I find the wording weird: The neuralink's threads have retracted from the brain.
The threads can't move or disconnect on their own. Neither can brain cells. All that can be measured is a loss of connection.
The far more reasonable explanation is that the brain cells at the connection point have died.
I seem to recall that scarring around the electrodes, which eventually causes them to stop functioning, is a known failure mode of older experiments along similar lines. It's one of the reasons I didn't hold out much hope for this iteration.
I just hope the patient doesn't take any long-term damage from the implant.
In principle they could have pulled out slightly, if there's jostling and tiny movements in skull then you'd expect them to work loose over time if they're not securely anchored
Not totally surprising, I feel bad for the person who was in a desperate enough situation to become a con man narcissist's guinea pig.
It looks like we're learning the lesson we already learned back when Bill Gates tried to mess around with the education system and faceplanted; just because billionaires made a bunch of money selling a fancy toaster they invented or whatever, doesn't make them experts on anything else.
I'd sooner put a bullet in my head than something Elon Musk had a hand in.
This is because Bill Gates is just a guy who helped cobble together a computer in his garage with his dad's money, he doesn't know jack about education and has repeatedly ignored the advice of experts because it wasn't what he wanted to try.
We place too much virtue on wealth in this country, just because someone has accumulated a lot of wealth doesn't mean they should be allowed to tinker with our society and try out ideas they had in a dream or w/e.
No use of your body is a pretty desperate situation. Before the procedure he had to yell for his parents that he wanted to use the computer, they’d come sit him upright and put a joystick in his mouth, leaving him unable to speak. And he was often very uncomfortable in that position, so he couldn’t do it long. Now, he can use the computer fully laying down, without anyone’s help. The next logical step would be to have some robotic helper arms.
Anyway he can’t shoot himself. He can’t hold a gun or anything else. There’s little reason for this to be about Musk at all other than money. This is the culmination of decades of research from many medical professionals. It’s about a lot more than one person.
It's 100% about Musk, yes, given his pursuit of tech even if it comes at a human cost. It's a pattern of his specific companies.
What this situation demonstrates is that Musk is pushing the tech ahead before it's ready and that the person recieving the implant is simply lucky that that negligence and haste hasn't left them with brain damage or worse.
No one is saying medical devices shouldn't be developed to help people, I'm saying Musks tech-cult attitude of "move fast and break stuff" should not apply when human lives and well being are involved.
yes, but Musk is pushing this way too fast way too early. That was clear even before the disgusting fiasco with the monkey test subjects. Musk is ultimately with majority blame here because he is the one pushing it just like he did cyber truck, full self driving, etc. except this time literal life and death is at play more directly than the risk of one of his cars self-driving over a child.
yeah, that is about one person making this happen.
saying the guy can't kill himself doesn't exactly ethically green-light this kind of human experimentation, yeah his situation is hell but it'd be a whole lot worse with brain damage.
Literally everything ive seen from him say about what he has experienced so far has been incredibly positive.
We can all call out elon for the shitbag he is, but until this guy who volunteered for this mad science experiment starts singing a different tune, im celebrating the hope for the future that might happen in our lifetimes.
I just buried my grandmother after living with her as one of 2 people to care for her as we sat for 10 years, front row, to her descent into madness and insanity of alzheimers and dementia.
If this tech can be used to fight that monster its worth the risk as it stands at this moment. And i am aware this is some tenuous extreme "success" at the moment im not kidding or deluding myself, but after finding that most of the research on alzehiemers from the last many decades is now known to be junk science based on false claims and they pretty much have to start most of it all over again, this is hopeful.
Helping those who have been handed the worst lot in life gain access to some parts of the human experience they are denied is has come close to make this bearded middle-aged loser cry tears of joy for the first time in a long bloody time
Dont change your opinion of Elon because of this. Compartmentalize it and focus on the good. And fucking demand that Anthony Arbaugh and everyone else that is ever involved in trials is NEVER abandoned. Neuralink needs to be made responsible for maintaining the health of the patient and covering any and all costs to maintain this project for them even post bankruptcy. Complete care and support for the risk they are taking(even if its only anthony atm)
Ill shut up now but Ill leave you with this quote
I'm beating my friends in games that as a quadriplegic I should not be beating them in.
About a month after surgery the implant started to perform poorly. They tweaked some software settings and now it's running better than it did before the drop-off for a longer period, based on the actual blog post the story is talking about https://neuralink.com/blog/prime-study-progress-update-user-experience.
This is obviously prototype technology with insane risk. The guy only signed up because he's paraplegic. It's not in any way remotely ready for normal humans and probably won't ever be in our lifetimes. IMO this is like self driving technology, it's easy to promise the world but hard to actually accomplish what they say.
I really feel conflicted about this. I hate Musk as much as anyone and think this experiment is a little irresponsible, but if I were going through what that guy is dealing with, I'd probably want to give it a try.
That is what makes this even more egregious. Musk doesn't care about this guy in the slightest, except for the publicity that might help Musk raise more investor money. So Musk takes advantage of this desperation without any concern for long-term consequences. We know people left the company because of their ethical concerns. Those that remain probably just don't care or aren't on a position to do anything about the lack of ethics.
I have nothing but admiration for the guy willing to be the human experiment. He's like an astronaut paving the way for a potential future for mankind.
Even if someone else finds the right way of doing it, this is driving us towards having practical man-machine interfaces. It's really cool.
Also completely terrifying to think about being the experiment myself.
This is only logical if Neuralink is the only company doing this, but they are not.
Even the cofounder of Neuralink split off to make his own version of the company that puts safety first, and is working on a noninvasive (meaning doesn't damage the brain by design) version of the same technology.
Before anyone gets too excited: some of their electrodes are no longer able to record a signal from the patient's brain. They're reprogramming their software to work with fewer electrodes. No one is being turned into a borg drone.
I don't know. Even if the outcome is just that the implant just stop working, with no other issue, it's looking pretty bad to me.
Since it required literal brain surgery just to be installed, which I assume is already a serious risk, it's not something you want to potentially be useless.
"We can't control him and he's currently on a rampage. We urge all citizens to stay indoors with the doors and windows locked and your curtains or blinds drawn."
"Sorry guys, Elon is experiencing technical difficulties, please remain patient while we bugfix his Neuralink and then update it to Evil Overlord OS v0.2 alpha to his Neuralink"