There was already plenty of medical bci research, neuralink is just continuing that work with a talented group and lots of money from Musk. Neural interfaces are definitely a powerful idea and they would be a huge deal if made consumer-grade, but neuralink is far (decades probably) from making it sufficiently non-invasive to be viable for anything other than medical uses, and that prevents it from changing things dramatically. If Musk funded fusion research, I wouldn’t say he’s ushering in the next industrial revolution, I’d say he’s contributing money to a noble research effort.
Popularizing electric cars, while similarly noble, doesn’t qualify as revolutionary in my book. The move to electric is fundamentally just an increase in the energy efficiency of cars, which is great, but not a transformative leap. Furthermore, EV’s have been doing kinda bad here in the US as of late and automakers are having to scale back their rollout because of lacking demand. Maybe eventually we’ll be able to credit Musk with a big cut in car emissions, but in the best case scenario where we magically made the switch and powered every electric car with solar, we’d be cutting US emissions by a fifth.
Again, the parent comment compared Musk’s contributions to the industrial revolution, which saw a complete transformation in how humans do labor. It wasn’t a percentage gain in efficiency, it was a force-multiplier that spawned whole industries.
I disagree. I think that I’m measuring progress partially in terms of change, and that in order to feel like Musk was heading a revolution, I’d need to see the possibility for great change as a consequence of his actions. That change could be social/political, but I’m not seeing any. Right now the world I imagine coming about with Musk looks mostly identical to the world I imagine would have happened without Musk.
Popularizing electric cars, while similarly noble, doesn’t qualify as revolutionary in my book. The move to electric is fundamentally just an increase in the energy efficiency of cars, which is great, but not a transformative leap. Furthermore, EV’s have been doing kinda bad here in the US as of late and automakers are having to scale back their rollout because of lacking demand. Maybe eventually we’ll be able to credit Musk with a big cut in car emissions, but in the best case scenario where we magically made the switch and powered every electric car with solar, we’d be cutting US emissions by a fifth.
Again, the parent comment compared Musk’s contributions to the industrial revolution, which saw a complete transformation in how humans do labor. It wasn’t a percentage gain in efficiency, it was a force-multiplier that spawned whole industries.