this post was submitted on 25 May 2024

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175

Neuralink Can Implant Second Person With a Brain Chip, FDA Says (gizmodo.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Can we just ..... not keep going down the brain rot rabbit hole we are going down as a society? 24 hours in a day doesn't allow enough screen time? We need to just... funnel this shit straight in somehow?

I used to be excited for this kind of stuff, then I saw what we've done with the technology we have. People are "auto" driving their cars while they wear their apple vision pros, that's what we do with it.... Pretty soon tiktoc titties will be streamed straight to our frontal cortex.

Maybe I am just old, or maybe it would just be better if it was a different company doing it. But maybe a giant meteor should take us out ASAP.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The ultimate goal of this technology is to enable the blind to see, deaf to hear and the paralyzed to walk. Not that you can watch netflix in your mind.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 5 months ago (29 children)

I guess they figure anyone who volunteers is already braindead so what's the harm. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 49 points 5 months ago (4 children)

I'd imagine they're mostly physically disabled people trying to get control of their limbs or access to the freedom this type of tech is promising. As abhorrent as all of the testing behind this tech is, if I were a quadrapalegic or something similar, I would volunteer because wtf else have I got going for me?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I mean...I'm more or less normally functioning. I'd give it a whirl then start building a drone army.

Fuck. We could have a real Rat King even!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You would have a life and people who care about you, regardless of use of your legs.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I'm pretty sure not everyone has a life and people who cares about them.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Is that exclusive para/quadriplegics in your mind? Only that you are countering a statement that essentially says that losing one or more limbs doesnt make people stop loving you, by saying not everyone has people that love them. Which would be a good point if people not loving you was exclusive to people who have lost a limb or limbs...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Did you just try to angle my comment to be about people with disabilities being less capable and/or of less value?

What I countered was a claim where the first part stated that everyone has a life, which is just not true. For the second part of the claim to have any value in the sentence, the first part has to be true. Which it wasn't.

Whether I read it wrong or not doesn't change the fact that I never limited my statement to be about people with disabilities or disabilities automatically taking the life away from people.

So I stand by my claim, that not everyone of the 8 billion living in this planet has a life and people that care about them.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 5 months ago

You were responding to a comment about quadriplegics which painted context to your response. If that's not what you meant, then gine. Im sorry i misunderstood your response. You could have been more clear that you were generalising and not directly responding to the claim being made.

To your point. No not everyone has a life and people that love them but i would argue that a blanket statement that started this thread, that if you were a quadriplegic then you would volunteer to have experimental surgery with unknown side effects and effectiveness because you have nothing else going for you is not inherently true.

You dont need to be quadriplegic to want to volunteer. You dont have to not have anything else going for you, and you dont need to have a life or people that love you.

If all you are saying is not everyone has a life or people that live them, then i fail to see how its relevant to the point made in this thread.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 months ago

Then you are wrong.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago

That is very true. It doesn't mean it is ethical. It is quite common for people who are disabled, have a disease, or what not to be overly optimistic about success. Which caused them to be more willing to make poorly informed decisions.

Experiments like these are not inherently bad, but it is very easy to receive informed consent from the participant when they are not fully informed. That is why studies like this in academia require an ethics panel to review them.

To give an Elon musk's track record with his various companies. I think it is completely reasonable to question the ethics of this study.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It's not the tech itself that worries me. It's who in this case is supplying it along with the fact the previous patient had 85% of the functionality just stop and they haven't done a damn thing to address that before they want to try it on another patient.

There are other companies working on the same or similar tech that are far less fucked up.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

Arbaugh says that updates to the chip’s software have allowed him to regain many of the abilities that he previously had and that he is still very supportive of Neuralink and what it’s done for him.

They did try to fix the problem the best they could. Its also a very intense procedure so I doubt it's smart to go back after so little time. It's probably better to wait until they fix all the kinks anyways. The man did enough, he doesn't need to be a debug guinea pig with his head open every month imo.

I'd actually be mad if they used the same guy tbh.

