this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
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Not totally surprising, I feel bad for the person who was in a desperate enough situation to become a con man narcissist's guinea pig.
It looks like we're learning the lesson we already learned back when Bill Gates tried to mess around with the education system and faceplanted; just because billionaires made a bunch of money selling a fancy toaster they invented or whatever, doesn't make them experts on anything else.
I'd sooner put a bullet in my head than something Elon Musk had a hand in.
No use of your body is a pretty desperate situation. Before the procedure he had to yell for his parents that he wanted to use the computer, they’d come sit him upright and put a joystick in his mouth, leaving him unable to speak. And he was often very uncomfortable in that position, so he couldn’t do it long. Now, he can use the computer fully laying down, without anyone’s help. The next logical step would be to have some robotic helper arms.
Anyway he can’t shoot himself. He can’t hold a gun or anything else. There’s little reason for this to be about Musk at all other than money. This is the culmination of decades of research from many medical professionals. It’s about a lot more than one person.
Elon should buy an exo skeleton as a way to show his appreciation For the paraplegic man’s sacrifice to science
It's 100% about Musk, yes, given his pursuit of tech even if it comes at a human cost. It's a pattern of his specific companies.
What this situation demonstrates is that Musk is pushing the tech ahead before it's ready and that the person recieving the implant is simply lucky that that negligence and haste hasn't left them with brain damage or worse.
No one is saying medical devices shouldn't be developed to help people, I'm saying Musks tech-cult attitude of "move fast and break stuff" should not apply when human lives and well being are involved.
Nobody is making you get a brain chip. Noland did the research, talked about it with his family, and wanted to proceed in spite of the fully disclosed risks. Bodily autonomy is a fundamental human right - if you want to do something or have something done to your body it's not the governments place to stop you. Safeguards are necessary, and they do exist. You don't need laws to make sure everybody has the same risk tolerance as you. I can't fully imagine what it would be like to have no use of my body and no hope of recovery. But I wouldn't want people like you or me who aren't in my shoes deciding what I can and can't do. Honestly if he wanted to have a lethal injection, I believe he should be allowed to make that decision, but he can't. I'm happy he was able to make some kind of decision, and regain some autonomy, if only temporarily, and not just be a vegetable head in a bed for the rest of his life.
Again, the person's desperation is a key here, this technology is targeted at people who are potentially willing to try anything even if it comes with risk.
That isn't the same sort of consent I have as someone who isn't paralyzed and just think it'd be cool to control my garage door with my brain or something. I'm not under the same pressure.
If I mix a bunch of laundry chemicals and bill it as a miracle cure for cancer, and then target vulnerable people willing to try anything because they are stage 4, that doesn't excuse me of my reckless disregard for safety or to use those people as experiments.
Musk's company wants to get this tech into human beings as quickly as possible even if it's underdeveloped and potentially unsafe because Musk's priority is not really about helping people.
Are you suggesting that the FDA gave Neuralink special treatment in the approval process? Or are you suggesting that the government should specifically shut down anything Musk tries to do, like SpaceX?
That or Musk's org lied, misrepresented their progress or found loop holes in the regulation process, yes.
It's pretty obvious from its immediate failure that it was not ready.
I don’t think it’s obvious at all. This is a sample size of one, and it is still working after 3 months.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7388795/
Implants are rejected by the immune system. Stents fail. Hip and joint replacements fail. Does that mean we shouldn’t do them?
We have billions of spare humans on this planet, no need to worry much.
My concern is not the extinction of the human race, cringe sociopath.
yes, but Musk is pushing this way too fast way too early. That was clear even before the disgusting fiasco with the monkey test subjects. Musk is ultimately with majority blame here because he is the one pushing it just like he did cyber truck, full self driving, etc. except this time literal life and death is at play more directly than the risk of one of his cars self-driving over a child.
This? https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-pcrm-neuralink-monkey-deaths/
yeah, that is about one person making this happen.
saying the guy can't kill himself doesn't exactly ethically green-light this kind of human experimentation, yeah his situation is hell but it'd be a whole lot worse with brain damage.
My takeaway from that article is mostly that primate research is a big emotional topic for some people, and maybe tech writers shouldn’t write about medical research. Do you think it would be so interesting if it was done on mice? The primate research center in Davis has been there since 1962, and it’s always been controversial. Do you think they’ve just been twiddling their thumbs for 55 years waiting for Neuralink to come along? No, that shit is routine for them. They keep doing it because primate research is still an important step before human trials.
There is no need to ethically green light a medical procedure that is voluntary, of sound mind, and of one’s own will. It’s not your body. It’s not your life. People implant beads and magnets into their bodies and tattoo their faces. People hang themselves from meat hooks for fun. People get circumcised, and pierced. It’s all none of your business.