What other proof do you need to realize that it ends badly? The recent cases of Ransomware don’t worry you at all?
I’m sure these implants will give much needed ease to patients who suffer frem tremors like parkinson and other neurological diseases. But the things I’m mostly concerned about are:
- Will health insurance pay for the implant in a one-time-payment? Will it be a subscription model? What happens when you can’t pay your subscription? Will it be shut off?
- Will the implant be operated through firmware (like a pacemaker) or software, which reqires frequent updates? If so, will there be - like computer software - “new features” implemented (“With version 2.0 you will be able to share your Neuralink experience with other Neuralink users. Your data may not be leaked, pinky promise.”
- What if a certain mentally unstable CEO throws a tantrum that will affect the performance of the Neuralink implant negatively? Will there be any legal protection from such thing?
I have a (peripheral) nerve stimulator implanted.
Insurance paid for the trial implant, then the permanent one. They also paid for a couple of meetings with a rep from the mfgr who showed me how to use it best.
I have the device, the control, and a transdermal charger. No subscriptions, no remote access, I don’t think it keeps logging data.
Far be it from me to suggest that tech bros won’t ruin a good thing, I really don’t think these will have a subscription model because they probably won’t have any kind of internet connectivity. They’ll be like pacemakers, purpose built for a specific function (prevent tremors, reverse paralysis, etc) and designed to only do that function for as long as possible.
I’m sure there will be upgradable firmware at some point in the future but having your brain be connected to any kind of cloud service is the worst idea I’ve ever heard of.
Of course many comments in this threas are exaggerated; there won’t be played any ads into your brain.
But there are some implications for the usage of Neuralink that are worth thinking about it - especially when it comes to privacy:
Given that it “just” runs with firmware, so that the implant can function in a way most stable and reliably, and also given that there will be no subscription model involved into all of that, will the user (patient) be able to control the functionality of the implant (e.g. controlling the intensity of the eletric signal sent out from the implant to counteract the intensity of a tremor)?
And how will that happen? One thing I could think of is to control the implant with a smartphone app. How good will that smartphone app be? Will it be programmed sloppily like these apps we know from Internet-Of-Things-Apps and have a ton of bugs? Are those (medicinal!) apps secure in terms of privacy? What is with the product support? Will the implant be discontinued after a few years (and also the app)? What if your smartphone fails (no power or hardware failure, or after an update it doesn’t work)?
A friend of mine has an app to monitor her blood sugar. She is not qute satified with the app. Luckily the provider of those diabetes sensors provided a separate device, so that the app is just an addition for measuring when you are travelling, for example. But in their last iteration they tried to omit the separate device, probably in order to save costs. My friend had to explicitly ask for it.
With that in mind I’m not keen on having control on such medicinal devices with a smartphone only. If the smartphone fails, there would be no backup. Will such similar things be the case regarding Neuralink?
The last talks they gave mentioned it is controlled via Bluetooth. So any Bluetooth capable device would be able to connect with it.
Current focus is to use the device as an input device for computers/phones.
and also given that there will be no subscription model involved into all of that,
oh you sweet, sweet summer child.
I’m sure there will be upgradable firmware at some point in the future but having your brain be connected to any kind of cloud service is the worst idea I’ve ever heard of.
With Musk at the helm, I wouldn’t be surprised if the worst ideas are the ones he wants the most.
Laughs in nordic
Firmware is just software that we try to update less often.
Trivia: I just learned two weeks ago that "firm"ware is in between "hard"ware and "soft"ware. It has nothing to do with a firm (a company).
The thought that frightens me even more (although I am not a neurologist) is that if this is installed in children, and the neural pathways for the child’s basic functions are formed to pass through that implant, removing the implant will render the child unable to think.
Oh god, new horrors just dropped
Positive thought: maybe thats the first step to become a godlike computer brain species
Negative thought: if that is how it works I doubt it is just kids that it would do that to. If that happens I would guess it could happen to anyone who has one “installed” long enough
I think you lose a lot of neuroplasticity once you become an adult though, which you would need to reroute the neural pathways. Although I guess that there have been cases of adults who lost half their brain matter in accidents and were able to develop normal cognitive functions again. Actually, even babies must already have the visual cortex all connected up if they can see so maybe some things just develop too soon.
OPEN SOURCE IMPLANTS
I accidentally uninstalled the visual cortex drivers and now I can’t use my eyes to reinstall, any help is appreciated
Sorry, but that’s what you get for buying NVidia eyes
gonna have to reboot yourself and try again in the next life.
