Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I want Grammarly in my brain. I want to have real time speech improvement of my audible speech. If I could have a privacy respecting brain computer interface to improve my speaking and rhetoric, I would.


Grammarly might seem like an improvement if you have poorly developed grammar, but it’s a limited substitute for educating yourself in the English language. Why? Because if you outsource expression to an app you lose the personal dimension of your thoughts. This is more than nuance - it is a straight jacket because it stops you from thinking about what you are saying.


I agree. I often notice the strong correlation between a high level of writing skill and those who have considered a subject well and can express a point clearly, and the opposite, those who seem to have no idea what a comma or full stop is, or the difference between your and you're, and the way that - once I've finally unpacked what it is they're trying to convey - I find their reasoning is also of a comparable, very low quality.

I don't think that giving everyone the gift of good grammar would create a world of geniuses but it might do what every other useful tool in history has done, help "level up" those at the bottom to a better standard (of, in this case, reasoning) and free those at the upper levels to really create.


You may be right, but could your bias towards those who don't use Standard English (Orthography) be influencing your judgement of their reasoning skills? I wonder what a study comparing the reasoning skills of a user of SE communication with those of a vernacular or ill-educated user would show if the argument were kept the same.


You make a good point about the legitimacy of vernaculars.

Separate to idiom is the process of rewriting, whereby rough thoughts are honed to sharp points.

“I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.” ― Vladimir Nabokov

“Revision means throwing out the boring crap and making what’s left sound natural.” ― Laurie Halse Anderson

“Secure writers don't sell first drafts. They patiently rewrite until the script is as director-ready, as actor-ready as possible. Unfinished work invites tampering, while polished, mature work seals its integrity.” ― Robert McKee

“When asked about rewriting, Ernest Hemingway said that he rewrote the ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times before he was satisfied. Vladimir Nabokov wrote that spontaneous eloquence seemed like a miracle and that he rewrote every word he ever published, and often several times. And Mark Strand, former poet laureate, says that each of his poems sometimes goes through forty to fifty drafts before it is finished.” ― Susan M. Tiberghien, One Year to a Writing Life: Twelve Lessons to Deepen Every Writer's Art and Craft

“I do so much writing. But so much of it never goes anywhere, never sees any light of day. I suppose that's like gardening in the basement. I don't publish so much of what I write. I just seem to plow it back into the soil of what I write after it, rewriting and rewriting, thinking that somehow it gets better after the fifty-second-time around. I need to learn to abandon my writing. To let go of it. Dispose of it, like tissue.” ― J.R. Tompkins

“Writing a first draft is like groping one's way into a dark room, or overhearing a faint conversation, or telling a joke whose punchline you've forgotten. As someone said, one writes mainly to rewrite, for rewriting and revising are how one's mind comes to inhabit the material fully.” ― Ted Solotaroff


It might be an interesting study but I'd have to wonder what kind of bias one could have against non-standard English usage unless one was an English teacher.

Or conversing with an American, the spelling might tip me over the edge! ;-)


>once I've finally unpacked what it is they're trying to convey - I find their reasoning is also of a comparable, very low quality.

One of the most brilliant inventors I know has terrible written grammar due to dyslexia. I'd be careful with such blanket statements.


A strong correlation isn't a blanket statement, and I'm referring there to my experience. How many dyslexic and brilliant inventors would I need to have conversations with before the correlation weakens to nothing?


> If I could have a privacy respecting brain computer

something's gotta give. and im pretty sure it'll be your privacy


Train ML model centrally, sell brain computer that runs it locally and don’t send data back. Privacy.


If you can afford a brain computer sure, but for everyone else, every 20th sentence will be an advertisement for Doritos.


I'm just wondering, do advertisements worth that much?

Surely brain computers will be a pretty big investment for people; would embedding advertisements be worth it for companies? I'd imagine most people are willing to pay another few thousand dollars on top of the very high cost to avoid any sort of obnoxious features, for both personal and potentially socially-influenced reasons.

It's hard for me to see how anything could be worth more to companies than straight profit.


Well I was intentionally misrepresenting how it would likely work for effect. It's really just more monitoring / data gathering so they can draw a more accurate profile of you in order to advertise to you and your relations.

But what I was saying is that even if you could pay for a brain computer, many less fortunate wouldn't be able to, which opens the road for advertising subsidized (surveillance) brain computers.


Being able to beam ads to the wealthiest folks (who can afford brain implants) sounds like a very high value to companies


I wouldn't be surprised if its the poor that use it the most. I imagine it will be used like a potent drug (like crack) targeted at the lowest common denominator.

you think fb will make people pay for it to receive like notifications in your brain?


At which point.... is a person a person or are we all just computers?

Maybe we already are all just computers in a simulation already. Ghost in the shell thoughts are rapidly coming back.


A BIG portion of the "point" of the Ghost in the Shell franchise (beyond the original first movie) was the "line" between human and machine was already blurred beyond usefulness as soon as they started relying on fire and tools to build a civilisation.

My take (apologies in advance for the self-indulgence): A commonly-claimed revelation or drug-assisted-insight is that "we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves". This is a foundational concept in the idea that "cybernetically-assisted individuals" is only a minor extension of our current reality, the tiniest blip upon our shared planetary history's march of progress. It should be treated as such, but hopefully better managed than our previous technological accelerants like fossil fuels...


Brains are basically analog computers made of flesh


I genuinely presume this sort of transfer learning will outpace, or even prerequisite, the neural lace used to integrate it with a customer's consciousness.


We imagine the future will be tools like 'grammarly' in our brains; i'm beginning to think the future will be more like 'ads for grammarly' in our brains.


Why stop there, go all the way to NEXUS-6 if possible.


But do you want Clippy in your brain?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: