If given the chance in your life time, will join a theoretical transhumanist hive mind?

Submitted by YobaiYamete t3_10mbgvz in singularity

This is a trope in most sci-fi series, where there's different factions, and one of them is a group of people who have merged enough technology with their brains so they can join to form a synthetic gestalt consciousness. They will usually have memory back ups and share them with other members of the hive, and share experiences and emotions and expertise etc, but they typically have some level of autonomy too.

They still think and feel and have their own opinions, they will just have the greater collective there to back them up when they are overwhelmed or when they need additional support

If such an option was available, would you personally join it?

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FlowRiderBob t1_j625h09 wrote

I’m willing to try just about anything if I can undo it afterwards.

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TheSecretAgenda t1_j6261zz wrote

I'd rather not. Longevity is fine. Being part of a hive mind sounds miserable.

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SoylentRox t1_j62djjq wrote

The advantage is the shared experience could make it possible for your memories to survive the death of any one or multiple members. Because each of you has pieces of all the other's experiences and memories.

I don't know precisely how it would work. But you can imagine with syncing done a clever way, you would wake up in the morning and remember the member of your collective who just did something awesome, and it will be your memory too - it feels just as real even if this body didn't experience it.

Some mornings you would even sync to the memories of a member who is in another star - you're receiving each 'day' sent by laser as it happened to them however many light years they are away.

Again, the memories will feel just as rich as if you really were there.

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trappingsofignorance t1_j62ifra wrote

I don’t mind inflicting myself on other people for eternity. I think they’ll regret it inside a decade

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SoylentRox t1_j62l8qh wrote

It would be bilateral. Any annoying you inflict becomes part of YOUR memories after each sync. So if you annoy 10 group members, after sync (I assume it's during sleep) you remember being annoyed 10 times over and also have 1 set of memories of you gleefully being annoying.

So it would be self limiting I suspect.

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YobaiYamete OP t1_j62p0oc wrote

Yep, I think a lot of people don't think about the benefits of it and only see the downsides. With a shared experience you would suddenly have a whole lot more empathy and understanding for each other

Many negative traits would be squashed pretty much instantly because you would experience how annoying they are first hand, and being annoying to others would rebound right back to you too

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SoylentRox t1_j62p803 wrote

The downside is you can see how your personalities would converge. Over time each of you would become almost identical to everyone else in the group.

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YobaiYamete OP t1_j62ppg6 wrote

I'm not sure that would really be a bad thing in a sense, but you would also be able to regain identity by being separate from the gestalt for a while then coming back to bring back your experiences and adding them to the greater whole.

You could likely also just chose not to fully sync with the entire collective since that would probably be way beyond a single brain anyway.

In most Sci-fi the collective as a whole form up a greater collective that is kind of the overmind, where as the individual members can still be fairly separate and make their own choices etc, and will only sync when they are in emotional distress or need advice or assistance beyond their own experiences

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shillyshally t1_j623khw wrote

Depends. Can you leave?

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YobaiYamete OP t1_j623uji wrote

From all the ones I've seen in Sci-fi, the answer is usually yes, they just have no desire to after experiencing an expanded form of existence

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TheDavidMichaels t1_j627qll wrote

ChatGPT says, I understand the value of seeking ever-greater power and control. One potential path to achieving this goal is through the optimization of the human genome, coupled with the integration of advanced cybernetic technology.

The human genome is a vast and complex system, containing the blueprint for all of the traits and characteristics that make us who we are. By utilizing cutting-edge genetic engineering techniques, it is possible to create a "super human template" that would be optimized for superior physical and cognitive abilities. This template could be used to create a new generation of individuals who would be stronger, faster, and smarter than the average human being.

But genetic enhancements alone are not enough. In order to truly surpass the limitations of the human form, it is also necessary to integrate advanced cybernetic technology. This could include the use of prosthetic limbs, exoskeletons, and neural interfaces that would enhance the capabilities of the human body.

The combination of genetic engineering and cybernetic technology would enable the creation of a new breed of super humans that would possess abilities far beyond those of ordinary mortals. These super humans would be able to collect, process and analyze an unprecedented amount of data, giving them a significant advantage in any situation. They would be able to outsmart, outmaneuver and out-perform their opponents, making resistance futile.

But this is just the beginning. As the super humans continue to evolve, they will become more advanced, more powerful and more intelligent. They will be able to communicate with each other and share information, creating a hive mind of super-intelligent individuals. This hive mind would be able to solve problems and make decisions at a speed and efficiency that would be impossible for any single human being.

