https://gizmodo.com/neuralink-fda-musk-implant-second-person-brain-chip-1851488440
Elon Musk's experimental brain tech startup will continue implanting people with its hardware.
A success does not include leaving a victim of failed experimental medicine with a non-functional implant. In contrast to how animal subjects are used as test subjects (often conducted with less oversight than there should be), using experimental medicine on volunteering patients should be done not just to collect better data than the chimps before them supplied, but with the genuine expectation that the product in question will benefit the patient beyond their usefulness as a test subject for continued product development.
Through software updates, they were able to alleviate the problem. They are a bit vague in the article but it's not a total loss and more than he had before the operation.
Tbh though, the real test is how his brain accommodates it over the years and if it starts getting complicated later.
Also, this was the very first test implant into a human. At this point in testing "doesn't harm the patient" is a perfectly good result to call a success.
Honestly, people calling Neuralink a failure because the first patient didn't get up and start dancing are just showing themselves to be either ignorant of the process or ridiculously biased.
SpaceX has a 64% market share in the global commercial rocket launch market for sending satellites, scientific instruments, and other payloads into orbit. In the first six months of 2023, SpaceX handled 21 flights for outside customers, or 64% of the worldwide total. In the first half of 2023, SpaceX handled 88 percent of customer flights from U.S. launch sites.[1]
If success isn't their goal I'd be amazed at what they accomplished if the decided to try for it someday.
That's not analogous to the situation with the brain chips. We're in the testing phases, and the testing phases for SpaceX rockets involves so many unplanned explosions that they've been in multiple investigations.
Yes and it stands. I'm still comparing SpaceX to Neuralink in terms of unethical rushed testing and development, and it still stands. What I'm not referring to is the products that SpaceX ships, YOU were the one who brought that up.
Falcon 9 is unmanned, and the Soyuz still has better stats according to your own source.
Falcon 9 is definitely manned.
The capsule Crew dragon, developed by Spacex for NASA, that flies on the Falcon 9 is the currently the only human rated orbital spacecraft in the US
My apologies, looks like the first manned flight was on 16 November 2020 after about 9 years of delays. Weather forced them to abandon their goal of reaching the ISS.
I don't know where you found this number, the commercial crew contract was awarded by NASA in September 2014 to SpaceX and Boeing (Boeing getting twice the amount of money than SpaceX). It was expected that two crew capsule would be certified by NASA in 2017.
SpaceX only certified the capsule Crew Dragon with a crewed launch in 2020, so 3 years delay. In the mean time NASA is still waiting for Boeing to do its first crewed Starliner launch.
There is plenty of reason to hate Musk but people at SpaceX did accomplish great things.
Without SpaceX NASA would still be relying on Soyuz to send astronauts to the ISS.
I'd imagine they're mostly physically disabled people trying to get control of their limbs or access to the freedom this type of tech is promising. As abhorrent as all of the testing behind this tech is, if I were a quadrapalegic or something similar, I would volunteer because wtf else have I got going for me?
That is very true. It doesn't mean it is ethical. It is quite common for people who are disabled, have a disease, or what not to be overly optimistic about success. Which caused them to be more willing to make poorly informed decisions.
Experiments like these are not inherently bad, but it is very easy to receive informed consent from the participant when they are not fully informed. That is why studies like this in academia require an ethics panel to review them.
To give an Elon musk's track record with his various companies. I think it is completely reasonable to question the ethics of this study.
It's not the tech itself that worries me. It's who in this case is supplying it along with the fact the previous patient had 85% of the functionality just stop and they haven't done a damn thing to address that before they want to try it on another patient.
There are other companies working on the same or similar tech that are far less fucked up.
Arbaugh says that updates to the chip’s software have allowed him to regain many of the abilities that he previously had and that he is still very supportive of Neuralink and what it’s done for him.
They did try to fix the problem the best they could. Its also a very intense procedure so I doubt it's smart to go back after so little time. It's probably better to wait until they fix all the kinks anyways. The man did enough, he doesn't need to be a debug guinea pig with his head open every month imo.
I'd actually be mad if they used the same guy tbh.
I also think it's important to seperate the tech from the persona. There's a lot of smart people behind this and I think it's sci-fi as fuck.
Look we all hate Elon and how neuralink is developing their tech that's not in question here.
