Neuralink is an excellent advancement for brain science and it is greatly going to help disabled people and those with little function left over their bodies. It’s okay to celebrate this technology while also hating musk.
Like SpaceX, they’ve both been excellent ventures that he so far hasn’t ruined (probably thanks to the people he delegates to). Just because it’s fashionable to hate him for how he’s absolutely fucked over Twitter (which i’ll remind everyone we’ve always hated and agreed is bad, use Mastodon instead) doesn’t mean his other companies largely spearheaded by others, and their results, are also bad.
That’s not even to mention that the kind of dystopian technology people are imagining isn’t anywhere close to what the Neuralink device is actually capable of. What everyones fearmongering over is still just science fiction. It’s just barely able to interpret brain signals, it’s not as powerful as everyone makes it out to be.
2nd edit: forgot what instance I’m on, this comment probably ain’t going to do well lol
That’s not even to mention that the kind of dystopian technology people are imagining isn’t anywhere close to what the Neuralink device is actually capable of.
Yet. They’ll get to work on that just as soon as they can, don’t you worry!
The brain science and neurology advancements that would be required to get to such a point would be absolute mind-blowing breakthroughs in medical science and would completely change the world as we know it. The mental/personality disorders we could now understand and solve would make me so hopeful for humanity and the upbringing of welfare for everyone. This would without question be a good thing.
Yes and at one time sickness was caused by the devil, then germs were found. One day it’ll probably happen. Idk if we’ll be alive or not by then but time will tell, exponential growth in tech and all.
Almost everything can be good or bad. A.I could save us all, or it could go skynet. Nanobots could be great for surgery, but also great for grey goop. Hell, something as simple as guns, it depends on who is using it and why, and brain implants are a pretty big figurative gun. They could be the savior of humanity, or they could be the device which finally enslaves it in near totality, it’s definitly something to consider.
I’m pretty sure being able to continuously observe with such a device how the brain works will speed up research in the field.
Also, whether this is a good thing is very questionable. I expect that in the future these devices will contribute a lot to being able to manipulate any users emitions and thoughts in any way, without them noticing or being able to fight against it. First by giving more insight on a person’s way of thinking to data brokers, more efficient targeted advertisements and news can be fed to them, and later by directly manipulating how the brain works.
Does it work though?
I only ask this because Musk has been promising full self driving in Teslas “next year” for about a decade now, so any claims made should be taken with an enormous pinch of salt.
By all appearances yes, it’s an appreciable jump in the technology compared to current brain interfaces that are used for the immobile. They did a whole live tech demo with pigs as well as the people he’s hired to work on it there. He has top level surgeons and neuroscientists all working on it who choose to be there. Oh and also it just passed FDA approval for testing in humans.
It would be hard to bullshit this passed all the people involved. I have the belief it’s quite a different situation compared to the continuing failure of FSD.
It would be hard to bullshit this passed all the people involved.
Do you not understand people? It’s easier to BS 10 people than 1. You just BS 100 and the 10 weakest people tell you who they are. People who want to work on brain interfaces want it to work. Whether it actually works or not depends on the real world, not the number of people involved.
This comment doesn’t make it sound like you have much real world experience. Maybe read literally anything about Neuralink and BMIs, I’ve been following this for years.
The big issue I have with brain chips is longevity. How long until the electrodes degrade? When will the chips fail? Once they fail, will it be fail safe or fail deadly? Also, what will be the power source? Will it use inductive power, or battery power? They are both awful options. What if the chip overheats? The implementation is the real question here, but neuralink refuse to give any answers because it proprietary.
All very good questions. The only one I think I can answer is that I think it was inductively charged but I forget what the pigs had on them. It may have been an external battery pack. The implant itself is definitely not external accessible.
We could probably look at existing BMI devices to get our answer, I’m sure it’s even less pretty.
I kind of agree. While I think they are not that bad as far as advancements go, most of it is shitstained by Musk, who has to be seen at all cost and have to be seen as the ultimate inventor of everything.
He wants to be seen, stay relevant, and be the boss of everything, that he usually makes dumb decisions, which is a stain on a company mostly relying on a foundation of very intelligent people.
I agree with your assessment except saying that SpaceX’s advancements are “not that bad” is a massive understatement. They’ve completely disrupted and forever changed the space launch industry, with the help of government subsidies.
Everyone also forgets how Starlink is serving remote indigenous communities and scared the pants off shitty dominant ISPs that have been screwing rural communities over since forever.
I’ll re-emphasize my point that I think the results of some large companies, which comprises the efforts of many many smart people, can have facets of it be considered overwhelmingly good.
Edit: some more words
Whenever I hear someone unironically use the term “disrupted” I just know I’m going to be hearing some capitalist parasite being glorified for doing something expensive that a government did much cheaper half a century ago.
Space launches were “much cheaper” a half a century ago? You don’t really follow any space news whatsoever do you? That’s patently false.
No, the entire space exploration attempt was much cheaper half a century ago - neither the US nor Soviet space programs wasted labor or resources enriching billionaire parasites. There is absolutely nothing that can be performed by parasites such as Musk or Bezos that cannot be done far better, more efficiently and more effectively through public means.
Can you provide a source showing space exploration was “much cheaper” half a century ago than SpaceX’s current costs to getting payloads into orbit? It sounds like you’re just assuming it would be cheaper from your idealogical leanings than that actually being the case.
