this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 218 points 6 months ago (4 children)

I find the wording weird: The neuralink's threads have retracted from the brain.
The threads can't move or disconnect on their own. Neither can brain cells. All that can be measured is a loss of connection.

The far more reasonable explanation is that the brain cells at the connection point have died.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I seem to recall that scarring around the electrodes, which eventually causes them to stop functioning, is a known failure mode of older experiments along similar lines. It's one of the reasons I didn't hold out much hope for this iteration.

I just hope the patient doesn't take any long-term damage from the implant.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

If the moneys are anything to go on, that dude's in for an extremely painful death.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 6 months ago (1 children)

In principle they could have pulled out slightly, if there's jostling and tiny movements in skull then you'd expect them to work loose over time if they're not securely anchored

[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The patient was a paraplegic. I'm not sure how much they'd be capable of moving enough to dislodge the in-skull writing.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Paraplegics still need to move or be moved.

If they don’t rotate into different laying or sitting positions, they’ll develop bed sores they can’t even feel, which can be extremely dangerous. They also still need to move their limbs to avoid blood clots.

All this shows is that Neurolink isn’t ready for one reason or another. Either the wires are so fragile they become dislodged or broken by gentle movements during physiotherapy, or the surgery damaged the brain. Either way this is a major issue with the technology. No way are they going to be putting robot limbs on people if the chip that can control them is this unreliable.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

No way are they going to be putting robot limbs on people if the chip that can control them is this unreliable.

Let me just go ahead and remind you that the cyber truck exists.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

In one of the interview with Nolan he says he has full body spasms when he sits in the chair and those spasms take him out of position from being able to use the mouth stick controller. With neuralink he doesn't need intervention by someone else post spasms to continue.

Definitely enough to be jostling the head, but he didn't get into explicit detail of how serious they are movement wise.

Edit: side note, makes me wonder if they're a build up of spinal signals and the cord briefly connects and suddenly a pile of commands go through and he spasms.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

i would assume the brain itself has retracted from neuralink.

I.e. The brain doesnt want fuck shit to do with it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

If im not 100% off basis here, "Electric meat is still meat, and we just stabbed it with little tiny forks"