Elon Musk plans human trials for brain-computer Neuralink in 2020

[HEXUS]

Requires installer to drill holes, add wires, and attach brain to processor with Bluetooth comms.

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[EvilCycle]

No no no no no AND no! You could offer me billions and I would laugh in your face. I get that tech being part of us is inevitable in the future, but not like this Elon, not like this. The picture of the rat makes me feel sick.

Sure, by all means it could prove useful for people who are in a situation where this kind of thing wouldn't be any more invasive than surgery they are already going through and could help them in some way, but I don't see how creating a form of telepathy is going to help someone with a brain tumor, it kind of feels like he is hiding the fact he is just using them as easy targets, because where would this go after that? The general public? No thanks.

[Ttaskmaster]

Next year... Elon Musk announces plans to land on surface of Sun.

[Tabbykatze]

No no no no no AND no! You could offer me billions and I would laugh in your face. I get that tech being part of us is inevitable in the future, but not like this Elon, not like this. The picture of the rat makes me feel sick.

Sure, by all means it could prove useful for people who are in a situation where this kind of thing wouldn't be any more invasive than surgery they are already going through and could help them in some way, but I don't see how creating a form of telepathy is going to help someone with a brain tumor, it kind of feels like he is hiding the fact he is just using them as easy targets, because where would this go after that? The general public? No thanks.

I'm the complete opposite and am a firm believer that eventually Cyberisation is the future of the human race.

Zony eyes to replace the visually impaired, override central nervous system for paraplegics. Neural acceleration with offloaded compute.

It's dangerous and crazy but I don't see how getting hung up on how this stuff has to be tested being a barrier is necessary.

If I were disabled/infirm or nearing death, I would sign up for this stuff without a second thought.

[Ttaskmaster]

I'm the complete opposite and am a firm believer that eventually Cyberisation is the future of the human race.

But do you think Musk is really the one to lead it?

[Tabbykatze]

But do you think Musk is really the one to lead it?

Yes, I do. For all his flaws his vision is betterment of the human race and economic wins are secondary to that.

I trust him to do it more than all of the worlds state funded projects combined.

I could be wrong and he could end up turning us all into cybermen but at least we'd all be employed and have a sui...place to sleep, right?!?

[Ttaskmaster]

Yes, I do. For all his flaws his vision is betterment of the human race and economic wins are secondary to that.

I'm not so concerned about economy, as his unstable personality. He seems a little prone to throwing a strop of coming out with stupid things, to the point where his own company board have to gag him.

Besides, I can think of some other quite dubious things that were done for "betterment of the human race"... and there's then the concern over what things like this might then enable others to use it for. Imagine if Facebook funded this, for example, which resulted in their subsequent right to stream 24/7 advertising directly into our brains...

UK population now 92% 'Zuckerberg Zombies'. Full story in News At Ten....

[Tabbykatze]

I'm not so concerned about economy, as his unstable personality. He seems a little prone to throwing a strop of coming out with stupid things, to the point where his own company board have to gag him.

Meh, what genius isn't eccentric, crazy and altogether a bit weird. He throws strops when money becomes more important than advancement but does get very frustrated quite easily, granted

Besides, I can think of some other quite dubious things that were done for "betterment of the human race"... and there's then the concern over what things like this might then enable others to use it for. Imagine if Facebook funded this, for example, which resulted in their subsequent right to stream 24/7 advertising directly into our brains...

UK population now 92% 'Zuckerberg Zombies'. Full story in News At Ten....

If Facebook were doing this, I would look into helping build the anti-facebook explosives.

[Smudger]

Coming soon: Elon Musk will pay you $1 to fully punch you in the face.

[Ttaskmaster]

He throws strops when money becomes more important than advancement but does get very frustrated quite easily, granted

Conceive whatever crazy amazeballz solution to all of humanity's problems you want, Elon... you still have to pay people to build it, though, which means your company must make money in order to finance this.

If Facebook were doing this, I would look into helping build the anti-facebook explosives.

Oh, it wouldn't be them directly. Probably some shell corporation that supplies the Thought Police contracted to the government, so they can use this to spy on your brainworkings and nab you the instant your Wrong-Think goes too far off message...

[Tabbykatze]

Oh, it wouldn't be them directly. Probably some shell corporation that supplies the Thought Police contracted to the government, so they can use this to spy on your brainworkings and nab you the instant your Wrong-Think goes too far off message...

