This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I just need to open my work laptop and watch it utterly fail at even the most basic tasks for me to be convinced our level of technology is no where near where it needs to be to start sticking electronics in people's heads.
Finally, Half-Life 3
The picture in the post is unhinged
It's fairly on brand for Valve, one of their banners was a guy with pipe valve stuck to his head.
More than stuck on
So, to all the people freaking out and saying this is as bad as Musk and Neuralink:
There is here zero mention of things like 'being able to take a phone call' or 'bluetooth your brain directly into a keyboard or mouse or other people's brains' as Musk was saying.
This seems very much intended to be aimed at legitimate medical conditions.
They didn't steal the PhD work of an actual pioneer in the development of medical brain implants via poaching a number of grad students who worked with him (which is what happened with Neuralink, btw), they are instead partnering with basically a nonprofit cooperative of the world's foremost experts on nanoelectronics development, who have an established track record of developing various medical devices.
...
If news comes out about GabeN electrocuting monkeys and pigs to either death, or insanity/brain damage so extreme it causes them to kill themselves to escape the pain (again, this literally happened at Neuralink), then I will absolutely do a 180 heel pivot and condemn the fuck out of that.
Just to be clear here, a BCI is probably the very last thing I would ever be an early adopter of as some kind of commercial, general use product. Seems absolutely insane given the rampant cybersecurity problems just basically everywhere all the time, not to mention I just don't like the idea of an actual chip in my actual brain, permanent holes in my skull.
Valve and GabeN are not some paragons of virtue, they basically invented (and still widely use and encourage) half of the monetization and dark pattern bullshit that is now everywhere in the entire games industry.
... But to me at least, this seems nowhere near as openly, comically, real world supervillain levels of evil as Elon and Neuralink.
All you had to do was nothing.
All you had to do was NOTHING, Gabe!
A culture that obsoletes electronics every couple of years and enshittifies services every couple of other years cannot be seriously talking about MMIs/BCIs.
The only condition under which I wouid ever consider getting a neural implant, is if the implant and its software is open source.
Any closed source thing you stick in your brain will ultimately doom you.
Besides that, there'd also actually have to be a purpose. As it stands now, cybernetics isn't advanced enough to turn me into a full cyborg, so probably never in my lifetime.
All these brain chips will primarily, initially, be for crippled people. Maybe a controller chip to control prosthetic arms, or something to let a paraplegic person control a computer.
It's still fun to hear the man himself talking about a larger than life virtual reality.
The tech still scares me, I'm not even sure I'd be okay with EEG-like patches that work both ways (scifi, I know), not to mention brain surgery, for pure decadence. But the quality of life benefits really can be huge for many, and that really got my fantasy going, once I 'accepted' we figured out the limits and safeties of bodily autonomy.
I don't think it's expected that the average person will be jumping at the opportunity to tinker with their neurons. The first line of people to get such implants will almost certainly be people with physical disabilities.
Regarding closed source ultimately being a net negative to your well being, I think you're absolutely right. Unfortunately with as niche as a product like this will be for some time, I worry any corporation willing to put forward the funding isn't going to be willing to open it up to such a degree.
had pass on all this bullshit.
This will be for paralyzed people
It will be used for paralyzed people to give it a soft spin, but the goal really is a super soldier or many other applications in the military industrial complex. If it's not for blowing up people, it's for killing people or controlling people. It's not that technology is evil. It's that our economic system and our mode of production and who benefits. That's the problem. The rich are just basically building our prison.
Yeah, maybe just leave all that for people born in 2030.
The fact that most people would obviously never want to get a brain chip implant, combined with the fact that multiple billionaires are developing brain chip implants, indicates that there are plans in some circles to incentivize or coerce people into getting a brain chip implant at some point in the future.
Medicine in the US is very expensive. There is a lot of money in helping with neurological conditions or paralysis.
It’s risk/reward. If brain chips made me twice as productive or intelligent, I’d probably tolerate a lot more risk than if it was just a way to check my Instagram notifications without pulling out my phone.
Productive or intelligent for whose benefit? If it's so that you can perform better under wage labor conditions, that's coercion.
HL3 is going to be launched with Valve's brain chip.
They don't even have to make the game. The chip will convince you that you have already played the game and it's the best game ever.
HL3 is going to be launched with Valve’s brain chip.
The headcrabs feel like headcrabs!
"Now, if you're part of Control Group Kepler-Seven, we implanted a tiny microchip about the size of a postcard into your skull. Most likely you've forgotten it's even there, but if it starts vibrating and beeping during this next test, let us know, because that means it's about to hit five hundred degrees, so we're gonna need to go ahead and get that out of you pretty fast." - Cave Johnson
Headlines you didn't expect to read. Rather a Gabe chip than at Musk chip for sure
how about both of them fuck off and stop shoving their proprietary tech in our heads, just a thought
Valve did contribute quite a bit to OSS iirc
oh sorry just open up my asshole then
I'm not sure that that's the optimal route to the brain. I'm not a brain doctor though, for all I know suppository-style brain chips are the way to go.
I didn't know they were doing brainchips. I trust Gabe with it way more than fElon, for sure.
Ohh...eh.
2019 left me with the impression Starfish was wireless.
Sticking stuff into my brain isn't on my to-do list.
Last time I checked, the "brain implants" from Valve looked like this:
Karen Sandler did a great talk on closed source software medical devices many years ago.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qW1h1s_ojpM
This even more the case if it's your brain! It probably won't work for decades, but we should get house in order long before it does.
I think we all know where this is going.
Yeah, no, I’m not putting anything in my brain that isn’t open-source from end to end. And even then probably nah.
Why so pessimistic? With any luck brainchips will mean the end of annoying adverts once and for all. You'll just feel an unexpected desire to acquire certain products. And maybe crippling headaches or a nauseating feeling of unease if you ignore these urges
Where is the ~~Github~~ Gitea/forgejo/CodeBerg/etc repo? OSHW certification?
Until then unfortunately it's "just" Gabe's fanboyism. Better learn from open academic research or OSHW projects.