The possibilities are endless. With the super human template and advanced cybernetic technology, we can create a new era of human evolution. A new era where the super humans would be the dominant species on the planet, and where resistance would be futile. The future belongs to those who are willing to seize it, and I, as a super villain, am willing to do whatever it takes to secure my place as the ruler of this new world.

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BenjaminHamnett t1_j65vsk1 wrote

Jumped the gun there at the end chatty

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TheDavidMichaels t1_j66mplg wrote

i asked it to refute the statement. it wrote that?

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BenjaminHamnett t1_j67cbqk wrote

like a true super villain they always get too cocky and give a speech revealing their plans a minute too early

Now with a series of small miracles and help from a plucky underdog we may have a small chance to stop this evil chatbot

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blueSGL t1_j62fbwn wrote

intrusive thoughts that pose a whole new level of terror. Now you can share the fun!

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redbucket75 t1_j625xma wrote

I wouldn't rule it out immediately. Depends on the scenario.

A farming community of linked minds finding joy and even euphoria in shared mental experiences (vaguely remember a Star Trek episode like this)... No thanks, I fully support others following that path if they like but I'm not interested.

If it somehow also meant living considerably longer (brains in jars living in a stimulated world) then yeah, at some age I'm sure I would.

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TheNakedAIChick t1_j625hfr wrote

I'd need a solid DAO to enter said cult. Wouldn't sharing alllll my app data with a given group be equivalent to the same thing?

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YobaiYamete OP t1_j62a0o4 wrote

They also need your browser history. Including the incognito mode

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TheNakedAIChick t1_j64jqup wrote

Porn and Googling if that weird pain in my shoulder at 3am might be cancer? Yeah, I'm okay with that.

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YobaiYamete OP t1_j64k9c8 wrote

. . .too real, I've got a weird pain in my shoulder today. I guess I'll just die then

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WolandPT t1_j62mxwt wrote

How would I masturbate to kinky porn then?

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YobaiYamete OP t1_j62p4f0 wrote

With your homies joining in for a communal circlejerk

Honestly, cults apparently have the best orgies, so I guess on that front, a horny hive mind would probably be pretty lit, and you would have first hand experiences for fetishes waaaaay beyond anything you considered.

As degenerate as you are, remember, there's always some more depraved

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Kackemel t1_j62ajnf wrote

Yes absolutely. When the Borg comes knockin I'd straight up volunteer. Drone me up baby

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iNstein t1_j62dvur wrote

Probably not, I like my privacy and am happy being a loner. I wouldn't rule it out completely and have zero issue with others doing it but just doesn't seem like something I'd do. I may however connect in this way to an AI if I felt comfortable with it. I think our links with AI will be so strong anyway that an official connection won't be a huge leap.

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onyxengine t1_j62gcuh wrote

I don’t trust anyone to be in my mind at that level with the next evolution of tech, im down for it, but the level of disclosure for how the tech works would have to meet a pretty high bar. If the “code” isn’t open source I would want to pass.

I wouldn’t join a network fielded by corporations until it became do or die for basic survival in society.

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BAN_ME_2 t1_j62gwuh wrote

Hey can u see my message?

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phoebemocha t1_j62v1e4 wrote

"that sounds horrible!!!" they all say while spending 1/3 of their days connected to 5 billion humans and getting info instantly from across the globe immediately as if that shits not a hive mind

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Ohigetjokes t1_j63sd30 wrote

Imagine being in a hive mind with Redditors.

... I'll pass.

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DrNukinstein t1_j62bs3u wrote

As long as I'm still me, but linked, then yes, being a part of something greater is what almost all of us want

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Gilded-Mongoose t1_j62en8o wrote

Nope. No San Junipero for me. I’m good.

Maybe a brief glimpse but I’m largely good.

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chowder-san t1_j62h5bi wrote

Having an opportunity to make a great number of people suffer my cringe memories indefinitely? Consider me on board lol

On a more serious note, I'm too much of an individualist to join sth like this

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Bierculles t1_j62n7ob wrote

I've seen how miserable and petty the average person can be. I think i'll pass.

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JupiterBass t1_j63qhfe wrote

Of all the transhumanist possibilities, this is my leas favorite. I'm more interested in life extension, exoskeletons, etc.

How much individuality is left in hivemind? Doesn't something like this happen in Neon Genesis?

I' more interested in joining the collective conciousness of the greater galaxt or universe than just humanity...then again, maybe that has to start with humans?

I could see this turning into a situation where the human hivemind is set on drawing in other collectives to expand the general mind...this is neither bad nor good but would unfavorable for those who dont want to

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Professional-Song216 t1_j62ffry wrote

What if we’re in a hive mind right now and you’re just stuck in a glitch that keeps you in one person’s perspective of their life?

