Thought Experiment Quest / A Mr. Beast Style Challenge: A Year-long Zoom Call, Audio Only. No Mute. No End Call. Could you do it?
What would you do if you joined a zoom call you could never hang up from?
Could you go a whole year where incoming audio transmissions cannot be stopped, muted, or paused?
Picture a type of communications channel with no permission or consent settings for the target or user to control - just signal auditory input with no "off" button. You can, however, jam the signal for short windows of time.
For the purpose of the thought experiment, this technology exists, but no one is aware and no evidence exists to corroborate it's existence.
Consider:
- What would people do or think if they started to hear communications without explanation?
- Would they be aware of the possible technological capabilities of the current time period? Think it was supernatural?
- Would they just keep quiet and never say anything about it for fear of looking foolish or insane?
It's an interesting thought experiment. I wonder if people building BCIs/BCI-adjacent products and services are thinking about this kind of stuff. Would love to know what they think about what the permissions and consent should look like given potential for extreme misuse or abuse.
I have a very strong opinion on it. The "silent" communications channel could have tremendous upside.
- LOEKSS Mode: Stay in contact with people through a hyper-secure/encrypted channel. Lots of Encryption Keeps Stuff Safe.
- Space Telephone: Talk to loved ones super long distance (Range - infinite with expansion to outside Earth as long as there is an interweb and adequate relay of computas/satillites/data centers etc.)
- Learn More, Faster: Access real-time information through AI/LLM query-answer/speed up information seeking and retrieval for faster and more accurate workflows and cognition
- Cheerleader Mode: Help people with extreme anxiety, pain, or other minor handicaps cope with stress and pressure in real-time
- Meet Someone New: Secret chat with potential suitor (bonus level)
- Protect Human Lives: Provide safety instructions in dangerous or hazardous conditions
There are plenty of nasty downsides of this type of technology being in the wrong hands.
A FEW:
- Unduly Influence or attempt to control people, put free will into question for all of humanity (upsetting not only to our Creator, but to me as a human being where it is suicidal to concede due to a conflict in moral principles.)
- Abuse people
- Control large scale outcomes
I feel like people are having this same type of inner battle when it comes to speeding up development of AI. It's the same argument, but when you get into the nitty gritty applications that reveals better answers and ways of thinking about it.
Anyway, I don't really know what will happen. Hopeful, excited. Grateful I get to live in this time period. Eager to discuss and hear what people who have spent a lot of time thinking about these types of things think, not people off the street who haven't done any research and are not prepared enough to join the conversation.