The rising trend of transhumanism in the world

[Northumber]

Neuralink update, Fall 2025

I think it may be time to open a new thread on transhumanism. I've been looking and couldn't find one. But maybe it works here in AI for now.

Neuralink has been making significant progress on implanting chips. There are currently 13 people using their hardware and software.

It's linked to AI because they use machine learning techniques to decode the signals from the brain.

Here's one of their scientists giving updates on it. It's sort of funny because he does it so blandly. There was a splashy update Musk did about 6 months ago.

They are implanting chips in the brains of paralytic people first, because, of course all progress is just intended for alleviation of suffering right?

2:55 - Introduction of their first product, Telepathy. tag line: you gain digital freedom.
He shows a guy playing a video game with his mind, and another guy controlling a robotic arm with his mind.
He states that the goal is to read and write from any part of the brain: motor, speech, visual. But here he says that they also want to augment human abilities.

7:50 - shows how they thread wires finer than a human hair (1000 channels - more channels the better) through the brain.
25mm size hole (size of a quarter). They are working towards a one click surgery. Fully robotic surgery.
Now you are a cyborg.

13:00 - starts showing the signals recorded from the brain. Implant deals with bandwidth, compression, spike detection. Then signals send through bluetooth.
inductive charging for the implant, so that's convenient .

17:00 the neural decoding... this is the Machine learning part.
You connect to an app on your phone! fun apps there, you can even name your implant! ( I could only imagine the subscription service for this. The market possibilities are endless I'm sure! )
They have to calibrate it. Neural waves essentially drift. So they use Machine Learning to help calibrate your brain. Some users have described that feeling as meditative. Well how about that.

 

[Northumber]

Transhumanism is growing in popularity and many of our tech overlords are avid fans of it. It can be argued that most of us are already participating in transhumanistic trends. I believe transhumanism is blantantly aniti-human and anti-Christian. It's a timely topic for discussion.

 

[Blade Runner]

Transhumanism is growing in popularity and many of our tech overlords are avid fans of it. It can be argued that most of us are already participating in transhumanistic trends. I believe transhumanism is blantantly aniti-human and anti-Christian. It's a timely topic for discussion.

I'm big on types/archetypes as you know. What would you say are at least types that currently exist that are forms of what is intended? The cell phone is something I can think of that is an extension of our being now, which is both foreseeable and sad, and it's part of our desire to make life easier due to outsourcing - which can be good for life or trade but also has costs, of course.

Technically though, transhumanism is addition and body modification with (mostly) inorganic things.

You can argue ALL tech is essentially anti-human. Uncle Ted basically saw this, but it's unrealistic. It's actually the only thing that doesn't seem completely necessary for God to "allow" that clearly foils humans, another type and story from history/mythology. It's always been the case. I have no issue with God of course, so I think a natural counter would be that God bestowed us with gifts and abilities to conquer the world and make certain things in life easier, but like with all things, good things used in various ways, or gone too far, can be very bad for us.

 

[Northumber]

I'm big on types/archetypes as you know. What would you say are at least types that currently exist that are forms of what is intended? The cell phone is something I can think of that is an extension of our being now, which is both foreseeable and sad, and it's part of our desire to make life easier due to outsourcing - which can be good for life or trade but also has costs, of course.

I agree an archetype is the smart phone. Elon Musk has used the phone as an example of how we are already cyborgs - he explicitly says that. He thinks the bandwidth of using your fingers to type is just too slow, and the next logical step is to bypass "archaic" methods like that and decode/transmit directly from the brain. Musk is not alone in that mentality.

Everything is an exchange, we get power, but at the same time, we outsource, as you say, which costs part of who we are. I think it's a slow ratcheting effect throughout history (but speeding up now).

You can argue ALL tech is essentially anti-human. Uncle Ted basically saw this, but it's unrealistic. It's actually the only thing that doesn't seem completely necessary for God to "allow" that clearly foils humans, another type and story from history/mythology. It's always been the case. I have no issue with God of course, so I think a natural counter would be that God bestowed us with gifts and abilities to conquer the world and make certain things in life easier, but like with all things, good things used in various ways, or gone too far, can be very bad for us.

Yes, it's difficult to draw the line on tech. I've thought about the question whether ALL tech is bad as well. I think it has to do with our mindset. Are we trying to control?, or are we accepting God's will? These questions aren't simple and depend on each individual and their inner motivations.

Just as a thought experiment: take a time period from within our lived memory, and imagine it never progresses in tech from there. It stays roughly the same.
Would we be happy with it staying the same? Did we need all the new tech from, say, the 1980s or 90s until now? At least for me I think I'd be fine without the new stuff since then. It makes me wonder about people from previous eras in the past few hundred years. How many of them would have been happy with things staying the same?