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  • So I think people here need to be mindful of how much they don’t know about animal testing, how easy it is for the topic of animal testing to become inflammatory and how much musk-hate makes that even more likely.

    Animal testing and experimentation is happening all over the place. And in such work accidents to happen, as with any surgery. And a common measure to prevent suffering is to euthanise. In fact I think euthanasia is prescribed so often that it’s controversial, but you should keep in mind that any animal experimentation setup is likely to have an intentionally antagonistic relationship between experimenters and animal carers and ethicists.

    There are groups deeply and actively opposed to animal experimentation of any sort and will infiltrate and target labs and try to expose them any way they can. There’s a real chance that something like that is behind these revelations. Point is that it’s often not objective and misleads you into thinking the targeted lab is particularly bad when it’s actually just a selected target for political reasons.

    All of which is NOT to condone animal experimentation (I’m a vegan for example). But you really should be mindful of how dumb media hype around this issue can be.

    If you’re outraged for instance, when was the last time you ate meat and how well do you think that animal was treated both before it’s killing and even during? Better than the monkey in this story? Hell, when was the last time you ran over an animal in your car and did you really need to be driving at all? Did that animal die peacefully? Did you even realise?

    How many benefits come to both humanity and animals too from progress from animal experimentation and is that worth some of the mistakes and suffering caused?

    These are some of the better thoughts IMO, where musk hate is really not relevant here. From what I could tell from the article, it did not seem odd at all. If you care about animals, take the issue seriously and don’t make it about one very famous person who’s cool to hate right now. Animals, and humanity, frankly deserve better.

    • Animal testing is awful in the best case, agreed.

      What this article and other articles about Neuralink allege is that the company blew right past any kind of ethical guidelines that the industry has in a desire to be fast. The industry standard is to avoid any "undue suffering". They admit animals will suffer but all effort must be taken to minimize it.

      What whistleblowers have exposed is that Neuralink started putting devices in primate's brains when they knew the devices won't work and were deadly in predictable ways. For instance a lot of monkeys got their brains cooked alive because the device put out too much waste heat. This was done because Elon was getting impatient and wanting to see progress in primate trials, so they just YOLOed a bunch of obviously deadly devices into a bunch of primate brains and in doing so, tortured and killed all the animals needlessly.

      • Musk is unplugging servers with customer data and then transporting them in a van. He 100% has zero interest in proper procedure. Look at the QA of Tesla ffs.

        Musk is a petulant child. There’s no chip. It’s an abandoned project that killed a bunch of monkeys for a bit of press.

        I mean:

        Neuralink also faces an investigation from the US Department of Transportation over allegations it illegally transported contaminated devices that were removed from monkeys’ brains.

      • I haven’t read beyond the Verge article and it would make sense that neurallink is YOLO-ing it as you say.

        but all effort must be taken to minimize it

        IME, I think people would be surprised at how much this isn’t entirely true. There are grey zones and industries with people with careers and deadlines. There are groups that know staying out of the limelight and not talking about the slightly dodgy thing they do is a good strategy. Yes there are ethics groups and oversight and a general awareness of the importance of not being evil. But I also wouldn’t be surprised if neurallink isn’t categorically different from a lot of animal industries.

    • If I haven't eaten meat for over 20 years and don't drive can I continue to take the moral highground on testing?

      • If you never use medicine that was developed with the help of animal testing I guess you could. If you do use pretty much any kind of antibiotics though, or are unfortunately diabetic and have to use insulin, then it would be pretty hypocritical.

      • I think part of my general point was that seeking "moral high grounds", at least as a judgmental behaviour, is a trap and can be dumb and can be part of the problem.

        In a world rife with deferred ethics, I'd argue moral high ground urges and behaviours are an opiate to help us cope with the realities and difficulties of issues.

        I also haven't eaten meat or animal products or driven or owned a car for a while, but personally, I'm wary of wanting to take moral high grounds or being too judgmental of those who eat meat or believe in animal testing to progress medical science. I don't think it helps the issue, argument or any animals frankly.

        IMO, to get people to be better at empathy, you have to start with empathy. And then, if someone turns out to be a cunt, then well, call 'em what they are.

