In an interview, Noland Arbaugh says the company wanted to avoid further surgery.
I'm not surprised given the person in charge, but I still feel bad for the guy. Being almost completely paralyzed, it makes total sense to jump at the chance to get some normalcy back.
I didn't expect 85% of the wires to already detach at this point. In a just society, the whole company would be shut down and the CEO put into a bottomless pit.
the fucking trials out of australia where they successfully gave people back like their sight or hearing or whatever it was, and then the trials ended and they had to have the implants removed or disabled so the company didn't have to keep supporting them was the most heartbreaking thing I had read that month.
Dreams are basically the only place left capitalism hasn't colonized (sorry , SpaceX ruined that one). If they ever found a way to inject car insurance and fast food commercials into my dreams, I might actually
When Arbaugh asked if his implant could be removed, fixed, or even replaced, Neuralink’s medical team relayed they would prefer to avoid another brain surgery and instead gather more information.
Yeah, I'm not going to fault them for that decision. Now if (when) they refuse to remove it if (when) it becomes inoperable, then that's an unjustifiable and unforgivable decision.
I'm glad they don't want to touch what they fucked up, but I think this is a case of referring him to actual neurosurgeons to help him mitigate any potential damage at their own expense. They won't because that's admitting fault for litigation purposes, but Jesus that's bad.
While I'm sure there are a number of worthwhile uses for brain implant tech (helping disabled people is the first thing coming to mind), the testing process just seems so cruel. Is there any way to perfect the tech that ISNT something out of a dystopian scifi?
Is there any way to perfect the tech that ISNT something out of a dystopian scifi?
Nope. The entirety of academic science is predicated on the dystopian scifi of modernity. E.g. the species of mouse that has been selectively bred to remain genetically identical (so it can be used as a scientific unit for experimentation) for more than a century, has been copyrighted, and is used in basically all testing. It's been squished, starved (lab animals are generally kept in a state of hunger to make them more easily controlled), diseased, burnt, drowned, cut open (while alive), shocked, etcetc. Similar treatment of many other animals (and humans in the global south, and people of colour and disabled people and women etcetc in the global north).
Our (Capitalist-European) ways of knowing are based on this brute force torture-science where we tear stuff apart to find out "what it is" (and more importantly, can it be made profitable or is it useless?) as soon as possible, and then we declare the results of this torture-science universally applicable, e.g. we declared animals stupid because we ran tests on animals we've captured, starved to ensure food motivation and locked up in cages for ease of access and tested on things humans find relevant (e.g. testing facial recognition on apes using human faces instead of ape faces; shockingly gorillas are better at telling gorillas apart than telling humans apart).
Like, it rly has to be remembered the basis of Academic European Science is rich fucks doing experiments for fun, using "raw materials" (living or otherwise) available to them as a result of their immense privilege. As their wealth was already based on e.g. literal chattel slavery they had no qualms doing literal torture on subhumans for fun and "progress", no qualms tearing up ecosystems to "study plants and animals" (bc of this, Academic science is still basically baffled by a lotta how plants and animals actually work in nature). They therefore had less than no qualms doing any of this to "improve the human condition (i.e. to make more shit for companies to sell)".
Capital was willing to work 2 year olds to death in lace mills for pretty dresses; it has less than no qualms about torturing apes or mice to death to ensure quality hair products or slightly longer human lifespans (for the rich, in the global north). Socialism (as it exists after imperialism dies, not as it exists while competing with imperialism) will likely have to (be forced to by the poorest) reconsider a lotta the stuff we in the imperial core take as necessities of life.
Thanks for that. Given that's the current case, I'm now of the mind (tee hee) that we should...idk, maybe do that first before human and animal testing?
But that would delay pushing it to market so nope no siree can't have that
I would say that if people were set for life in a more humane, egalitarian society, one can choose to opt into experiments without there being financial incentives to ruin informed consent.
Volunteering in this society with how they treat test subjects (a term that's already loaded as fuck) is letting an unchecked researcher and/or corporation to fuck you up and deny responsibility while waiting you out in court.
Turns out there's nothing wrong with the chip, but the patient missed his most recent payment so they hit the "auto repossess" button and it withdrew the fibers from his brain
Damn. According to the article the Neuralink team pretty much certainly already knew this was very likely to happen. They're also telling the subject that they want to avoid the risk of another surgery to correct it.
So why the fuck did they go ahead with it before addressing the known problems???
It says he's still able to play games and move a mouse cursor and click on things so it's not entirely useless and it's better than not being able to do any of those things.
But the article is really light on details and citations so who knows what they're covering up.
The capacity you describe is already available in hobbyist grade products. Not consumer grade yet, but you can see youtubers playing with kits to do all that in their gamer chair with no surgery.
this is such a fucked up take holy shit. this is a guy whose life has been completely destroyed by an accident when he was young trying to regain some of his previous abilities and we're implying he should die because Elon Musk is involved?
Didn't realize y'all think this musk-humper who was a self-professed "Christian athlete" and was in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M is some virtuous angel. 100% guarantee this guy has some very interesting 4chan posts.
Seriously, what the hell was this person thinking? Sorry, absolutely no empathy whatsoever from me. I’m more ashamed of them not spending energy discrediting musk at this point
I get it, but being disabled to that extent makes you reliant on other people to access resources and information to help you make informed decisions.
The accident happened while he was a teenager and I can't imagine it's easy to do independent research or evade pressure from peers when you can't just disengage from a Tesla bro who wants to use your condition for clout.
I hope he figures out and denounces the whole thing, but at this point sunk cost sets in.
A lot of disabled people are seen as fundamentally inhuman when all they're missing is a hand, or foot, or just can't sit on their legs for more than a couple hours, so imagine how it must feel to live your life in a little motorised chair that you control with your tongue because it would be either an untenable strain on your hands or simply, you no longer have the motor control to do so. Once you become quadriplegic, most people's good will and compassion run out very quickly and your life becomes limited to a very small amount of friends and family you become completely dependent on for most everything.
With the exception of chancers and hucksters, who, as above, see you as fundamentally inhuman so they will have no qualms about using you as mince meat for whatever scam product they have lined up. However, that's a lot more attention than everyone else gives you, and, at a point, you might have given up on life so completely that knowing full well the offer is a scam, you're hanging on the hope it somehow backfires and actually works. And if it doesn't, and it kills you? You might be past the point of caring when you accept it.
This isn't a used jetsky salesman that got the bazinga chip so he could crunch spreadsheets while banging hookers. It's someone who wants some really basic human decency back and sadly fell into the hands of the most divorced man on earth and his scam chip company. This whole reply isn't to chide you, it's just trying to offer context on how the more desperate you are, the more likely you are to fall for stupid scams. And that makes you the victim.
After all, desperate people fall on the hands of predatory lenders and horrible working conditions, and our immediate reply isn't to tell them "what are you, stupid, what did you expect?"