“asked if Neuralink would perform another surgery to fix or replace the implant, but the company declined”
Evidence whether the company saw them as a person, or felt any ethical obligation…
It’s an interesting era when an organization can have a single user, and choose to leave that single user with 85% of the promised functionality no longer functional. But is happily pursuing it’s second user.
It’s not a patient to help, it’s an early prototype to be abandoned.
Move fast and break people.
with 85% of the promised functionality no longer functional
To be fair 85% of threads retracting doesn’t seem to translate to an equal amount of functional loss. The article mentions
Neuralink was quick to note that it was able to adjust the algorithm used for decoding those neuronal signals to compensate for the lost electrode data. The adjustments were effective enough to regain and then exceed performance on at least one metric—the bits-per-second (BPS) rate used to measure how quickly and accurately a patient with an implant can control a computer cursor.
I think it will be impossible for us to asses how much it actually impacts function in real world use case.
It seems clear that this is a case of learning by trial and error, which considering the stakes doesn’t seem like the right approach.
The question that this article doesn’t answer is, whether they have learned anything at all or if they are just proceeding to do the same thing again. And if they have learned something, is there something preventing it to be applied to the first patient.
if they have learned something, is there something preventing it to be applied to the first patient.
That’s part of what makes me see this as a really bad look.
“Install it deeper” isn’t rocket science, and it sounds like their first volunteer is willing.
They just want the extra data from leaving their first volunteer where they landed.
Human subject experiments are supposed to carry more long term obligation than this.
Seriously. My father was part of a Deep Brain Stimulation trial. Their follow up was for ten years, just for the trial. The implant itself lasted his entire life, which I’m not feeling like doing the math. Five, six years after that?
I prefer flipping that number on it’s head. 15%. They delivered 15% of what they promised and are now saying “fuck it.”
It’s the equivalent of writing your name on the exam, and then sitting there doodling for the rest of the time.
Actually, 85% retracted but the remaining 15% seems barelly receive signals. It is even worse
Can these implants even do anything more or do it better than a simple external EEG cap? I haven’t seen them showing any benefit of it being implanted directly in your brain over simply using external devices that have existed commercially since the 80’s/90’s.
These are far more sensitive, allowing the user better speed/precision.
But once they lose 85% of the sensors, all that goes out the window.
Makes sense but imagine 10, 20 years in the future from now? I doubt there be enough difference to ofset the risks by then.
Should we really rush out an invasive implant that barely works rather then perfect what we will naturally want to use in the future anyway?
We (as in humanity) can continue to develop both EEG caps and direct implants. The technology is young and there’s no telling what side benefits and additional functionality either one can have.
And the implant, much like early EEG devices, barely works for now. Imagine what they’ll be capable of 10-20 years down the line.
Overpromise & underdeliver
