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.
That's definitely one legitimate perspective. Another would be from the guy who can potentially gain some of his automony and dignity back regardless of the asshole who is itching to profit from it.
I guess it is an old argument. How willing are we, as a society, to protect people from being taken advantage of by cons. Musk had been extremely resilient for a con man. Probably because he mainly goes after relatively poor people.
Musk's companies aren't the only ones making breakthroughs in their respective fields. The only difference between Musk companies and others is that Musk just didn't care about safety, so his companies cut corners to make people think they are ahead. Other companies who are more responsible aren't willing to cut those corners for ethical reasons.
It’s not like the technology is a con. Brain implants have been iterated upon for decades. This is just the latest incarnation - after extensive animal testing. I don’t think we have a right to tell a quadriplegic they may not meaningfully improve their lives because we feel the risk is too high. They’re locked in a living prison.
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.
"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"
(edit: lol downvotes but no explanation. That's because if they actually read the article, the problem they are talking about is really not all that big of a deal)
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.
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
If they don’t rotate into different laying or sitting positions, they’ll develop bed sores they can’t even feel, which can be extremely dangerous. They also still need to move their limbs to avoid blood clots.
All this shows is that Neurolink isn’t ready for one reason or another. Either the wires are so fragile they become dislodged or broken by gentle movements during physiotherapy, or the surgery damaged the brain. Either way this is a major issue with the technology. No way are they going to be putting robot limbs on people if the chip that can control them is this unreliable.
In one of the interview with Nolan he says he has full body spasms when he sits in the chair and those spasms take him out of position from being able to use the mouth stick controller. With neuralink he doesn't need intervention by someone else post spasms to continue.
Definitely enough to be jostling the head, but he didn't get into explicit detail of how serious they are movement wise.
Edit: side note, makes me wonder if they're a build up of spinal signals and the cord briefly connects and suddenly a pile of commands go through and he spasms.
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.
"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."
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.
They mention two, but it's enough to make the point. There's no justification for Gates to be at the helm, if he wants to help he can donate money to the groups and institutions that actually know what they're doing or, as I said, just pay his taxes.
There's no reason for him to be meddling, his ignorance is actually making the money less effective.
As a robot tiger, your ability to maul rednecks and hillbillies with narcissism that try to contain you would be considerably greater than your current form.
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.
Nobody is making you get a brain chip. Noland did the research, talked about it with his family, and wanted to proceed in spite of the fully disclosed risks. Bodily autonomy is a fundamental human right - if you want to do something or have something done to your body it's not the governments place to stop you. Safeguards are necessary, and they do exist. You don't need laws to make sure everybody has the same risk tolerance as you. I can't fully imagine what it would be like to have no use of my body and no hope of recovery. But I wouldn't want people like you or me who aren't in my shoes deciding what I can and can't do. Honestly if he wanted to have a lethal injection, I believe he should be allowed to make that decision, but he can't. I'm happy he was able to make some kind of decision, and regain some autonomy, if only temporarily, and not just be a vegetable head in a bed for the rest of his life.
Again, the person's desperation is a key here, this technology is targeted at people who are potentially willing to try anything even if it comes with risk.
That isn't the same sort of consent I have as someone who isn't paralyzed and just think it'd be cool to control my garage door with my brain or something. I'm not under the same pressure.
If I mix a bunch of laundry chemicals and bill it as a miracle cure for cancer, and then target vulnerable people willing to try anything because they are stage 4, that doesn't excuse me of my reckless disregard for safety or to use those people as experiments.
Musk's company wants to get this tech into human beings as quickly as possible even if it's underdeveloped and potentially unsafe because Musk's priority is not really about helping people.
Are you suggesting that the FDA gave Neuralink special treatment in the approval process? Or are you suggesting that the government should specifically shut down anything Musk tries to do, like SpaceX?
I don’t think it’s obvious at all. This is a sample size of one, and it is still working after 3 months.
Globally, a staggering 310 million major surgeries are performed each year; around 40 to 50 million in USA and 20 million in Europe. It is estimated that 1–4% of these patients will die, up to 15% will have serious postoperative morbidity, and 5–15% will be readmitted within 30 days. An annual global mortality of around 8 million patients places major surgery comparable with the leading causes of death from cardiovascular disease and stroke, cancer and injury. If surgical complications were classified as a pandemic, like HIV/AIDS or coronavirus (COVID-19), developed countries would work together and devise an immediate action plan and allocate resources to address it.
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.
My takeaway from that article is mostly that primate research is a big emotional topic for some people, and maybe tech writers shouldn’t write about medical research. Do you think it would be so interesting if it was done on mice? The primate research center in Davis has been there since 1962, and it’s always been controversial. Do you think they’ve just been twiddling their thumbs for 55 years waiting for Neuralink to come along? No, that shit is routine for them. They keep doing it because primate research is still an important step before human trials.
There is no need to ethically green light a medical procedure that is voluntary, of sound mind, and of one’s own will. It’s not your body. It’s not your life. People implant beads and magnets into their bodies and tattoo their faces. People hang themselves from meat hooks for fun. People get circumcised, and pierced. It’s all none of your business.
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.
