[HN Gopher] Can Machines Control Our Brains?
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       Can Machines Control Our Brains?
        
       Author : theafh
       Score  : 35 points
       Date   : 2021-05-17 17:39 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
        
       | jcun4128 wrote:
       | Unrelated thought: if you could rent out part of your brain for
       | compute while you sleep, that would be neat.
        
         | cryptoz wrote:
         | This is the original plot of The Matrix
        
         | walterbell wrote:
         | If sleep removes toxins from the brain, what would poor sleep
         | do to lifespan? https://www.bbc.com/news/health-24567412
         | 
         |  _> "The brain only has limited energy at its disposal and it
         | appears that it must choose between two different functional
         | states - awake and aware or asleep and cleaning up," said
         | researcher Dr Maiken Nedergaard. "You can think of it like
         | having a house party. You can either entertain the guests or
         | clean up the house, but you can't really do both at the same
         | time."_
        
         | randmeerkat wrote:
         | Until someone tries to mine Bitcoin and burns out part of your
         | brain in the process.
        
         | meowface wrote:
         | That seems like it'd probably decrease your quality of sleep,
         | though. Sleep is somewhat of an active process; I don't think
         | it's analogous to an idle CPU. (If it were, it seems unlikely
         | evolution would've conserved that trait so widely.)
        
       | ergot_vacation wrote:
       | This of course assumes they are not already doing so. "What are
       | you talking about, that's gibberish-" You start to reply. But of
       | course that would be exactly the response of a human controlled
       | by a machine.
        
         | onion2k wrote:
         | Would a machine, or the person controlling the machine, be
         | concerned about hiding the fact it's controlling you? I don't
         | see why. There's nothing you can do about it whether you know
         | or not.
        
       | briga wrote:
       | Haven't smartphones made it obvious that they can? How many times
       | have you checked your phone today? If they're not literal mind-
       | control devices they're certainly putting thoughts into our heads
       | that wouldn't otherwise be there.
        
         | eternalban wrote:
         | Insert "directly" after "Machines".
        
           | pkdpic_y9k wrote:
           | Insert "to do things more interesting than making in-app
           | purchases?" after "our brains".
        
             | meowface wrote:
             | Insert after question mark: open parenthesis, "yes, if the
             | machine can send signals to some electronics implanted in
             | your brain, like with monkey mindpong and the opening
             | example in the article of the bull being forced to stop
             | charging via remote control", close parenthesis.
        
       | carapace wrote:
       | No mention of Delgado?
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Rodr%C3%ADgue...
        
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