Thank you, trying that now
Laughs in windows helpdesk support
The only thing I remember about Neuralink is that Elon reportedly fathered twins with one of the executives.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/07/tech/elon-musk-twins-shivon-zilis-neuralink/index.html
https://nypost.com/2022/07/07/elon-musk-confirms-twins-with-neuralink-exec-shivon-zilis/
https://nypost.com/2022/08/26/elon-musk-and-shivon-zilis-conceived-twins-through-ivf-report/
Elon musk has a to thing for having many kids with women as quickly as possible. He had twins with his first wife via IVF followed by triplets with IVF (which kind of has uncomfy implications if you think about it). Then had a kid with Grimes and then another kid with her via surrogate while separated. And weeks before the surrogate kid was born he had twins with the exec he was having an affair with. It’s really weird.
gengis khan moment
Behold the Rise of the Cybermen! Elon Musk is the John Lumic of our world. Humanity will be upgraded! https://piped.video/watch?v=TQs3gVobcfg
DELETE, DELETE
No, imagine if EA buys it…
And you can bet that they will try
In the end, it’ll probably be Vanguard and BlackRock benefiting the most from it 🙃
There will be lootboxes and microtransactions.
“Aww hell, my latest lootbox contained erectile dysfunction… I’ll have to buy a few more to try and get rid of it”
Having negative things in those lootboxes is just next level evil.
Good thing is, you can cure those with emeralds, and in order to get those, you have to buy some of these green lootboxes. You can buy them with these rubies here, and in order to get them you have to open some of these red lootboxes…
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/09txSUWgCbA
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
The factory that makes them will be a primary target in the future mind wars.
A long time ago I read some cyberpunk novel, and one of the characters had an ocular implant that got infected with malware that flashed spam ads for Indian brothels in his vision 24/7, even with his eyes closed, until he went completely postal.
deleted by creator
Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
Edit: oh heck. It might have been The Diamond Age.
Edit 2: search yielded
“Bud knew a guy like that who’d somehow gotten infected with a meme that ran advertisements for roach motels, in Hindi, superimposed on the bottom right-hand corner of his visual field, twenty-four hours a day, until the guy whacked himself.” --Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age
They touched on this concept in the black mirror episode “Fifteen Million Merits”. Very minor spoilers, read on if you dare
Not with a brain implant per se. But had to pay merits or else watch porn ads. And if you don’t have any merits, guess what they’re unskippable.
Musk is doing more to make people realize how garbage capitalism is than Marx ever could.
Accelerationism in a nutshell
I have no idea what you are talking about because Lemmy, now all of a sudden, is refusing to show me context.
Your comment on Musk
Yeah… that’s not how accelerationsim works. Accelerationsim would require our active participation in order to make things worse… but we don’t actually have the power to do so.
Can’t wait to sell my excess brain power to crypto miners
Bold claim.
EDIT: It’s a joke about claiming to have extra brain cycles.
Indeed, it would probably be mandated in the EULA to provide it for free.
I’m not putting anything in me that’s not foss. I worry for the tech illiterate though when they eventually adopt this idea.
Dude, look at the current support for audio drivers. Do you really want to deal with that for your ears?
Just kidding I don’t know anything about audio drivers 😂
What’s wrong? It’s time to repair your brain’s Pulseaudio configuration after an update!
I remember having to figure out why audio was not working on a new installation. That was once, probably ~5 years ago and was fixed quickly once I found a solution online.
I’d vastly prefer my ears to stop working intermittently due to a FOSS driver issue over a corporate overlord installing bloat, spyware, demanding regular payment for the privilege of them not deleting my driver, just to drop support for them some years later anyway.
If the audio doesn’t work, I want to be sure it is because of me, not some tech-suit trying to make me pay more for their rubbish services
Are you going to be that picky when they’re fitting you with a pacemaker?
I agree if it’s just something for fun though, although personally I’d err on the side of not putting anything in me at all thanks very much. I’m quite happy with my tech on the outside where it belongs.
Pacemakers don’t have software, they just have firmware. They don’t get any updates and don’t have to, so this is a non-issue with them.
Are you going to be that picky when they’re fitting you with a pacemaker?
Yes.
Liberty or death
I agree, I love the idea of a brain chip, but not if someone can change licensing terms on something that’s INSTALLED in me.
I know the meme is making fun of these people, but the “expectation” makes it look like the only thing they expect to get out of it is feeling like they’re cool for having it
See also: Google Glass
What would a failed partial upgrade would look like on the brain?
Literal blue screen of death
Pretty soon you’ll be required to get one of these as a condition of employment. Just watch.
Probably very safe. Though the tech is interesting, that the company is owned by such a person does not instill confidence about its future uses.
Tell that to all the dead monkeys. It wasn’t that long ago that they were getting slammed for animal rights violations for having a very high number of animal fatalities in their testing compared to similar research groups.
There was even a big thread about it on Reddit where another researcher said that if there were that many deaths in any other project, it would be considered a failure and cancelled.
And now they’re upgrading to humans.