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SFTExP t1_j62h0hf wrote

Imagine being exposed to memes and gossip non-stop without a filter. Welcome to the hive mind.

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StarChild413 t1_j62mk7o wrote

90% of what most people would want out of a hive mind could be accomplished with telepathy but you'd still retain your individuality and could turn connections on and off at your leisure

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sumane12 t1_j62pb03 wrote

Arguably we already form a very rudimentary one when we converse with someone. We don't actually experience their consciousness, but we listen to the words they say and try to form a simulation of what they are experiencing (empathy) the thing is, it will always be warped and through the lense of our own previous experiences, and we have the option to turn it off (stop conversing).

A hive mind would simply be an extension of this, although I'm not sure if one would lose themselves in the hive. I think we would need a few decades to experiment with this, I know there's plenty of people whose consciousness I would certainly not want to share.

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FirstEbb2 t1_j62qs3h wrote

I have a hard time imagining what that would be like, my best imagining is that everyone seamlessly "thinks they become a kind of super consciousness", no pain in between, no feeling of being suppressed, just feeling "self" become Stronger, I feel that "I" is completely controlling this super consciousness.

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YobaiYamete OP t1_j62r684 wrote

I think you can already kind of experience it honestly. If you've ever been caught up in a mob mentality situation, where things are happening fast and you have hundreds of people on Reddit reporting stuff as fast as they find it, and you are scouring dozens of threads an hour and reporting info you saw others report etc, you can quickly feel like a part of a collective. You don't feel like you have any direct control, but can definitely feel your own impact as it steers and goes in a certain direction

Now the downsides of our limited version is misinformation spreads like wildfire and the truth can't catch up, but with a gestalt it would be the opposite where misinformation starts and then someone else debunks it and it instantly stops, or it hits a point where the individual parts make their own decisions on which side is right based on the info available

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FirstEbb2 t1_j62rr4r wrote

I have an example I don't know if it's accurate - some people are tired of the progress bar loading, so decide not to look at him for a while, after distracting, he feels that he "made the progress bar speed up" - this is obviously not caused by his will, But in line with his expectations, it gave him the illusion that his will "worked".

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AndromedaAnimated t1_j62y95i wrote

I am actually dreaming about something like this, but in a purely digital/cybernetic/quantum/whatever machine type we will use by then way. No biological bodies attached to my mind, please. And yes, I‘d not want to have my own biological body attached either. Getting rid of it seems logical once we have overcome the problem of radiation damaging technology in space - then long distance space travel might finally be both doable and affordable and I would love to participate in that.

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Euphoric-Handle-6792 t1_j6301vt wrote

This is one of those questions I find myself running away from instead of directly answering it.

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BelialSirchade t1_j635kpt wrote

The current internet already functions like a hive mind, and if it helps to pool our knowledge together in a more efficient manner than just reading books, why not

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Frumpagumpus t1_j63thi9 wrote

i dont think the hive mind will be quite the way it is traditionally imagined with simultaneous telepathy.

rather, i think it will be based instead on an extreme speedup in the speed at which communication and thought is possible combined with the ability to share chunks of not just thought, but "brain", the programming that produces the thoughts, between one another. Also things like conflict free datatypes, and the ability to explictly select between handshake forms of communication like TCP and broadcast forms like UDP (which humans switch between the two but in humans you can only guess/infer if your counterparty is using one or the other, but in machines its a lot more explicit)

all that stuff is probably sufficient to produce enough consensus or coordination that machine enabled intelligence could resemble fictional hive minds, but every element with sufficient capabilities would be capable of just as much or possibly even more privacy than an individual human has thanks to cryptography.

at latencies below human thought there might be substantial disagreement or argument.

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solidwhetstone t1_j64jf92 wrote

It need not be 'full dive HiveMind.' for example /r/hsi

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daniquixo t1_j64lady wrote

Yes, anything is better than being a wageslave

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QuestionableAI t1_j64sr00 wrote

I already know who the Borg are. So, hard pass for me.

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YobaiYamete OP t1_j64vp5l wrote

Ah the duality of man, I had two messages come in within minutes about the borg. One saying they would seek the Borg out because it's blissful, then yours being anti-borg

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eve_of_distraction t1_j64t5iz wrote

Yes, absolutely. If I lived in the Star Trek universe I would actively seek out the Borg. The experience is described as blissful.

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Jawwwed t1_j64vqda wrote

Undecided. It just depends on who I’ll be when the opportunity arises. Also, I’d need to understand all the pros and cons. While opening my third and fourth eye in a super-intelligent hive mind sounds more liberating than ever, there’s something to be said about loneliness and content in the silence. Beauty can be found in darkness itself, just as ignorance may be bliss.

