"We managed to not kill the first subject, but we're hopeful to succeed in the future"...
this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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Not killing patients is a success.
A success does not include leaving a victim of failed experimental medicine with a non-functional implant. In contrast to how animal subjects are used as test subjects (often conducted with less oversight than there should be), using experimental medicine on volunteering patients should be done not just to collect better data than the chimps before them supplied, but with the genuine expectation that the product in question will benefit the patient beyond their usefulness as a test subject for continued product development.
Through software updates, they were able to alleviate the problem. They are a bit vague in the article but it's not a total loss and more than he had before the operation.
Tbh though, the real test is how his brain accommodates it over the years and if it starts getting complicated later.
Also, this was the very first test implant into a human. At this point in testing "doesn't harm the patient" is a perfectly good result to call a success.
Honestly, people calling Neuralink a failure because the first patient didn't get up and start dancing are just showing themselves to be either ignorant of the process or ridiculously biased.
I've seen how they run their rocketry business. Success isn't always their goal.
SpaceX has a 64% market share in the global commercial rocket launch market for sending satellites, scientific instruments, and other payloads into orbit. In the first six months of 2023, SpaceX handled 21 flights for outside customers, or 64% of the worldwide total. In the first half of 2023, SpaceX handled 88 percent of customer flights from U.S. launch sites.[1]
If success isn't their goal I'd be amazed at what they accomplished if the decided to try for it someday.
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Maybe this indicates that the FDA's investigations have shown that Neuralink isn't quite as awful at this as random internet commentators believe.
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.
No! Elon bad so everything connected to him bad!
Unironically yes, he's just throwing money at scifi concepts and hoping it pays off.
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.
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.
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.
This one paid off. Read the interviews given by mr Arbaugh. Musk is an ego-driven maniac, you won't get any argument from me. But as a result a bunch of scientists got more funding than they normally would for this project that gave great joy and some measure of independence to a young quadriplegic, maybe with more to follow.
You want to hate on Musk? I'll happily join you. But if you're one of those assholes rooting against these doctors and scientists doing ground breaking work with Musk's money, that's a pretty terrible take.
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Nope, I hate musk so everything he is associated with has to be the worst thing ever and pure evil.
Unless it’s Elmo, it should be shut down.
Is that Elon, he looks 20 years older.
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.
He's looked pretty creepy for the past 10 years imo.
WHAT THE FUCK
I mean it's not your brain dude, why do you care?
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.
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.
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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You know what else killed a good amount of monkeys for their tests? Pretty much every single Class 3 medical device out there. Neuralink didn't do anything far outside the ordinary with their tests, they just got a lot of media attention because "Elon bad".
Medical device testing goes through animal trials before human ones. Those trials use monkeys. Those monkeys often die. The only unusual thing about Neuralink's tests is a lot of people pretending like they suddenly give a shit.
Here's an idea, maybe stop killing animal for medical testing?
Other companies doing the same shit isn't any better. But with Neuralink, they said that no monkey were killed during their trials, which is false. So it makes it even worst.
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.
Apart from the only other human it’s been put in, who from all reporting has had no ill side effects.
You haven't been keeping up with the news have you? The chip malfunctioned, and Elon knew it was going to.
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.
Wake the fuck up
Elon is still deterioting
He's not withering away fast enough.
Luckily the value of SpaceX is not determined by their success, but more by what bullshit Musk can come up with. So if Musk can bullshit his way around this too, there is no harm to the stock.
Edit:
Ups sorry posted this the wrong place.
What does this have to do with SpaceX?
Nothing, I posted in the wrong place. The 2 stories were together, and after reading it, I must have clicked the wrong one, and posted it here, instead of the story about the SpaceX engine blowing up.
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.
In my 20's I was all for it. I understand where the techbros are coming from. Now with over a decade more experience, I see clearly we need to spend so much more of our energy healing from traumas on the societal level: To dispel imperial-colonialist mindsets. Im thinkin of Bo Burningham speaking about how the empires exhausted all physical territory, and then discovered Data, going on to colonize every waking moment of our attention.
We need to shed the subconcious conquistador, with all it's machismo, all it's tribalism (most agregiously white supremacist nationalism) and covetous paranoia. It is a poison which will prevent us from making the societal leap from which all tides would rise.
Until we do that, all we'll get for this tech will be:
- dystopic labor camp colonies on Mars
- advertisements when we are trying to dream
- Military tech developed under the guise of "medical 🌈 disabilities 🌈 quality 🌈 of 🌈 life 🌈 improvement 🌈 research" [1]
And we collectively deserve better
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So I go get a brain chip, and now I’ve got a second person in my head??
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Neuralink, the Elon Musk-funded neuroscience startup, has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to implant its next patient with its experimental brain chip.
Neuralink previously implanted its experimental brain-computer interface chip in a paraplegic man, Noland Arbaugh, in an operation that was publicly announced this past January.
Arbaugh’s identity was revealed during a livestream interview in March, during which the patient demonstrated some of the abilities the chip had given him, including the chance to play computer chess with his mind.
However, 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.
This hardware then rests in the portion of the patient’s skull that was removed, right below the scalp, while its tiny wires carry data back and forth between the brain and the startup’s servers.
A large number of the company’s animal test subjects had to be euthanized and some died quite horribly, according to a lawsuit from a physicians group.
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