Have there been any reviews by independent experts? This reads like a promo piece, in particular I'm not sure why the fluff bits about Musk "being a regular guy" are relevant. Most of the linked sources are either other Fortune puff pieces or Neuralink press releases.
I think a bit of skepticism is warranted here. Patient number 1 isn't some random guy getting the procedure and recounting it's benefits. But someone self-selected and willing from day 1, massively engaged with the company, likely paid or compensated, getting a lot of promotion, visibility and attention, etc.
It's possible a lot of the QOL improvements are from the circumstances of getting all that attention, or the hype circle they themselves found themselves in.
I also think people need to be open minded to the possibility Neuralink does offer promising benefits.
I'm just seeing a lot of people strongly for or against, and really I think the reasonable stance here is to remain optimistically pessimistic until further evidence.
Let's be clear about what is a good subject for review and what is not. One person's opinion about how they feel is not. It can be a good subject for further inquiry, though: learn more about their experiences and consider critically whether those experiences generalize to others.
See: Yeonmi Park and the absurdity of her stories that are essentially a product of South Korea's day-time TV.
(North Korean refugees typically can't get work permits, some of the little work available is telling people how bad NK is. It is illegal to say anything good about NK in SK)
No placebo can let him "do things like play Mario Kart, control his television, and turn his Dyson air purifier on and off without physically moving his fingers or any other part of his body."
Given that there are objective changes, it is not unreasonable to believe his claim that he is satisfied or has benefitted from them.
if it is truly "objective" then his subjective experience is irrelevant, so your logic makes no sense. it is not necessarily incorrect to investigate or be skeptical about another's self reported "subjective" claims (never mind their "objective" ones), for the reasons the comment you were dismissive of mentioned. plus given the nature of the company one would hardly be surprised if certain facts are cherry-picked over others. if it's truly as cut and dry as you believe, then surely any independent expert will soon end up empty handed. being dismissive of such an endeavor before it has even begun feels like kool-aid sippin...
The objective and subjective observations are about different but related things.
The objective measurements are about his enhanced abilities. He can do things he couldn't before.
But, the GP comment referred to "quality of life" which is innately difficult to measure objectively. It's possible that he was able to do those things but it caused him enough irritation to do them that he avoided using it (like CPAP often is for example), or that the things it enabled him to do weren't sufficient to warrant feeling improved. My father has limited mobility, but no interest in playing mario kart or adjusting an air filter, and there's very little in his home that he has or would want to be automated. Anything that could be my mom or another family member usually takes care of anyway, even if it's still something he could do himself as he's rather tech illiterate.
So, in this scenario, given my father's age, the risks involved in such a major surgery for his age, and his personal inclinations, the very same additional capabilities likely wouldn't be worthwhile in his opinion. Hence, the subjective experience of the objective changes are how you measure quality of life for this kind of operation.
yes, quality of life is a very difficult thing to measure objectively, because of the subjective component, as you state. are you under the impression the "reviews by independent experts" mentioned in the comment above the one you cited would only be meaningful if the person narrating their subjective experience was found to be outright lying? you are clearly familiar with some of the nuances, thus i'm not sure why you would not also be interested in independent reviews of the subject. his personal story is worth a lot, but it's not everything. i would think the more people reviewing it seriously, the more benefit to people like your father (and countless others)
You are right when it comes to qualia, but wholly incorrect in this case. There are measurable metrics in his life (ie independent use of computers, social engagements etc.)
It's not like he's having to rate his level of happiness here, these are physical benefits
if that's the case why do you care to read about his subjective experience, at all? isn't that the point of the comment inquiring about an independent review?
Because the subjective experience is the thing we actually care about.
Same reason you ask the users of any product for feedback. Sure, you can objectively see that they were able to click the register button, still doesn’t guarantee they came out of that experience wanting to use the product.
are you under the impression that the sole focus of an independent review as described in the root comment would be to investigate the personal veracity of "Participant 1"'s narration? do you alter course in your product because of single, particular user anecdote? i'm not sure what you think you are arguing against here...
