Recent comments in /f/Futurology

pete_68 t1_j9rln9b wrote

>I heard that with things such as brain/computer interfaces, neural implants, and mind uploading we can delete memories,

You heard wrong. It's science fiction.

We have no real idea how memories are stored, beyond a fairly basic level. We know that the hippocampus is involved in storing memories and if you destroy it, you can't create new memories, but memories aren't stored in a folder somewhere in your brain. You can't just go in an delete a memory. They're stored throughout your brain (edit: Specifically the neocortex, but this is a pretty extensive area of the brain). That's why you can remember smells and sounds and sights and the way things feel, because they're stored in all those parts of the brain where those sensations are experienced. And they're interweaved with each other. You couldn't destroy one without destroying others.

This is not something that we're anywhere close to being competent to messing with.

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ttkciar t1_j9rjahf wrote

Having access to knowledge is not the same thing as being educated.

Education not only causes knowledge to be retained; it also causes it to be integrated together, so that we can view the world in a cross-disciplinary way, and informs our behavior in ways both profound and mundane.

For example, when you see someone tailgating in traffic, you know they slept through their math and physics classes. No amount of information on tap will change their stupid behavior the way education could.

Even with all the information made available to the public about the coronavirus, people still act in stupendous ignorance of the consequences of their bad behavior, and spread the disease in entirely avoidable ways.

My hope is that LLMs like ChatGPT can be integrated into virtual tutors, so that students can get better individualized attention and receive the education we all need them to have.

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