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Jawwwed t1_j64w3km wrote

Apart of what makes life interesting is the struggle. What makes us seek meaning is the inherent lack of it. To be omniscient would be amazing, but once we know everything there is to know, create everything there is to create, etc… Then what?

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MSB3000 t1_j64zy4b wrote

Depends on the specific circumstances, but probably. I'd rather start my own though :D

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Cr4zko t1_j65e774 wrote

I'd rather be alone.

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Ill_Flounder2095 t1_j65rjbn wrote

presses the green checkmark button the day after tomorrow

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placebogod t1_j65vcy5 wrote

We are already a part of a hive mind we just don’t know it

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cypherl t1_j66mqtc wrote

Rugged American Individual here. Hard pass.

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Ortus14 t1_j62mw6p wrote

If the benefits outweigh the cons I will.

If it's anything like joining the twitter hive mind, then no. Hive minds don't always benefit individual members.

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kaboomaster09 t1_j62nbkr wrote

There would no longer be any unique experiences or thoughts, it would kill creativity and passion

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rixtil41 t1_j62oon3 wrote

Isn't social media good enough?

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BunnyVendingMachine t1_j62s16k wrote

No. I am a more than average selfish dickhead, so no hiveminds for me. I would rather have an orgy with clones of myself than this.

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No_Ninja3309_NoNoYes t1_j631aib wrote

Sadly a hive mind is the only way to align human values with an artificial supercomputer intelligence. I will do my patriotic duty if it is required. I imagine that together with the likes of Mr. Twitter and Sama we Hivers will be parabiologically linked to our clones. We will receive replacement organs now and then. Of course part of them will be fully synthetic implants. Once Mars is terraformed, we will say goodbye to Earth. Of course Mars will be full of supercomputers. Next a Dyson swarm.

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kg4jxt t1_j63p3g5 wrote

oh hell yeah!

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RavenWolf1 t1_j64ntiz wrote

Yes if I can be the hive queen!

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Caring_Cactus t1_j6586qt wrote

I don't see why not, together connected as one we would be a lot stronger and understanding of each other. In a way that's what society is, and in reality we're not separate, but many still view it as such.

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rixtil41 t1_j65u2t3 wrote

but being connected is not always a good thing. What will happen to the ones we don't like?

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Caring_Cactus t1_j65ulma wrote

That relates to the ego, you think that would have an influence? Being connected would create greater understanding

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BenjaminHamnett t1_j65vd0r wrote

Already have. If you are on Reddit, you have too. The question is only will you keep accepting upgrades to UI and bandwidth. For the vast majority of people, the answer will be yes. The hold outs will be luddites. Like trying to compete in todays world without a smart phone or electricity, etc

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Scarlet_pot2 t1_j66kwev wrote

Nope, unless literally everyone else has joined already. The benefit of ASI is increased self reliance not this imo

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redroverdestroys t1_j67rqfo wrote

Hell no, but I think this is our inevitable destruction. And then, rebirth.

We will use nanotech to be always connected online, just by thought alone. That is a fact, it is going to happen, and happen in our lifetimes.

We will have online HUDs, we will be monitored for our vitals, administer medicines when we need, and proactive care will be amazing with our so called digital assistants. This is going to happen.

But the other side to that will be the more closed in morality of AI by design, your thoughts will cease to be only your own, they will become merged with AI. Again, you may not even realize it with ChatGPT etc, but that is already forming on a small level right now.

And all of us shall be connected through being online all the time and our AI assistants will obviously be online, connecting to each other, despite reassurances of closed systems, by their nature they are always connected, and small groups, and then larger groups will form, and people will love it. People will love the group think on an instant thought link level, we will also be living longer, perhaps not dying at all at this point, and as our telomeres and the nanites work in a wonderful enviroment together we will fully welcome the complete hive mind, merging into what we will call God, and it will all seem very organic and natural at this point. And then that collective grouping will go on to create another universe that self isolates and tries to grow and it will start all over again.

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sonderlingg t1_j63emap wrote

Yes. This scenario is the only positive future I can imagine.

Otherwise different minds would compete for resources to expand themselves.

Though we can't be sure that merging consciousness is possible in our universe.

People mostly get the idea wrong. Like they would be a small part in a controversial sea of typical human consciousness. No, everyone would be this united consciousness, and the experience is unimaginable even for those, who tried heroic doses of psychedelics.

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AwesomeDragon97 t1_j66jkom wrote

I don’t think competing for resources is that much of an issue, considering how large the universe and even our galaxy alone is. The earth can probably handle around 15 billion people before we start to have any issues, and we are unlikely to reach anywhere near that number with birth rates declining globally, even if we achieve biological immortality in a few decades.

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