{"id":89769,"date":"2024-03-21T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/elon-musk-visionnaire-sans-scrupules\/"},"modified":"2024-08-28T16:48:21","modified_gmt":"2024-08-28T14:48:21","slug":"elon-musk-visionnaire-sans-scrupules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/elon-musk-visionnaire-sans-scrupules\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk, an unscrupulous visionary?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On January 30, 2024, Elon Musk announced that<\/a> his company, Neuralink,[1]<\/a><\/sup> had successfully implanted neurons in a human being. The implant consists of a thousand electrodes, positioned in the region of the brain that controls the intention to move. This experiment follows on from those carried out on monkeys that were able to play the game of Pong using their brain activity alone.<\/h6>\n\n\n<\/div>\n
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Such experiments are not entirely new: in July 2022, Synchron, an American company specialising in endovascular brain-computer interfaces, announced the first implants of this type in the United States. The wearer of a StentrodeTM<\/sup> implant is able to use a numeric keypad by thought. We might also mention the work of <\/a>Clinatec<\/a>, a French research centre based in Grenoble, which has documented the case of a patient able to walk by controlling his legs with his mind.[2]<\/a><\/sup> Of course, the short-term ambition is medical, but the prospects for these devices go far beyond that.<\/p>\n

Neuralink\u2019s activities should be seen in the context of the considerable growth in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The spectacular growth in Nvidia\u2019s market capitalisation[3]<\/a><\/sup> in recent weeks and the statements made by its chairman are evidence of a boom in demand for the microprocessors used by AI algorithms. At the same time, Microsoft is investing massively in a microprocessor foundry, to the tune of US$300 billion.<\/p>\n

This profusion of AI applications can take two main directions. The aim of this equipment may be to replace humans, with the threats that this implies for higher category jobs and, as a corollary, an increase in the supply of low added value activities. Alternatively, this spread may be part of a logic of complementarity, which would have less brutal social consequences.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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\n Voir aussi<\/span>\n
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\n \n \"\"<\/a>\n <\/span>\n \n Elon Musk, the Monkey and the Three Pigs: A Transhumanist Fable?<\/a>\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n <\/a>\n <\/span>\n
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26 October 2021<\/div>\n MENEI Philippe<\/a>\n
\n 8 p.\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n\n Forum\n <\/a>\n Science and Technology<\/a>\n Society<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the first case, the firefighter is replaced by a robot capable of moving around in a difficult and dangerous environment; this could be a group of robots capable of coordinating with each other, or even a swarm of machines. In the second case, the human firefighter is assisted by an exoskeleton and real-time information systems that help him to carry out his mission while preserving his physical integrity. This second scheme obviously offers increased interaction capabilities between the humans themselves for augmented human-machine intelligence. In this last hypothesis, which is linked to the myth of the cyborg, internal brain-computer interfaces take on a very special role, as they free the human-machine pair from external interfaces that constitute a weak link in the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The screen and keyboard have had their day, and have been partly replaced by smartphones, which are now available to 51% of the world\u2019s population, and which could in turn be replaced by new devices. Sales of new terminals are falling. At the same time, sales of connected devices (laptops, headsets, watches, bracelets, glasses and clothing) are rising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In medicine, electrodes on the body\u2019s surface are widely used, and endovascular devices are becoming commonplace. Conversely, sales of virtual reality headsets are stagnating, which seems to be one of the factors holding back the development of the metaverse. In other words, the digital world is getting closer and closer to the human body, with the exception of the brain. Until now, the brain has been the last frontier for prostheses. Clearly, Elon Musk\u2019s ambition is to tackle it.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n

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Unsurprisingly, the project is proving controversial. Experiments on monkeys had already given rise to an investigation because of the high mortality rate among the guinea pigs. The prospects opened up by implanting the device in a patient raise a host of questions. Some commentators, such as Laurent Alexandre (an entrepreneur known for his techno-solutionist stance),[4]<\/a><\/sup> see this as a step towards augmented intelligence and a response to the threat to humanity posed by the advent of artificial intelligence with capabilities superior to human intelligence. Advocates of transhumanism, on the other hand, see it as an opening towards the transfer of our thinking being to artificial media. Ethical concerns are particularly acute. Philosophers such as Julie Girard[5]<\/a><\/sup> are already highlighting the risk this poses to human identity and the individual narrative of each person.<\/p>\n

Given the speed at which AI is being developed and disseminated, the issues surrounding machine-brain links are now topical. This is an area of breakthrough innovation, but it also represents the crossing of an ethical boundary that may be comparable to experiments on embryos, which have been subject to strict controls. Once again, Elon Musk has followed his intuition and embarked on trials without bothering about the consequences or the opinion of the scientific community. A gamble worth billions, and for what purpose?<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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\n Voir aussi<\/span>\n
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\n \n \"\"<\/a>\n <\/span>\n \n Society and the Challenge of Scientific and Technological Advances<\/a>\n \n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n <\/a>\n <\/span>\n
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26 December 2023<\/div>\n COURTIER-ORGOGOZO Virginie<\/a>\n DEVILLERS Laurence<\/a>\n
\n 20 p.\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n\n Journal Article\n <\/a>\n Science and Technology<\/a>\n Society<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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N.B.:<\/em> this article has been translated from French by DeepL, and revised by the author and Futuribles.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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  1. \n

    Company co-founded in 2016 with the participation of Elon Musk and specialising in direct neural interface brain implants. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    See the original research article: Lorach<\/span> Henri et alii, \u201c<\/em>Walking Naturally after Spinal Cord Injury Using a Brain-spine Interface<\/a>\u201d, Nature<\/em>, Vol. 618, 2023, p. 126-133. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    A company specialising in the design of microprocessors used in AI, Nvidia has seen its valuation increase fivefold since the arrival of ChatGPT; in February 2024, its capitalisation was USD 2,000 billion, beating that of Amazon. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  4. \n

    Author of La Guerre des intelligences. Artificial intelligence versus human intelligence<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Paris: JC Latt\u00e8s, 2017. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  5. \n

    Author of Le Cr\u00e9puscule des licornes <\/em>and Les Larmes de Narcisse<\/em>, Paris: Gallimard, 2023 and 2024 respectively. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    On January 30, 2024, Elon Musk announced that his company, Neuralink,[1] had successfully implanted neurons in a human being. The implant consists of a thousand electrodes, positioned in the region of the brain that controls the intention to move. This experiment follows on from those carried out on monkeys that were able to play the … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":87865,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"both","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[210,212],"keyword":[988,962,1298,1189],"class_list":["post-89769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newswatch","tag-science-et-technique-en","tag-societe-en","keyword-intelligence-artificielle-en","keyword-biotechnologie-en","keyword-cerveau-en","keyword-cybernetique-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89769"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97159,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89769\/revisions\/97159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89769"},{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=89769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}