this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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• Concerns rise as Neuralink fails to provide evidence of brain implant success, raising safety and transparency questions.

• Controversy surrounds Neuralink's lack of data on surgical capabilities and alarming treatment of monkeys with brain implants.

• While Neuralink touts achievements, experts question true innovation and highlight developments in other brain implant projects.

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[–] [email protected] 228 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Imo Musk is going to struggle in this space. He's no stranger to opening companies in highly regulated industries, but the medical device industry is a whole different level. The government can easily prevent him from selling anything if his company isn't forthcoming with data, and if he starts mutilating people, civil courts aren't going to care if they signed a waiver if that waiver was signed based on false expectations built on incomplete or false data by the company

[–] [email protected] 170 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Plus, he likes to pretend he's an expert on the industries of the companies he runs. That's already potentially dangerous with Tesla and Space X, but in this case his hubris is very directly dangerous to the people receiving his services.

[–] [email protected] 92 points 8 months ago

The difference is with Tesla and Space X he has actual experts doing the work, with Neuralink he gets the worst of the crop - no successful or ethical medical professional is going to want to work with him on this.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (7 children)

Teslas are already directly dangerous to his customers but our society is numb to traffic violence so people don’t care as much as they should. But “full self-driving” has already killed people.

Edit: removed “a lot” because while I suspect it is true, it remains unproven.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago (1 children)

But ~~“full self-driving”~~ false advertising has already killed a lot of people.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

“full self-driving” has already killed a lot of people.

There's only one death linked to FSD beta and even he was driving drunk.

In a recent interview, Rossiter said he believes that von Ohain was using Full Self-Driving, which — if true — would make his death the first known fatality involving Tesla’s most advanced driver-assistance technology

Von Ohain and Rossiter had been drinking, and an autopsy found that von Ohain died with a blood alcohol level of 0.26 — more than three times the legal limit

Source

However there's approximately 40 accidents that have led to serious injury or death due to the use of the less advanced driver assist system "autopilot".

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago

You’re right, I was conflating the two. However, I suspect there are more cases than just this one due to Tesla’s dishonesty and secrecy.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That didn’t work out for Elizabeth Holmes either.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago

She exploited and got rich off rich people though, like SBF, so she went down. Musk exploited and got rich off the working class and apartheid exploitation in SA. So that's ok. He's one of them.

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[–] [email protected] 187 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Finally some news about the first human trial.

The part about them not issuing regular progress reports since day 1 (a month or so ago) is, how these doctors put it, concerning.

Apart from that, I think jumping from monkeys to human experiments when the success rate is low feels either rush work or some high person in charge decided to go all-or-nothing.

[–] [email protected] 128 points 8 months ago (1 children)

or some high person in charge decided to go all-or-nothing

I don't see what Elon's drug use and increasingly irratic decision-making have to to with this.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 44 points 8 months ago

"move fast and break ~~things~~ people"

[–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago

Agreed. And seems wild to allow that kind of coercion from powerful people to move into the human body stage without air tight everything.

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[–] [email protected] 149 points 8 months ago

We and our 1314 technology partners ask you to consent to the use of cookies to store and access personal data on your device.

Damn, and no.

[–] [email protected] 87 points 8 months ago (10 children)

I love how no one is ever going to start calling it "X" because it's just dumb. It will forever be "X-formerly-Twitter".

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 8 months ago (9 children)

I really wonder about the Doctors associated with this. How are they squaring things with their Hippocratic oath? This just seems really close to the ethical line, maybe over it. Nothing about how musk is treating this surprises me. But is everyone working on this also an unethical twat? Kind of scary to think that might be true.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (10 children)

In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Hippocratic Oath saying it didn't cover the latest developments in medical practice.

I'm just... gonna go scream into a pillow in the corner now.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The Helsinki declaration https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Helsinki

Is the reference for health sciences these days.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

This appears to be more geared towards experimentation. Super interesting and more relevant to the article for sure though!

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The Hippocratic Oath is not a legally binding oath, and many doctors are not required to take this oath or any oath for that matter. Basically, at the end of the day, oaths only matter to the people who have the strength of character to hold to them no matter the cost and most people do not have that strength of character. Oaths mean nothing to those people when it comes down to it, it's just a thing that you said once, nothing more.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There are way less extreme example of doctors just fucking things up for a bag of money.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago

But is everyone working on this also an unethical twat? Kind of scary to think that might be true

People with the Power to do cruel things always find cruel people to do their bidding. Especially when they can justify it with science or it's "for the better of humanity". Even if every rational out stander is horrified by their doings.

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 8 months ago (7 children)

Stupid article as it implies that doctors are concerned for a specific reason related to the subject’s health but it’s just background about this shitty experiment and how it can be dangerous. Regardless, I can’t believe someone volunteered for this and am unfortunately expecting documented issues in the future.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Remember how they couldn't get the cyber truck to not rust? Or the bullet proof windows to work? Or how the milage for most Tesla's was impossible, so people thought their cars were broken, and instead of either confessing or fixing the mileage they created an elaborate scheme to cancel appointment so people couldn't get their batteries looked at? These are the people you trusted to put a chip in your brain...

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think it would be a lot more reasonable to expect undocumented issues. They have a lot to lose and it's controlled by a billionaire. As if they're not going to try to cover it up.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago

They will try to cover it up for sure. IMO Either it will “silently end” after myriad health issues or there will be big public exposures.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago

I doubt you'll hear any docs about failures. I think that's what this article is about? I.e. a lack of transparency?

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

So the gov wants to claim the FDA did not regulate mifepristone hard enough, but this is perfectly fine. What a world.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 8 months ago (1 children)

"The government" doesn't want to argue that. Some idiot politicians do.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 75 points 8 months ago (2 children)

JFC

Additional veterinary reports show the condition of a female monkey called “Animal 15” during the months leading up to her death in March 2019. Days after her implant surgery, she began to press her head against the floor for no apparent reason; a symptom of pain or infection, the records say. Staff observed that though she was uncomfortable, picking and pulling at her implant until it bled, she would often lie at the foot of her cage and spend time holding hands with her roommate. 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.”

So they fuckin shredded the poor girl's brain.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (3 children)

To think humans cause such pain to other sentient beings due to hubris...

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago

I don't find it shocking in the slightest. Someone like Musk would happily burn everything down if it meant he'd get his own way.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

Damn... I've heard that it was bad but I've never read it until now...

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago

The subject is hunched over and drooling inside a padded cell, mumbling "we hope this email finds you well", over, and over, and over again...

[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Yeah, I wouldn't want monkeylink in my head if it was done by musk's people. I'd rather have an expert neurosurgeon and the ones I know, who work in deep brain stimulation, they wrote off neuralink as bad tech a decade ago.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Does this remind anyone else of Theranos?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Somewhat, but theranos at least didn’t do brain surgery. This is theranos with far higher stakes

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Neuralink founder Elon Musk claimed this week that the first human to receive one of his company's heavily scrutinized brain implants was already able to control a mouse cursor with their mind.

"[Neuralink is] only sharing the bits that they want us to know about," Sameer Sheth, a neurosurgeon who specializes in implanted neurotechnology at the Baylor College of Medicine, told Nature.

Leaked documents detailed how the implants resulted in a myriad of grotesque injuries, including rupturing a monkey's brain and causing severe cerebral swelling.

A relevant detail that raises questions about Neuralink's surgical capabilities is another report of a monkey with a botched brain implant.

"A human controlling a cursor is nothing new," Bolu Ajiboye, a brain computer interface researcher at Case Western Reserve University, told Nature.

Meanwhile, other brain implant projects have allowed fully paralyzed patients to communicate through a digital avatar using only their mind, or to control life-changing robotic prosthetics.


The original article contains 480 words, the summary contains 154 words. Saved 68%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago

I'm over here concerned for all of Neuralink's patients.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is this gonna be like that Raelian clone baby?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I love seeing references to the Raelians in the wild! What a bonkers cult they are. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABl.

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