I also think it's important to seperate the tech from the persona. There's a lot of smart people behind this and I think it's sci-fi as fuck.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Maybe this indicates that the FDA's investigations have shown that Neuralink isn't quite as awful at this as random internet commentators believe.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

Still a questionable decision. Brain interface tech isn't even that new or novel, but the real bottleneck is that flesh is temporary, eventually the attachment place will die and be replaced. That's exactly what we saw with their first brain chip and other attempts going back at least 50 years.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No! Elon bad so everything connected to him bad!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Unironically yes, he's just throwing money at scifi concepts and hoping it pays off.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Well there are EVs everywhere now, Starlink is breaking ISP regional monopolies and providing rule areas/countries with internet, and SpaceX is the leading frontier of human exploration technology. The ol'Muskrat is a real piece of work, but it sounds kinda ridiculous when you downplay obvious successes.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Tesla is 19.9% of EV market share, Starlink isn't "breaking monopolies" it is one, and SpaceX has accomplished some great things by underpaying engineers.

In most of these cases, Elon Musk hasn't been taking an active role in the companies, part of the reason he was denied his 56Bn Bonus that he is currently desperately trying to pay himself out of Tesla's finances.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah Tesla is down to 20% because of the massive EV boom THEY started. Saying Starlink is one of the ISP monopolies people can choose from, is an oxymoronic statement. Agreed about SpaceX. Pay your amazing eng team!

I'm not saying Elon is a great leader. But the odds 3 things he owns happened to take off isn't likely a total coincidence. Maybe he's just better than average at predictions. But to act like it isn't what it is because you don't like the guy, kinda undercuts legitimate criticism.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Is that Elon, he looks 20 years older.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

You can find out how different news outlets feel about a person by the type of pictures they use of them. Once you see it, it can't be ignored.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

He's looked pretty creepy for the past 10 years imo.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Cocaine will do that to you.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

WHAT THE FUCK

[+] [email protected] -18 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I mean it's not your brain dude, why do you care?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Because it kills everything you put it in? I don't know how to tell you that you're supposed to care about other people.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Apart from the only other human it’s been put in, who from all reporting has had no ill side effects.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You haven't been keeping up with the news have you? The chip malfunctioned, and Elon knew it was going to.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is extremely old news. The dude is alive, and has regained much of the functionality he lost in the chip with a firmware update.

Put your rage boner away.

[+] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

… First off, the guy was a paraplegic before the implant. This isn’t a sudden or new thing to happen.

Secondly, you’re literally asking for a final version of something without any sort of human testing involved. Can you name a single medical device, ever, which has had exactly 1 version, no updates, and went through 0 human trials before completion?

This guy was never going to be out and about on his daily walk through the middle of the street using his v0.001 neuralink implant. And if you honestly thought that was ever on the table, you have absolutely no idea what is going on.

Again, put the hate boner away.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Secondly, you’re literally asking for a final version of something without any sort of human testing involved. Can you name a single medical device, ever, which has had exactly 1 version, no updates, and went through 0 human trials before completion?

That's what the animal trials were supposed to be for. You know what happened to them? They died. They didn't even wait for the chip to be successful in apes before putting it in a human. If you don't understand why that's fucked up, I can't help you.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Because it will encroach into everything if we let it be.

There's always a dumdum like you saying "it doesn't affect you, so why do you care?".

Because the company implanting the chip killed a good amount of monkeys for their tests. They're an unethical company.

Because Elon Musk is a fucking piece of shit and he is clearly disregarding the laws if it makes him money.

Because private, for-profit companies cannot be trusted to not fuck over everyone if it makes them a cent more.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And that's why all those paralyzed people should just sit in their chairs and wait for eventual death, I guess.

Seriously, just don't get one if you think they're so awful.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The issue is not the tech, it's how it is developed and tested, and the terrible track record of the mega corpos.

Just like AI, the tech itself is great, but corpos turn it into a pile of shit for the money.

It won't be different this time around with daddy Musk.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Elon is still deterioting

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

He's not withering away fast enough.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago

Unless it’s Elmo, it should be shut down.

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