"The distinction between us (humans) and them (the machines) will become almost imperceptible."<p>... Absolutely nothing in the text substantiates any of the very strong claims.
I would recommend anyone that is fascinated by this to read books from two universes; the Revelation Space universe, and the Culture novels. These feature two different looks at how AI & computers integrate or coexist with humans.
And you thought Silicon Valley was a free market Capitalist system. As the article notes, many of the big innovations have come out of Big Government spending of taxpayer dollars through agencies like DARPA. Yet most of the profits stay in private hands.
The specifics - molecular simulation feedback and prosthetic touch - are cool, but title is overblown. e.g. We've had REPLs and cochlear implants for decades.
This seems to talk about a weak form of human-machine integration.<p>Nevertheless, there are some fascinating examples. I remember how a Wired article talked about how advanced computing has made chess players like Magnus Carlsen so much better because he now fights against a computer that can overpower most if not all humans. It's made the marginal cost of practice so much lower as a result: you don't need the best grandmasters in the room to play against something that thinks like them.<p>As a result, similar to how better nutrition and health practices have augmented sports performance, I can see even this weak form of human-machine integration leading to incredible spurts in cognitive proficiency -- though perhaps it will be domain-limited for now.
The title of this article is click-baity in its abuse of the vague, subjective word "consciousness."<p>"<i>[blank] is already happening</i>" is a trope, in wired's headlines, that gets reused frequently, to provoke exasperation. Wired probably advises writers with an internal style guide, since their tone has remained pretty consistent over the years.<p>The article is a lot of hype. There's a mix of several separate concepts brought into play, with anecdotal details, to produce an emotional effect.<p>Without explaining the differences between the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system, ideas are presented to confuse such differentiation.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_nervous_system" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_nervous_system</a><p>The article touches upon advanced ways to interface with the peripheral nervous system of the body, in particular the extremities, addressing paralysis and amputation.<p>The article is not about the brain itself, although witnesses within the article explain their personal experiences. It isn't about machines becoming alive. It isn't about replacing the mind with a computer.<p>It's mostly about advanced ways of restoring sensation and motor control, with computer systems that remap connections beween damaged nerves. The external stimulation of nervous tissue does not translate to a migration of human experience from a biological system to a machine.
<i>and the mysterious hallmark of Homo sapiens - our capacity to experience insights and apply intuition</i><p>AlphaGo demonstrated that it can find a better solution than players who spent their whole lives practicing intuition, which is limited by the brain's "capacity" and "computing power". If the problem is 'asking the right question', perhaps this can eventually also be brute-forced by machines faster.