Company is seeking people with paralysis to test its experimental device after getting green light from independent review board
Elon Musk’s brain-implant startup, Neuralink, said it has received approval from an independent review board to begin recruiting patients for its first human trial. The company is seeking people with paralysis to test its experimental device in a six-year study.
Neuralink is one of several companies developing a brain-computer interface (BCI) that can collect and analyze brain signals. But its billionaire executive’s bombastic promotion of the company, including promises to develop an all-encompassing brain computer to help humans keep up with artificial intelligence, has attracted skepticism and raised ethical concerns among neuroscientists and other experts.
Last year, the Food and Drug Administration denied the company’s request to fast-track human trials, but in May approved Neuralink for an investigational device exemption (IDE) that allows a device to be used for clinical studies. The agency has not disclosed how its initial concerns were resolved.
If it works then it will be the ultimate advance in human capability since the invention of the internet. But i don’t trust Elon to respect anyone’s privacy rights.
What?
We’ve had implants that can control a mouse and even type on a keyboard for decades now…
Neurolink is just a less obvious interface, the gains are nowhere near worth the setbacks.
Regular science gets thing working then shrinks it down. Musk jumped straight to shrinking it down, and he just fucking can’t get it to work.
I don’t really know if we’ve had other companies that are crazy enough to pierce the blood brain barrier, just for a brain interface machine.
There have been plenty of brain interface machines, but most are just pieces of headgear that you wear. And they’re just as useful as Musk’s interface… not very.
When you utilize a traditional mouse you are relying on both visual and proprioceptive data, which is interpreted in conjunction in real time by your brain. Without the proprioceptive sensation, your brain loses track of where the mouse is in the operational space. Meaning it takes a large amount of concentration to operate anything with just the aid of visualization.
The biggest problem is that they’ve essentially designed a meningitis machine. For my job we occasionally have to set skull pins for halo devices, basically a cervical immobilizing brace. These pins pierce the skin and are set into the bone of the skull, though we don’t pierce through the skull or damage the blood brain barrier.
These pins are extremely susceptible to infection depending on the level of patient compliance. Because the scalp is not firmly attached to the skull it’s is free to move against the pins and create a lot of skin irritation, which can lead to infections if not properly cleaned on a regular basis.
We can worry about privacy after he stops melting brains.
It cannot “work”. Even if it succeeded technically speaking, you cannot expect such a device to be secure (as no device is, and certainly not one made by Musk).
Now computerised cars are already an increasing risk in giving new ways to commit murder without being caught, but if you directly put a security risk in your brain, I am pretty sure that many people will jump on the occasion.
Even if it were secure, what happens to all the gen 1 implantees when gen 2 comes out? or when Musk decides to no longer support certain models? Imagine having a 2007 iphone stuck inside your brain, forever. Or I guess people could get brain surgery every few years. That seems reasonable.
I just hope the poor human test subjects don’t end up like those monkies.
I’m going to take the opposite stance here and hope some of his most devoted sycophants end up even more brain damage.
We’re way past being polite about this Nazi and his enablers.
They are recruiting desperate paralyzed people, not super fans.