Who is measuring the physical benefits? because based on this article it's no one... so again, we're taking one person's word for it... and it's very likely this person is contractually obligated to not disparage the company
That's not categorically true. Although a placebo inherently relies on a patient's subjective understanding of receiving a treatment, that understanding can change any number of very objective outcomes. That's why so many studies that measure objective metrics use placebos to begin with.
a good point, and one that highlights the fact that people are unironically relying on "objective"/"subjective" distinctions in this thread - when this division is not necessarily a straightforward one in neurology or philosophy/language. putting a neurological implant in someone's brain doesn't strike me as an act that immediately clarifies this issue, to put it mildly. but this technology is still in its infancy. thus, the more people to "review" it, the better... doesn't mean the benefits they are giving people or the work has to stop... it just doesn't mean some skepticism isn't warranted either...
I can't tell if you're trying to be clever, sarcastic, or are failing at both so I'll answer earnestly: reviews by independent experts of the claims of Neurolink the company and of the methods used to achieve those claimed results.
Its a promising first sign, but that's all. I think you have unrealistic expectations if you expect rigorus science on the cost/benefit after just one experimental procedure. Stuff like this takes time.
The mere fact he didn't die from the procedure is probably a success in and of itself.
> What kind of reprobate thinks it is OK to swat a disabled person? Do you understand the kinds of active harm that your partisanship causes?
What are you talking about? Are you pretending to be upset at a mild question, on the behalf of the disabled? You should explain the active harm this causes, because your partisan celebrity worship is causing you to look goofy in front of strangers.
edit: I am very excited about brain-computer interfaces.
Oh noes a positive article mentioning Musk, quickly get it off of HN!! /s
Could it perhaps be that the person who was immensely helped thanks to the initiative of 1 person, likes that person? Might it be that people like the good Elon Musk does? Could it possibly be that Musk truly did immense good for some people?
Tip: watch the videos of the people who have the Neuralink implant and draw your own conclusion.
Let the downvoting begin. The success of the anti-Musk media psyop is truly awe inspiring IMO.
I don't care whether or not he likes Musk, this is America, we love assholes here. I simply don't see how that fact is relevant to an article discussing the merits of Neurolink the program.
I'll let other blind people go first, but I'm definitely some one that would love, love, love to be able to see. Driving, knowing body language, playing any and every video game out there, shoot yeah!
There is a great podcast with the entire team + Noland on yt. It is ~ 8h long, but IMO it's worth the time. You get to hear things from the perspective of the chief brain surgeon, hardware team, software team, and of course Noland himself. I really recommend it, to get a better understanding of what's possible, what they had to do to get there, and how impactful this kind of research is for people with terrible conditions.
I think anyone who chooses to undergo the first few trials of a new operation like this, and is informed about the risks, is very brave. I do not know much of anything about medical science, but my impression is that we are still very, very far from having a deep grasp of how both the brain and the immune system work. Ultimately, to the body an implant is simply a foreign object.
Many tech professionals work on projects that effect people's lives in very serious ways. But a lot of folk seem to feel a bit of meaninglessness in this career and the threshold of making a mistake isn't very high. If it's an off day, sloppy work yesterday can be fixed with another PR.
Building something that is meant to attach to someone's brain would be quite the burden to carry.
Friends with Parkinson's with neural implants anecdotally report great results, but of course with rather coarse tech. There seems to be lots of future potential.
My brother has had YOPD since his late 20s. He got DBS done about 3 years ago, and it was life changing. Not only in the symptom reduction (tremors and rigidity significantly reduced -- he walked straight for the first time in years, could button his shirts again, etc), but also in lifestyle improvements around the amount and frequency of medication, the ability to sleep properly (several side effects of both PD and the meds affect sleep), the ability for his body to actually relax.
DBS, like you said, is rather course tech and actually quite old technology. Doctors still don't entirely know why it works, so the adjustment is often experimental. In fact prior to specialized MRI machines that they use during surgery now, the patients would remain awake during the placement (brain surgery) of the electrodes so that the surgeons would know when the placement was "correct" based on real-time assessment of their symptoms. Now they do it under MRI, but the point being it's far from an exact science.
Can't wait to see what the future holds as they improve on it. Hard to imagine a world where his symptoms are fully managed (PD is progressive degeneration, so his symptoms, even with DBS are gradually worsening with time), but it was also hard to imagine how DBS could overnight change his life in the ways it did.
My daughter has DBS for severe Tourette's. Her quality of life before the implant was horrible -- frequent 110 dB+ screams and self-injury. The implant has reduced her tic frequency and intensity by easily 95%. It's not only given her her life back but also the lives of her family members.
The potential of brain interface technology is truly incredible -- both for good and ill.
This tech is incredible but it will be very divisive. Leadership of the current leading company notwithstanding, novel implants such as pacemakers have also undergone a stage of social caution that I would very much expect to surface for brain-interface devices as well, if not more fervently due to an increasing mistrust in technology's utility in our lives.
I am personally hopeful for this technology. I know it will be able to improve the lives of loved ones who both need and want it. I am also afraid of a technology that can decide my thoughts one way or another...
If this tech could be made to work flawlessly, it would be the gate to all the SciFi cyborg stuff, including body enhancements, "telepathy", etc.
Also, as a "side effect", it would open a path to fully immersive VR, as in Matrix, Snow Crash, Neuromancer, etc - with all the upsides and downsides of those scenarios.
All that "just" from hooking up motor and sensor neurons. And then people would probably start and mess with neurons that are involved in cognitive functions and the consciousness.
If generative AI had potential for cultish behavior, I think that will pale in comparison to this stuff.
Indeed it is. I think the tech is enormously exciting, but the ways in which both ordinary people and people in power could abuse it, are obvious.
I also don't trust the current brand of tech billionaires to handle this stuff responsibly - if they aren't specifically aiming for those dystopian scenarios even.
Based on all of Musk's past behavior, he doesn't exactly strike me as a guy who would deeply care for the disabled or make it his life's mission to cure spinal cord injuries - or even to grant super powers with no strings attached to the average person.
But he does seem like the kind of person who obsesses about the "next stage of evolution of the human race"...
There are flexible electrodes, rather than rigid arrays. The idea was that this would reduce scarring. I'm not aware of the exact results of the trials, but it works better than rigid arrays for longevity of recording.
Neuralink is amazing technology and watching videos of participants who have completely different abilities and freedom with Neuralink implants is mind blowing. It’s sad that many want to dismiss these amazing achievements just because it’s an Elon Musk founded company. At some point you simply have to acknowledge his success (and his team’s), and hope they get further with all of this.
I'm not sure whenever it's a good idea to cheer for lack of life-changing technical progress just because it's ran by a company governed by an ethically problematic person. The person is temporary, the progress is permanent.
I'm mostly cheering for more competition in the field. No reason for advances in life-changing technical progress to belong solely to that one company.
For someone with a supreme lack of judgement he sure does own a lot of billion dollar companies. I strive to have the same lack of judgement that he has.
I hope not, I'd rather have fewer narcissistic sociopaths in the world. He only cares about himself and what people think of him. Nothing he does is to benefit other people. He's not Iron Man, he's Lex Luthor.
I guess people have always idolized the creeps of the world, though.
Neuralink is super cool actually great medical tech, and elon comes in -in this article- blabbing about optimus robots or whatever as usual. I hope elon continues to get neuralink lots of money so that they can do useful things.
> It’s sad that many want to dismiss these amazing achievements just because it’s an Elon Musk founded company. A
The one thing that most people realize with age is that intelligence is not confined. One cannot be smart in one area while being a complete moron in another area. The reason why college educated people especially in STEM lean heavily Democratic isn't because of brainwashing, its because once you learn to critically think, you can apply it to the world and see what is better for society.
Furthermore we live in an age where ideology often gets substituted for fact, and people can't tell the difference.
So at this point, its a safe bet to assume that everything Musk touches is going to be shit until substantial evidence is provided otherwise, and a single article isn't it.
Not trying to be snarky, but doesn't this mental model effectively allow you to ignore any/all things otherwise intelligent people have to say, simply because you disagree? If I met Einstein, and he had opinions about how to cook chicken that differed from mine, I wouldn't leap to "he's a complete moron in the kitchen!", i'd be inclined to really attempt to understand the difference of opinion.
I'm not disagreeing that intelligence can be domain specific, but I'd be careful going to far with this. It is _not_ obviously the case that "anyone who can think critically leans towards the Democratic party", and putting that forward seems like an exceptionally dangerous bubble to build.
When Elon Musk was in charge of DOGE, one of the many horrible things they did was end clinical trials abruptly while medical devices were still implanted in patients' bodies. Clinicians were ordered to stop all work, leaving the devices in peoples' bodies and not provide any monitoring or support.
This man should not be in charge of any clinical trials.
> It’s sad that many want to dismiss these amazing achievements just because it’s an Elon Musk founded company
That's not a fair take. This isn't "just a thing", this leads to massive financial gain by someone whose now a very influential power into people's lives from his involvement in politics and other circles of influence.
People can do good and bad at the same time, and if you're impacted by the bad things the person does, the good doesn't excuse it, and you'd want to stop them from doing more bad, it makes sense not to cheer on the good things they do that then fuels their effort into the bad things.
There can be disagreement on if they are doing bad, but to someone who believes so, it's a rational stance to not cheer on what can further fuel what they consider bad.
When Elon Musk was in charge of DOGE, one of the many horrible things they did was end clinical trials abruptly while medical devices were still implanted in patients' bodies.
It's a massive betrayal of trust to put something in a patient's body, or start them on a drug regimen, and then abandon them in the middle of the trial. If the researchers hadn't violated their orders from DOGE, the patients would have been left with a device in their body and nobody to monitor them or for them to contact for support. The clinicians had to violate the stop-work orders to remove the devices.
This was incredibly unethical, and Elon is still cackling about the work that he did.
Don't let Elon Musk anywhere near your healthcare.
Have there been any reviews by independent experts? This reads like a promo piece, in particular I'm not sure why the fluff bits about Musk "being a regular guy" are relevant. Most of the linked sources are either other Fortune puff pieces or Neuralink press releases.
Reviews by independent experts about the quality of this guy's life? I think he can be considered an authority on that subject.
I think a bit of skepticism is warranted here. Patient number 1 isn't some random guy getting the procedure and recounting it's benefits. But someone self-selected and willing from day 1, massively engaged with the company, likely paid or compensated, getting a lot of promotion, visibility and attention, etc.
It's possible a lot of the QOL improvements are from the circumstances of getting all that attention, or the hype circle they themselves found themselves in.
I also think people need to be open minded to the possibility Neuralink does offer promising benefits.
I'm just seeing a lot of people strongly for or against, and really I think the reasonable stance here is to remain optimistically pessimistic until further evidence.
Let's be clear about what is a good subject for review and what is not. One person's opinion about how they feel is not. It can be a good subject for further inquiry, though: learn more about their experiences and consider critically whether those experiences generalize to others.
Not if you're being paid to be there.
See: Yeonmi Park and the absurdity of her stories that are essentially a product of South Korea's day-time TV.
(North Korean refugees typically can't get work permits, some of the little work available is telling people how bad NK is. It is illegal to say anything good about NK in SK)
DPRK propaganda on my HN????
Credentialism at its finest.
so are people who claim placebos and homeopathy improved their conditions, we are not reliable on an individual level
No placebo can let him "do things like play Mario Kart, control his television, and turn his Dyson air purifier on and off without physically moving his fingers or any other part of his body."
Given that there are objective changes, it is not unreasonable to believe his claim that he is satisfied or has benefitted from them.
it's not objective when there's only a single reporter and it's the subject
no before/after video, no third party report, there's nothing here but puffery... half the article goes on to promote robots
if it is truly "objective" then his subjective experience is irrelevant, so your logic makes no sense. it is not necessarily incorrect to investigate or be skeptical about another's self reported "subjective" claims (never mind their "objective" ones), for the reasons the comment you were dismissive of mentioned. plus given the nature of the company one would hardly be surprised if certain facts are cherry-picked over others. if it's truly as cut and dry as you believe, then surely any independent expert will soon end up empty handed. being dismissive of such an endeavor before it has even begun feels like kool-aid sippin...
The objective and subjective observations are about different but related things.
The objective measurements are about his enhanced abilities. He can do things he couldn't before.
But, the GP comment referred to "quality of life" which is innately difficult to measure objectively. It's possible that he was able to do those things but it caused him enough irritation to do them that he avoided using it (like CPAP often is for example), or that the things it enabled him to do weren't sufficient to warrant feeling improved. My father has limited mobility, but no interest in playing mario kart or adjusting an air filter, and there's very little in his home that he has or would want to be automated. Anything that could be my mom or another family member usually takes care of anyway, even if it's still something he could do himself as he's rather tech illiterate.
So, in this scenario, given my father's age, the risks involved in such a major surgery for his age, and his personal inclinations, the very same additional capabilities likely wouldn't be worthwhile in his opinion. Hence, the subjective experience of the objective changes are how you measure quality of life for this kind of operation.
yes, quality of life is a very difficult thing to measure objectively, because of the subjective component, as you state. are you under the impression the "reviews by independent experts" mentioned in the comment above the one you cited would only be meaningful if the person narrating their subjective experience was found to be outright lying? you are clearly familiar with some of the nuances, thus i'm not sure why you would not also be interested in independent reviews of the subject. his personal story is worth a lot, but it's not everything. i would think the more people reviewing it seriously, the more benefit to people like your father (and countless others)
You are right when it comes to qualia, but wholly incorrect in this case. There are measurable metrics in his life (ie independent use of computers, social engagements etc.)
It's not like he's having to rate his level of happiness here, these are physical benefits
if that's the case why do you care to read about his subjective experience, at all? isn't that the point of the comment inquiring about an independent review?
Because the subjective experience is the thing we actually care about.
Same reason you ask the users of any product for feedback. Sure, you can objectively see that they were able to click the register button, still doesn’t guarantee they came out of that experience wanting to use the product.
are you under the impression that the sole focus of an independent review as described in the root comment would be to investigate the personal veracity of "Participant 1"'s narration? do you alter course in your product because of single, particular user anecdote? i'm not sure what you think you are arguing against here...
Who is measuring the physical benefits? because based on this article it's no one... so again, we're taking one person's word for it... and it's very likely this person is contractually obligated to not disparage the company
Placebos only effect subjective outcomes, not objective ones.
That's not categorically true. Although a placebo inherently relies on a patient's subjective understanding of receiving a treatment, that understanding can change any number of very objective outcomes. That's why so many studies that measure objective metrics use placebos to begin with.
a good point, and one that highlights the fact that people are unironically relying on "objective"/"subjective" distinctions in this thread - when this division is not necessarily a straightforward one in neurology or philosophy/language. putting a neurological implant in someone's brain doesn't strike me as an act that immediately clarifies this issue, to put it mildly. but this technology is still in its infancy. thus, the more people to "review" it, the better... doesn't mean the benefits they are giving people or the work has to stop... it just doesn't mean some skepticism isn't warranted either...
I can't tell if you're trying to be clever, sarcastic, or are failing at both so I'll answer earnestly: reviews by independent experts of the claims of Neurolink the company and of the methods used to achieve those claimed results.
> in particular I'm not sure why the fluff bits about Musk "being a regular guy" are relevant
They're relevant because this was almost certainly written by a PR firm being paid by Musk to resuscitate his 32% approval rating.
Its a sample size of 1, of course its ancedotal.
Its a promising first sign, but that's all. I think you have unrealistic expectations if you expect rigorus science on the cost/benefit after just one experimental procedure. Stuff like this takes time.
The mere fact he didn't die from the procedure is probably a success in and of itself.
[flagged]
> What kind of reprobate thinks it is OK to swat a disabled person? Do you understand the kinds of active harm that your partisanship causes?
What are you talking about? Are you pretending to be upset at a mild question, on the behalf of the disabled? You should explain the active harm this causes, because your partisan celebrity worship is causing you to look goofy in front of strangers.
edit: I am very excited about brain-computer interfaces.
> You should explain the active harm this causes, because your partisan celebrity worship is causing you to look goofy in front of strangers.
I explained the active harm in the very sentence you quoted.
>> he told me that a SWAT team showed up with AR-15s after someone gave a false tip to the local sheriff’s office that Arbaugh was in danger.
I'm not a big fan of Musk for a number of different reasons. I'm even less a fan of the cult of hatred that pops up whenever his name is mentioned.
I'd rather look like a goof (nothing wrong with being goofy or weird sometimes) than help spread hatred.
>I'd rather look like a goof (nothing wrong with being goofy or weird sometimes) than help spread hatred.
No one in this thread is helping "spread hatred".
Oh noes a positive article mentioning Musk, quickly get it off of HN!! /s
Could it perhaps be that the person who was immensely helped thanks to the initiative of 1 person, likes that person? Might it be that people like the good Elon Musk does? Could it possibly be that Musk truly did immense good for some people?
Tip: watch the videos of the people who have the Neuralink implant and draw your own conclusion.
Let the downvoting begin. The success of the anti-Musk media psyop is truly awe inspiring IMO.
I don't care whether or not he likes Musk, this is America, we love assholes here. I simply don't see how that fact is relevant to an article discussing the merits of Neurolink the program.
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Nazi salute*. No idea why you wrote Roman.
Because that is the joke.
Right over my head.
no, the psyop is getting the public to believe a single wave to a crowd is anything more than that.
Do it on one of your work zoom calls and report back.
Cooked, absolutely chopped.
Probably necessary PR in order to avoid being cut off. Or just gratuitously inserted by the device into the wearer's decoded thoughts/output.
I'll let other blind people go first, but I'm definitely some one that would love, love, love to be able to see. Driving, knowing body language, playing any and every video game out there, shoot yeah!
There is a great podcast with the entire team + Noland on yt. It is ~ 8h long, but IMO it's worth the time. You get to hear things from the perspective of the chief brain surgeon, hardware team, software team, and of course Noland himself. I really recommend it, to get a better understanding of what's possible, what they had to do to get there, and how impactful this kind of research is for people with terrible conditions.
I think anyone who chooses to undergo the first few trials of a new operation like this, and is informed about the risks, is very brave. I do not know much of anything about medical science, but my impression is that we are still very, very far from having a deep grasp of how both the brain and the immune system work. Ultimately, to the body an implant is simply a foreign object.
Many tech professionals work on projects that effect people's lives in very serious ways. But a lot of folk seem to feel a bit of meaninglessness in this career and the threshold of making a mistake isn't very high. If it's an off day, sloppy work yesterday can be fixed with another PR.
Building something that is meant to attach to someone's brain would be quite the burden to carry.
Friends with Parkinson's with neural implants anecdotally report great results, but of course with rather coarse tech. There seems to be lots of future potential.
https://www.parkinson.org/living-with-parkinsons/treatment/s...
My brother has had YOPD since his late 20s. He got DBS done about 3 years ago, and it was life changing. Not only in the symptom reduction (tremors and rigidity significantly reduced -- he walked straight for the first time in years, could button his shirts again, etc), but also in lifestyle improvements around the amount and frequency of medication, the ability to sleep properly (several side effects of both PD and the meds affect sleep), the ability for his body to actually relax.
DBS, like you said, is rather course tech and actually quite old technology. Doctors still don't entirely know why it works, so the adjustment is often experimental. In fact prior to specialized MRI machines that they use during surgery now, the patients would remain awake during the placement (brain surgery) of the electrodes so that the surgeons would know when the placement was "correct" based on real-time assessment of their symptoms. Now they do it under MRI, but the point being it's far from an exact science.
Can't wait to see what the future holds as they improve on it. Hard to imagine a world where his symptoms are fully managed (PD is progressive degeneration, so his symptoms, even with DBS are gradually worsening with time), but it was also hard to imagine how DBS could overnight change his life in the ways it did.
My daughter has DBS for severe Tourette's. Her quality of life before the implant was horrible -- frequent 110 dB+ screams and self-injury. The implant has reduced her tic frequency and intensity by easily 95%. It's not only given her her life back but also the lives of her family members.
The potential of brain interface technology is truly incredible -- both for good and ill.
Has this been used for other health issues too?
This tech is incredible but it will be very divisive. Leadership of the current leading company notwithstanding, novel implants such as pacemakers have also undergone a stage of social caution that I would very much expect to surface for brain-interface devices as well, if not more fervently due to an increasing mistrust in technology's utility in our lives.
I am personally hopeful for this technology. I know it will be able to improve the lives of loved ones who both need and want it. I am also afraid of a technology that can decide my thoughts one way or another...
That said, I'll take two.
Divisive is an understatement.
If this tech could be made to work flawlessly, it would be the gate to all the SciFi cyborg stuff, including body enhancements, "telepathy", etc.
Also, as a "side effect", it would open a path to fully immersive VR, as in Matrix, Snow Crash, Neuromancer, etc - with all the upsides and downsides of those scenarios.
All that "just" from hooking up motor and sensor neurons. And then people would probably start and mess with neurons that are involved in cognitive functions and the consciousness.
If generative AI had potential for cultish behavior, I think that will pale in comparison to this stuff.
The dystopian downside is significant. It is not difficult to come up with half a dozen horrific outcomes of this technology.
Indeed it is. I think the tech is enormously exciting, but the ways in which both ordinary people and people in power could abuse it, are obvious.
I also don't trust the current brand of tech billionaires to handle this stuff responsibly - if they aren't specifically aiming for those dystopian scenarios even.
Based on all of Musk's past behavior, he doesn't exactly strike me as a guy who would deeply care for the disabled or make it his life's mission to cure spinal cord injuries - or even to grant super powers with no strings attached to the average person.
But he does seem like the kind of person who obsesses about the "next stage of evolution of the human race"...
It killed the vast majority of animals used for testing. Two would probably yield that result for you
I'm sure it has; and I'm sure it will again, and again, with every single software update.
I did not see any breakthroughs in neural link patents. Have they solved neural scaring?
There are flexible electrodes, rather than rigid arrays. The idea was that this would reduce scarring. I'm not aware of the exact results of the trials, but it works better than rigid arrays for longevity of recording.
Not sure but they did manage to make the patients say that it had changed their lives. :smirk:
Trade secrets?
I still remember the first person with the Dobell Eye back in the late 90's
https://archive.ph/3H31i https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Dobelle
Everyone who has ever worked in security: “Ain’t no way”.
Neuralink is amazing technology and watching videos of participants who have completely different abilities and freedom with Neuralink implants is mind blowing. It’s sad that many want to dismiss these amazing achievements just because it’s an Elon Musk founded company. At some point you simply have to acknowledge his success (and his team’s), and hope they get further with all of this.
For those interested in their clinical trials:
https://neuralink.com/trials/
No one has to hope he succeeds. He's demonstrated a supreme lack of judgement and character, I hope he doesn't gain more power.
I'm not sure whenever it's a good idea to cheer for lack of life-changing technical progress just because it's ran by a company governed by an ethically problematic person. The person is temporary, the progress is permanent.
I'm mostly cheering for more competition in the field. No reason for advances in life-changing technical progress to belong solely to that one company.
The damage that can be done by an unethical person is not always temporary.
For someone with a supreme lack of judgement he sure does own a lot of billion dollar companies. I strive to have the same lack of judgement that he has.
Caligula was pretty successful too. Maybe money and power aren't the magical trump card you think they are.
I hope not, I'd rather have fewer narcissistic sociopaths in the world. He only cares about himself and what people think of him. Nothing he does is to benefit other people. He's not Iron Man, he's Lex Luthor.
I guess people have always idolized the creeps of the world, though.
Neuralink is super cool actually great medical tech, and elon comes in -in this article- blabbing about optimus robots or whatever as usual. I hope elon continues to get neuralink lots of money so that they can do useful things.
> It’s sad that many want to dismiss these amazing achievements just because it’s an Elon Musk founded company. A
The one thing that most people realize with age is that intelligence is not confined. One cannot be smart in one area while being a complete moron in another area. The reason why college educated people especially in STEM lean heavily Democratic isn't because of brainwashing, its because once you learn to critically think, you can apply it to the world and see what is better for society.
Furthermore we live in an age where ideology often gets substituted for fact, and people can't tell the difference.
So at this point, its a safe bet to assume that everything Musk touches is going to be shit until substantial evidence is provided otherwise, and a single article isn't it.
Not trying to be snarky, but doesn't this mental model effectively allow you to ignore any/all things otherwise intelligent people have to say, simply because you disagree? If I met Einstein, and he had opinions about how to cook chicken that differed from mine, I wouldn't leap to "he's a complete moron in the kitchen!", i'd be inclined to really attempt to understand the difference of opinion.
I'm not disagreeing that intelligence can be domain specific, but I'd be careful going to far with this. It is _not_ obviously the case that "anyone who can think critically leans towards the Democratic party", and putting that forward seems like an exceptionally dangerous bubble to build.
When Elon Musk was in charge of DOGE, one of the many horrible things they did was end clinical trials abruptly while medical devices were still implanted in patients' bodies. Clinicians were ordered to stop all work, leaving the devices in peoples' bodies and not provide any monitoring or support.
This man should not be in charge of any clinical trials.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/health/usaid-clinical-tri...
> It’s sad that many want to dismiss these amazing achievements just because it’s an Elon Musk founded company
That's not a fair take. This isn't "just a thing", this leads to massive financial gain by someone whose now a very influential power into people's lives from his involvement in politics and other circles of influence.
People can do good and bad at the same time, and if you're impacted by the bad things the person does, the good doesn't excuse it, and you'd want to stop them from doing more bad, it makes sense not to cheer on the good things they do that then fuels their effort into the bad things.
There can be disagreement on if they are doing bad, but to someone who believes so, it's a rational stance to not cheer on what can further fuel what they consider bad.
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When Elon Musk was in charge of DOGE, one of the many horrible things they did was end clinical trials abruptly while medical devices were still implanted in patients' bodies.
It's a massive betrayal of trust to put something in a patient's body, or start them on a drug regimen, and then abandon them in the middle of the trial. If the researchers hadn't violated their orders from DOGE, the patients would have been left with a device in their body and nobody to monitor them or for them to contact for support. The clinicians had to violate the stop-work orders to remove the devices.
This was incredibly unethical, and Elon is still cackling about the work that he did.
Don't let Elon Musk anywhere near your healthcare.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/health/usaid-clinical-tri...
so this is like MCP but for neurons?
can they wire up the neurons that control ear twitch muscles to something useful e.g. "Open terminal" shortcut?
Just don't let the playwright MCP anywhere near it