Ohhh, this sounds almost like an ABC Warriors story line with Think Cones on Mars.

As long as I get to see Mek-Quake drop kick one into space, I'm happy.

[philehidiot]

I both have an implant wired to my spine and I work with people with pacemakers and other implantable cardiac devices. I can see two serious issues with this as it stands. First, infection risk. You can not eliminate this, leaving a port exposed gives a potential path for infection and so on. Brain infections are nasty, evil things. The risk of this is not worth any technology for me.

Secondly, if anyone thinks this would be any kind of comfortable, they're mistaken. I have two great big lumps in my back - one is a titanium can and the other is the anchor which holds the leads in place. It is not comfortable. I routinely get people complaining about pacemakers hurting and I guarantee you that this sticking out of your skull would not be comfortable at all.

The other thing with this is it's working in the opposite way to how most medical implants / treatments work. They've got a device and they're looking for an application in people with severe medical issues. They're not targeting a problem and developing a specialised treatment. Ethically, therefore you have a serious issue as the kinds of people you're offering this to are mostly people with brain damage and it's more a data collection exercise and a "see what we can do" thing.

I think the biggest technical issue here is the port. I charge via induction and communicate via radio. The kit for this is fairly big and cumbersome. There certainly isn't anywhere the bandwidth of USB-C so the program is created on a laptop and then uploaded to the device. We are seeing low powered bluetooth on some pacemakers which may be a route for this tech but fundamentally you need to do away with the USB-C interface and the idea that you can (in my view) exploit people with severe brain disorders to develop your technology. I was the first patient in a study to test my particular kind of implant but it had been tested on animals with the specific conditions it was aiming to treat before hand. More than proof that you can interface with the nervous system, you have to prove it can benefit people with specific conditions before you can start clinical trials on humans. You don't just go giving a drug you know will harm some people "just to see if we can help people with some vague conditions related to the organ we're injecting it into".

[Dareos]

Next year... Elon Musk announces plans to land on surface of Sun.

don't see a problem with this, as long as he does it at night..


Im all for progress but Philehidiot raises some very real concerns about the application of such technology. My concerns are a little more on the nose, so to speak.

Mr Musk has a penchant for calling people paedophiles with no evidence, simply because they called him out on using a rescue mission as a PR exercise. With an implant like this under his control will he then simply make people paedophiles or will it simply be impossible to say a bad word about Elon once you have this implant?

Given Mr Musk's fascination with selling people portable flamethrowers, will additional hardware be installed turning each recipient into a human torch on command?

Is Elon Musk in fact attempting to build a zombie army via neurological implants. Will the flawed (minorly) Tesla Autopilot system be downloaded into the brain via this implant and given his past naming scheme shall recipients be known as the New Model Army?

serious answers only please

(maybe not)

[Saracen999]

Excellent (and interesting) post by philehidiot above. Best I've seen in quite a while.

As for Neuralink, my personal willingness to even consider such a .... treatment .... would be about the same, and on much the same basis, as I'd apply to chemotherapy, which is to say :-

1) Only if medically necessary, and
2) Even then, a lot would depend on the exact circumstances.

It is NOT a foregone conclusion I would agree to chemo, even if it was my only chance. The calculation would be nature and duration of any benefit, chances of success, and impact of such treatment on the quality of whatever time I had left, without it. I would regard this implant the ssme way.

And short of such a medical necessity .... oh, hell no. No way.

[Saracen999]

don't see a problem with this, as long as he does it at night..

...

In my defence, I'm sporting a nasty headache, and am, to say the least, a bit slow on uptake right now, but I read that and thought "But .... hold on .... what?" and then about 5 seconds after I first read it, my irony alarm went off.

Nice one, Mr. Dareos. You got me.

[preter_s]

Whenever Elon Musk announces one of these hare brained projects, Tesla shareholders better hold on to their knickers. Its usually a way to distract people from the problems he is facing. Maybe he is a better project starter than a CEO tackling daily problems like the need to communicate responsibly?

Also, the best way to invite trust and credibility in such projects is to volunteer yourself as the first subject. Build that USB4-Thunderbolt port into your own brain for us to see first, Elon. Funny how Elon sounded warnings about AI eventually destroying the world a la Skynet but wants to embark on this eh?

While you're at it, please be the first space passenger for your other space tourism project!