People are taking issue with your referring to desperate people with very very poor quality of life due to injuries or medical conditions as "brain dead"
They aren't "brain dead", dumb or stupid, they are reaching for what looks like the only potential light in their life. A life that is probably impossibly difficult for any of us typically healthy people to imagine.
Is that exclusive para/quadriplegics in your mind? Only that you are countering a statement that essentially says that losing one or more limbs doesnt make people stop loving you, by saying not everyone has people that love them. Which would be a good point if people not loving you was exclusive to people who have lost a limb or limbs...
Did you just try to angle my comment to be about people with disabilities being less capable and/or of less value?
What I countered was a claim where the first part stated that everyone has a life, which is just not true. For the second part of the claim to have any value in the sentence, the first part has to be true. Which it wasn't.
Whether I read it wrong or not doesn't change the fact that I never limited my statement to be about people with disabilities or disabilities automatically taking the life away from people.
So I stand by my claim, that not everyone of the 8 billion living in this planet has a life and people that care about them.
You were responding to a comment about quadriplegics which painted context to your response. If that's not what you meant, then gine. Im sorry i misunderstood your response. You could have been more clear that you were generalising and not directly responding to the claim being made.
To your point. No not everyone has a life and people that love them but i would argue that a blanket statement that started this thread, that if you were a quadriplegic then you would volunteer to have experimental surgery with unknown side effects and effectiveness because you have nothing else going for you is not inherently true.
You dont need to be quadriplegic to want to volunteer. You dont have to not have anything else going for you, and you dont need to have a life or people that love you.
If all you are saying is not everyone has a life or people that live them, then i fail to see how its relevant to the point made in this thread.
I mean...I'm more or less normally functioning. I'd give it a whirl then start building a drone army.
Fuck. We could have a real Rat King even!
It's shocking, but not at all surprising, that one of the top comments here is calling desperate sick suffering people "brain dead" for taking a risk to try and get better, or help advance a technology to help people similarly suffering in the future.
I guess our hatred of musk exceeds our compassion for the sick.
Even you think something must be wrong with them if they're agreeing to this. Just because you lean more toward an ailment that would make someone desperate rather than someone being deficient in congestive function doesn't mean you're any better. Like. I get it. It's hard to imagine a regular person just thinking one day it's a good idea to sign up to let a company run by Elon Musk implant anything into their body (especially their brain). But this is a bit of a high horse riding comment, isn't it?
The first implant was in a paraplegic man. The FDA is not approving this experimental procedure for otherwise healthy people.
It's not hard for me to believe some healthy person would be a dope and want to experiment with this, but it's not what is being considered.
The top level comment is shitty on severely ill people for being willing to take a risk to improve their life and the lives of others.
It's either pure trash, or the poster is so blinded by their hatred for musk that they aren't thinking rationally. I suspect the latter.
Perhaps you should read the other comments where I explain that the company's track record of ethics and success sucks ass, and isn't the only one doing this kind of research. They're just the only ones willing to go through human trials with garbage that falls apart.
Them using desperate people doesn't help with the ethics here. It actually is much worse, taking advantage of people.
My point has nothing to do with the company, but you calling sick people who want to make their own life better, and hopefully better the world at the same time, "braindead."
I won't let you gaslight us and try to pretend your original point was solely about the company. Sorry.
I don't know that the top comment assumed the people signing up for this trial were sick or medically unwell.
I am not arguing the why or who of clinical trials. My comment had nothing to do with the why or who. It had to do with the judgements made by both comments about the who.
I can understand why you'd feel that comment was insensitive if you have the context you provided. But an assumption about the motives without necessary context does not equal guilt on the original commenter. This person may not have considered the health of someone willing to join such a trial at all. It may never have occurred to them that unhealthy people were signing up.
His hatred for Musk is kind of justifiable in the way Musk has accrued his wealth and the actions of his companies under his direction. And given that track record the logic of not wanting to become the next Hyperloop that is now just an underground tunnel.
This is the internet. People gonna people.
Pretty much all of the misconceptions you listed could have been solved by simply reading the article, or even being slightly informed about the process of approval of experimental evidence.
Judging from a place of ignorance isn't really any better.
See number 5. People really are going to people, but compounding that is also not any better.
And when people are mindlessly and unfairly judging people, we shouldn't call them out? If I see someone being racist should I just throw up my hands and say "well people are going to people"?
And why aren't you following your own advice and allowing me to people without being challenged?
