amounts of time and money looking for drugs to restore vision or to restore hearing or to stop Parkinson's or to to help paralyzed people move again. Understanding the like the biology and the molecular detail required to make a drug has been very difficult. Humanity just isn't that good at that, to be totally honest.
Their wordsIt's like if I put electrodes in M1, you will probably be using a computer in an hour. Um and so it's just it's easier, it's more amenable to biology in many ways.
Our reading
The brain is very literally a computer, and so is the universe -- this is not a metaphor.
Their wordsLike, the brain very literally, very clearly, plainly is a computer in in my understanding of the world. I also view the universe generally as a computer.
Their wordsYeah, I mean I think BCI is a category kind of like how pharma is a category. I think sometimes you I I'll talk to VCs and like, "Oh, we have a BCI bet." I'm like, "Do you have a drug bet? You made one bet on a drugs? Like that's that's how you think about the category?"
Our reading
You want to command a device explicitly, not have it act on a thought you happened to have.
Their wordsIt'd be pretty annoying if they just start like spontaneously getting notifications during meetings that like, "Oh, it thought that you were thinking about an Uber, therefore it decided to summon summon two for you." And so you'll probably want these to be pretty explicit.
Their wordsbecause if you can if you get vision, hearing, balance, and a kilobit per second of motor control, you're halfway to the Matrix.
Their wordsso I'm in the camp that like continuity is greatly important. And so people will accept significant drift in their identity over time as long as they have continuity.
Our reading
Concepts are represented with strikingly similar geometry inside large AI models and inside brains.
Their wordsAnd so when you look inside these big AI models, the mathematical objects that you see look a lot like the things that you see in neuroscience. So if you look at how do how do these AI models represent um just like represent concepts and you look at the parts of the brain that represent concepts, you see these you see very similar geometry.
Their wordsI mean it feels like a lot of physics. Like if you apply enough compute to matter, you get this thing that looks like intelligence.
Our reading
The most fertile way to study neuroscience today is to work on AI models rather than on brains.
Their wordsWell, I mean ironically it's probably working on AI.
Their wordsYeah, well I mean becoming profitable or at least have like having the ability to do this forever is a super high priority. Restoring vision to the blind is pretty good business if you can actually do that.
Their wordsthe only organ that you can't even in principle transplant is the brain. The like the heart, pancreas, the liver, the lungs, as far as I'm concerned, they're really support characters. They're there to keep the brain activity interesting and and going.
Their wordsThat world is is generated by the brain. And so, if you can get visuals the visual signal, auditory signal, balance, motor, like somatic sensory motor in and out of the brain, that is that is an end in itself. That is the central object.
Our reading
If this work succeeds, the sense of jeopardy that comes with having a body will simply fade.
Their wordsAnd I think that if we're successful, what will happen is that sense of jeopardy will fade. Like we will be we will just become much less fragile.
Their wordsthe other extreme is if we're serious about exploring the universe and going to the stars, we are going to have to adapt ourselves to that environment. We're not going to export Earth with us everywhere we go.
Their wordsWell, I mean first of all, I think that talking or writing is thinking.
Their wordsIt might turn out to be like AR AR glasses where it's just we were our attention was already fully 100% occupied and putting it on the face didn't really change that. We were already consuming all of the available time.