The first invasive brain chip that Neuralink embedded into a human brain has malfunctioned, with neuron-surveilling threads appearing to have become dislodged from the participant’s brain, the company revealed in a blog post Wednesday.
It’s unclear what caused the threads to become “retracted” from the brain, how many have retracted, or if the displaced threads pose a safety risk. Neuralink, the brain-computer interface startup run by controversial billionaire Elon Musk, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Ars. The company said in its blog post that the problem began in late February, but it has since been able to compensate for the lost data to some extent by modifying its algorithm.
For a technology that could someday help a quadriplegic interact with the world fully and independently again I’m willing to tolerate some hitches. There’s a reason they didn’t pick some full on walkie talkie for their first human trial, and there’s a reason that kid looked motherucking hyped to have brand new technology that he’s the first human to even try installed directly into his fucking brain. The problem is abled people thinking this is fundamentally for them. Bby no, they’re trying to help people walk again, even if the legs are robots. You’re looking at the wrong risk-benefit profile.
a yes helping quadriplegic, definitelly something that elon want, not making shit tons of money
yes, screw the quadriplegics so you can feel good about staying on your moral high ground. Your hill to live and die on takes much higher priority than people who can’t shift their own body weight developing holes in their ass I can fit my fist in but still not be able to see the bone because it’s covered in maggots. Yeah there need to be guardrails in place to keep him from doing silly shit with it and make sure it’s affordable for the people who need it, but a) the technology is still in it’s infancy b) how about you put all this piss and vinegar towards political action to beef up the FDA (who are already regulating this situation per the linked article?). While you’re at it the CDC could use a little more money and public backing too. How about you go out into the world and encourage people to trust scientific institutions more? There are about a thousand different ways you could be expressing these morals in a way that actually helps people instead of just making you feel better about yourself.
The concept is wonderful. I do not trust Elon with that concept. I worry that many folks with high hopes of this helping them will just end up used and hurt.