        Otherwise, beyond all that, I personally am really not sure focusing on animal testing makes any sense if you care about the general state of animal welfare and the way humans treat animals. I personally suspect scientists in lab coats make an easy scarecrow with some subtle prejudices creeping in, and kinda probably judge people would prefer to target testing rather than the animal farming industry and the industries that destroy habitats. Outside of scientific research though, yea animal testing is probably complete trash.

        As for my view on animals in scientific research, I think the whole thing could do with a pretty significant clean up where the model of scientific practice is probably in need of reform to be more efficient. Awkwardly, I suspect the scientific industry would find this difficult and for entirely shitty reasons.

        Generally, I'm personally not sure where I stand on whether any animal experimentation is justified, but I'd bet much of what does happen is not entirely justifiable at all.

      • You can have a moral high ground either way. It would be impossible to live in such a way that you are totally free of hypocrisy and anything someone could possibly criticize you for, which is what these people are basically asking in bad faith. They are saying you would have to live an impossible life because they do not want a moral high ground to exist at all. Just because we do not always meet our ideals does not mean we cannot have ideals, or that we cannot note when those ideals have not been met in others. I have not lived a 100% violence free life, but that isn't necessary to call out something like a murder.

    • i don't need to pass a purity test or stake out a moral high ground to recognize right and wrong.

      no one does.

      • Not sure I understand you here. I wasn’t talking about purity tests. I was talking about the quality of the debate and public understanding of the general issue.

        You can recognise this as wrong all you like but it won’t alter whether the broader dynamic between the media, the public and the various industries involved is mostly an uninformed and ineffectual circus that ends up not caring that much about animal welfare.

        Also, if these experiments are so self evidently wrong but the meat/dairy industry is ok by you, that’s beyond a mere lack of purity, and I’d have to ask you whether the habits and pleasures of meat really are worth the suffering caused and whether you’re even aware of the sort of suffering behind the meat industry.

    • From what I could tell from the article, it did not seem odd at all

      Animal 15 began to lose coordination and staff observed that she would shake uncontrollably when she saw lab workers. Her condition deteriorated for months until the staff finally euthanized her. A necropsy report indicates that she had bleeding in her brain and that the Neuralink implants left parts of her cerebral cortex “focally tattered.”

      Along with claiming that no monkeys have died because of a Neuralink implant, Musk has said the startup “chose terminal mon[k]eys (close to death already)” as test subjects to “minimize risk to healthy monkeys.” However, Wired cites an anonymous former employee saying that is not true: Shown a copy of Musk’s remarks on X about Neuralink’s animal subjects being “close to death already,” a former Neuralink employee alleges to WIRED the claim is “ridiculous” if not a “straight fabrication.” “We had these monkeys for a year or so before any surgery was performed,” they say. The ex-employee, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, says up to a year’s worth of behavioral training was necessary for the program, a time frame that would exempt subjects already close to death’s door.

      This didn't seem odd to you?

      • To be clear it sounds like it could have been horrific. But it’s also vague enough on the details that I don’t trust it be free of some inflammatory spin. Otherwise, it sounds like something went wrong with one animal and they had to euthanise.

        How wrong it went and why could be negligence or it could be experimentation that was reasonably handled. Months sounds like a long time but we don’t really know how bad it was over that period. It could have gotten bad only just before they decided to act on it. Shaking in front of lab workers doesn’t necessarily mean much, though I’m no veterinarian.

        Even if it were negligence or at least some degree of indifference to the welfare of the animals, no, I don’t believe that’s odd, because that’s the world we live in. And that’s my broader point, this sort of shit is all over the place. It probably sounds bad because it’s a brain implant and there’s brain damage, but there are all sorts of ways animals can and do suffer, with farming and animal experimentation occurring all over the world.

    • I agree with you, just wanted to add a couple things.

      Be aware that not eating meat, while being an amazing stance for many reasons, doesn't prevent animal testing, since animals used in labs are bred specifically for that purpose, they don't come from the food industry nor they have anything to do with it. In the country I live there's a law that says that each lab animal can be used only for one experiment and when experimenting is done, if they don't end up with permanent damage, they can be given away to rehab organizations for adoption, otherwise they must be euthanized.