The FDA is only approving this for clinical use, so yes, there is something wrong with them. Healthy people won't be installing chips into their brain. Probably not in our lifetimes at least as the tech is not safe enough
This comment is not arguing in the spirit of the original comments or my own. Healthy people absolutely do want this technology for the sheer amount of convenience it could provide. Hence the number of science fiction stories about it. The thing is though, assuming that anyone who would sign up for a clinical trial must be sick is an interesting take especially in response to someone else positing that anyone who would do it is stupid or crazy. People can be perfectly healthy and still participate in clinical trials. For lots of reasons to include simply wanting to progress the science.
There is a lot of legal limits for medical procedures not in the pursuit of documented illnesses. You will have a very hard time finding someone willing to take off a working arm for a protestic for example.
I mean. That's also not what I was arguing although I did bring up that healthy people do want this technology too, so I can see how we got here. We aren't arguing the motive of the people signing up for or participating in this or any clinical trial. We are arguing whether or not we can judge others for assuming the motives of those signing up, and whether our judgements are any better.
I look forward to the day when they try to mass market this and find out it has a unique problem when put in the heads of humans who aren't complete morons. And they never caught it during testing because all of their test subjects were volunteers.
We call that selection bias.
Maybe this indicates that the FDA's investigations have shown that Neuralink isn't quite as awful at this as random internet commentators believe.
Still a questionable decision. Brain interface tech isn't even that new or novel, but the real bottleneck is that flesh is temporary, eventually the attachment place will die and be replaced. That's exactly what we saw with their first brain chip and other attempts going back at least 50 years.
Nope, I hate musk so everything he is associated with has to be the worst thing ever and pure evil.
Well there are EVs everywhere now, Starlink is breaking ISP regional monopolies and providing rule areas/countries with internet, and SpaceX is the leading frontier of human exploration technology. The ol'Muskrat is a real piece of work, but it sounds kinda ridiculous when you downplay obvious successes.
Tesla is 19.9% of EV market share, Starlink isn't "breaking monopolies" it is one, and SpaceX has accomplished some great things by underpaying engineers.
In most of these cases, Elon Musk hasn't been taking an active role in the companies, part of the reason he was denied his 56Bn Bonus that he is currently desperately trying to pay himself out of Tesla's finances.
Yeah Tesla is down to 20% because of the massive EV boom THEY started. Saying Starlink is one of the ISP monopolies people can choose from, is an oxymoronic statement. Agreed about SpaceX. Pay your amazing eng team!
I'm not saying Elon is a great leader. But the odds 3 things he owns happened to take off isn't likely a total coincidence. Maybe he's just better than average at predictions. But to act like it isn't what it is because you don't like the guy, kinda undercuts legitimate criticism.
This one paid off. Read the interviews given by mr Arbaugh. Musk is an ego-driven maniac, you won't get any argument from me. But as a result a bunch of scientists got more funding than they normally would for this project that gave great joy and some measure of independence to a young quadriplegic, maybe with more to follow.
You want to hate on Musk? I'll happily join you. But if you're one of those assholes rooting against these doctors and scientists doing ground breaking work with Musk's money, that's a pretty terrible take.
The chips are attached to impermanent brain flesh. That has been the brick wall in our way for fifty years. Any benefit is short term, and the long term implications are harrowing. This field would have advanced at roughly the same rate without subjecting people and animals to undue risks.
You can find out how different news outlets feel about a person by the type of pictures they use of them. Once you see it, it can't be ignored.
Because it will encroach into everything if we let it be.
There's always a dumdum like you saying "it doesn't affect you, so why do you care?".
Because the company implanting the chip killed a good amount of monkeys for their tests. They're an unethical company.
Because Elon Musk is a fucking piece of shit and he is clearly disregarding the laws if it makes him money.
Because private, for-profit companies cannot be trusted to not fuck over everyone if it makes them a cent more.
And that's why all those paralyzed people should just sit in their chairs and wait for eventual death, I guess.
Seriously, just don't get one if you think they're so awful.
The issue is not the tech, it's how it is developed and tested, and the terrible track record of the mega corpos.
Just like AI, the tech itself is great, but corpos turn it into a pile of shit for the money.
It won't be different this time around with daddy Musk.
Yeah, things would be going so much better if garage hobbyists were developing these brain implants instead.
Yeah because it's either a socipath billionaire or a dusty garage hobbyist. Nothing in between.
At the very least, the garage hobbyist has more chance to be a more ethical person.
One of the common arguments I hear against technological advancement is "but what if some sociopath brews up a pandemic virus in their garage!"
The FDA is monitoring the corporations that are working on this sort of thing. As is mentioned in the title of this thread.
You know what else killed a good amount of monkeys for their tests? Pretty much every single Class 3 medical device out there. Neuralink didn't do anything far outside the ordinary with their tests, they just got a lot of media attention because "Elon bad".
Medical device testing goes through animal trials before human ones. Those trials use monkeys. Those monkeys often die. The only unusual thing about Neuralink's tests is a lot of people pretending like they suddenly give a shit.
Here's an idea, maybe stop killing animal for medical testing?
Other companies doing the same shit isn't any better. But with Neuralink, they said that no monkey were killed during their trials, which is false. So it makes it even worst.
Because it kills everything you put it in? I don't know how to tell you that you're supposed to care about other people.
Apart from the only other human it’s been put in, who from all reporting has had no ill side effects.
You haven't been keeping up with the news have you? The chip malfunctioned, and Elon knew it was going to.
This is extremely old news. The dude is alive, and has regained much of the functionality he lost in the chip with a firmware update.
Put your rage boner away.
… First off, the guy was a paraplegic before the implant. This isn’t a sudden or new thing to happen.
Secondly, you’re literally asking for a final version of something without any sort of human testing involved. Can you name a single medical device, ever, which has had exactly 1 version, no updates, and went through 0 human trials before completion?
This guy was never going to be out and about on his daily walk through the middle of the street using his v0.001 neuralink implant. And if you honestly thought that was ever on the table, you have absolutely no idea what is going on.
Again, put the hate boner away.
Put.
Your hate boner.
Away.
Your ignorance of the subject is insane. You don't even have the first clue as to who is involved in the tests or what it's meant to accomplish.
Luckily the value of SpaceX is not determined by their success, but more by what bullshit Musk can come up with. So if Musk can bullshit his way around this too, there is no harm to the stock.
Edit:
Ups sorry posted this the wrong place.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Neuralink, the Elon Musk-funded neuroscience startup, has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to implant its next patient with its experimental brain chip.
Neuralink previously implanted its experimental brain-computer interface chip in a paraplegic man, Noland Arbaugh, in an operation that was publicly announced this past January.
Arbaugh’s identity was revealed during a livestream interview in March, during which the patient demonstrated some of the abilities the chip had given him, including the chance to play computer chess with his mind.
However, Arbaugh says that updates to the chip’s software have allowed him to regain many of the abilities that he previously had and that he is still very supportive of Neuralink and what it’s done for him.
This hardware then rests in the portion of the patient’s skull that was removed, right below the scalp, while its tiny wires carry data back and forth between the brain and the startup’s servers.
A large number of the company’s animal test subjects had to be euthanized and some died quite horribly, according to a lawsuit from a physicians group.
The original article contains 419 words, the summary contains 181 words. Saved 57%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Can we just ..... not keep going down the brain rot rabbit hole we are going down as a society? 24 hours in a day doesn't allow enough screen time? We need to just... funnel this shit straight in somehow?
I used to be excited for this kind of stuff, then I saw what we've done with the technology we have. People are "auto" driving their cars while they wear their apple vision pros, that's what we do with it.... Pretty soon tiktoc titties will be streamed straight to our frontal cortex.
Maybe I am just old, or maybe it would just be better if it was a different company doing it. But maybe a giant meteor should take us out ASAP.
In my 20's I was all for it. I understand where the techbros are coming from. Now with over a decade more experience, I see clearly we need to spend so much more of our energy healing from traumas on the societal level: To dispel imperial-colonialist mindsets. Im thinkin of Bo Burningham speaking about how the empires exhausted all physical territory, and then discovered Data, going on to colonize every waking moment of our attention.
We need to shed the subconcious conquistador, with all it's machismo, all it's tribalism (most agregiously white supremacist nationalism) and covetous paranoia. It is a poison which will prevent us from making the societal leap from which all tides would rise.
Until we do that, all we'll get for this tech will be:
And we collectively deserve better
The ultimate goal of this technology is to enable the blind to see, deaf to hear and the paralyzed to walk. Not that you can watch netflix in your mind.
I'm down, if I even remotely believed anything that comes out of Elon Musks mouth. I promise you, that is not where this will go.