      I think many countries (EU at least) might have similar laws, people just don't know, like I didn't until I went to a non-profit org specialized in rehab of rabbits, guinea pigs and rats used for animal testing, to adopt a rabbit (I kept them as pets for many years, they're fantastic pets). I learned a lot from them.

      will infiltrate and target labs and try to expose them any way they can

      Their intentions are good but infiltrating labs to release animals, without knowing anything about them, is wrong, it's being ignorant of the consequences.

      For example, rabbits used in labs are mostly new zealand breed because they are very tame compared to other breeds, they're also among the biggest. Rabbits in general have very fragile bones, big breeds (more than others) need to grow up in spaces that grant them movement to be able to develop muscles to sustain their weight, they don't in labs, they're kept in very small cages all their life, so if you release them without proper rehab, the first time they try to stand up on their hind legs (rabbits do that instinctively) they'll break their spine and die, just like that.

      All lab animals in general live in cages all their lives, suddenly "throwing" them out in the wild to fend for themselves, is condemning them to die horrible deaths. That's not to say staying in a lab is better, but what those people do is irresponsible.

    • To an extent, but I think the concern is that there were still documented device failures in live subjects, and if it's going to start human trials on quadriplegic they are going to have a tough time convincing IRBs, providers, and patients of it just as effective as existing treatments with side effect profile. As there are none, IRBs are going to really push back on the whole "yeah this will explicitly kill people," instead of like cancer research "the patient will have treatment with nothing worse than standard treatment of care."

      Or, put another way, in the U.S., a quadriplegic receives no treatment and lives, vs a quadriplegic who under goes the implant and dies from the implant (as specified in the article).

    • If you're testing on animals, you're a horrible person. Full stop.

      Animals cannot consent

      • What would you say to medical research and using any medical advancements we have now that we’re discovered on the back of animal experimentation?

        What about the meat and dairy industries and people who eat meat?

        What if the experiments on the animals were rather harmless and they were kept under caring, clean and safe conditions?

  • Anybody seriously considering letting one of Elon's companies put things in your brain should probably read the story of him crawling under floorboards to unplug random servers because "Elon knows best".

    https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/12/the-batshit-crazy-story-of-the-day-elon-musk-decided-to-personally-rip-servers-out-of-a-sacramento-data-center/

    The man is a fucking cowboy.

    • This is actually hilarious, thanks for the link. Below is a snippet, and honestly it's not even necessarily the best part, the whole thing is a wild read.

      “These things do not look that hard to move,” Elon announced. It was a reality-distorting assertion, since each rack weighed about 2,500 pounds and was eight feet tall.

      “You’ll have to hire a contractor to lift the floor panels,” Alex said. “They need to be lifted with suction cups.” Another set of contractors, he said, would then have to go underneath the floor panels and disconnect the electric cables and seismic rods.

      Musk turned to his security guard and asked to borrow his pocket knife. Using it, he was able to lift one of the air vents in the floor, which allowed him to pry open the floor panels. He then crawled under the server floor himself, used the knife to jimmy open an electrical cabinet, pulled the server plugs, and waited to see what happened. Nothing exploded. The server was ready to be moved.

  • This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Public documents obtained by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and seen by Wired indicate that Neuralink’s macaque subjects were euthanized after suffering various complications, including “bloody diarrhea, partial paralysis, and cerebral edema.”

    Those are now posted on its website and cited in the letters it sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday accusing Musk of securities fraud, referencing the reported $280 million Neuralink has raised from investors to create a brain computer interface.

    Wired notes a December 2019 experiment outlined in one of the documents saying one monkey had to be euthanized after a piece of Neuralink’s brain implant broke off during the surgical process, leading to infection.

    Another macaque mentioned — known as Animal 15 — “began to press her head against the floor for no apparent reason” days after receiving the implant, and her condition only went downhill from there:

    Along with claiming that no monkeys have died because of a Neuralink implant, Musk has said the startup “chose terminal mon[k]eys (close to death already)” as test subjects to “minimize risk to healthy monkeys.” However, Wired cites an anonymous former employee saying that is not true:

    Last year, the PCRM filed a complaint with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) alleging that Neuralink’s practices violate the Animal Welfare Act.

    The original article contains 369 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 42%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

  • “no monkey has died as a result of a Neuralink implant,”

    I bet that’s a bit like saying “Mr. Thorax didn’t kill Mrs Lender, the bullet did. We have it in custody right now.”

    🤥

102 comments