A half a century ago the US and USSR were devoting a significant fraction of their entre GDP in the space race to blast people into space on some of the largest rockets ever built, mostly for national security and military concerns And that’s not even to speak of the “safety standards” they had and ignored in order to win.
The later shuttle program itself was a massive MASSIVE expenditure and no one in their right mind would EVER say it was an efficient and cheaper per kg in LEO.
You’re just straight up wrong.
Yeah, hold on… let me compare the costs of enriching a billionaire parasite piggybacking off publicly-funded programs that developed all the technology said billionaire parasite is piggybacking off with said publicly-funded programs.
No, Clyde, it was cheaper - because we actually got results other than merely enriching a billionaire parasite.
Your brain has been so addled with “free market” fairy tales that you might just as well believe a glass slipper will magically turn you into royalty. There is absolutely nothing parasites like Musk can do that we couldn’t do far, far better, much more efficiently and far cheaper through public means - and that’s it.
These ventures succeeded despite him, not because of him.
I guess they may have come into existence without him. Unfortunately with the way capitalism has a death grip on the world… it seems like the only way risky ventures get off the ground is through the whims of megamaniacal filthy rich motherfuckers.
Truth.
Wow, who did Elon have to fuck to get FDA approval for a brain chip that’s killed numerous test subjects.
Edit: Just a friendly reminder that ublock, sponsorblock, newpipe x sponsorblock, libretube, youtube piped exist
I’ve not yet seen any indication as to what exactly they have approval to test. My guess is it’s literally just something like testing an electrode gel that goes on your skin as part of the process or at most the external parts that interface with the implant. There’s an endless world of things the FDA could have given them approval to test as part of their project that doesn’t involve actually cracking anyone’s skull open and jamming stuff in there to watch them die like the monkeys did. After you get the approval to test your application sponge on real human subject, you launch a press release stating “Neuralink gets FDA approval to move to human testing!” and await that sweet delivious investor money.
Cool. However, I trust Musk and his projects about as far as I can throw a Buick.
I want to thank Facebook for making it blatantly obvious to us that we should never get any brain implants. They’ll definitely use them to read your thoughts and push ads straight into your consciousness. Oh, and you’ll probably have to pay a subscription.
Your tinnitus will get progressively louder until you pay your bill
Hello Satan. I didn’t realize you use Lemmy.
Sorry wrong thread
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.
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
deleted by creator
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.
Much like the world in the book A Witch’s Sin
A fellow Goblin, I see!
Well… the brain chip experience for Deus Ex wasn’t exactly fantastic. Seems reasonably on point.
There’e not enough knowledge and connectivity in the entire internet that could convince me to ever put a connection directly to my mind online.
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
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.
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.
Are you going to be that picky when they’re fitting you with a pacemaker?
Yes.
Liberty or death
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.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60416058 related. It’s going to be a subscription service and Musk is going to have his fanboys hooked in for the short life of the company.
“The short life of the company” might not be exclusive to the company if elon doesn’t go back to normal.
and 3 years later they’ll end the support.
This was the original cyberpunk-transhumanist message. Not “cybernetics will destroy your soul” but “corporations own your body, or worse parts of your body”
That’s a new hell-on-eath I wasn’t aware of. Yikes.
Thanks for sharing.
Terrifying. No government bailout for improving people’s life quality…
No, they’re far too busy using taxpayer money to bail out banks and businesses that are “too big to fail”.
A good argument for open source
I love my FLOSS penis
So, soft-ware?
Sometimes it’s hardware
Sometimes software, sometimes hardware… it’s the new semi-ware!
Lol, flaccidware
removed by mod
Schrödinware
Occasionally just firmware.
And even if open source doesn’t fit their business model for any reason, there should be regulations that force these companies to open source everything in any situation that they stop offering support.
I’ve meditated about this a while now! Imagine the amount of electronic waste produced by planned obsolescence! You have a phone, TV, car and much more that could be diagnosed, repaired and reused for same or all different use cases.
All those phones that still are running LineageOS perfectly fine that could be used by the elderly who need not have much more than basic communication.
Wow that made me so fucking uncomfortable, from the serious adverse affects requiring surgical intervention, the company trying to shout down negativity and just leaving these poor people to continue suffering….
It’s all so horrid, I can’t imagine the stress and impact
3 years later they’ll end the support
I don’t think that’s a fair characterization - it sounds like they ran out of money and the company that bought all their assets didn’t maintain support. In that company’s defense, it’s really hard to maintain support for something when you’ve bought the IP but you don’t have any of the institutional knowledge.
Maybe it’s a hot take but if you are giving life-altering treatments, and your company goes under, you should open-source everything
Would that even be legal? The company has obligations to its creditors and shareholders; simply giving away potentially valuable intellectual property right before going under seems to violate those obligations. And it’s the sort of violation for which someone might be personally held liable.
I’m not claiming that a company can never open-source anything, but rather than they have to have a plausible business case for doing so. And I don’t see a plausible business (as opposed to humanitarian) case here… But I’m not a corporate lawyer, just someone interested in this sort of thing.
Edit: there’s also the FDA to consider. If you make medical devices and you want to release the source code, you probably need to demonstrate that it’s safe for users to reprogram their devices (and it’s not safe).
regardless of the the reason, people ended up with non-functional eye implants.
Well that’s fucking bleak, at least I got a good chuckle out of this
NPM’s novel implant for drug delivery.
So that’s how they keep JavaScript devs hooked!
Drink verification can to continue.
Even if Muskrat weren’t involved, this still has a hell no from me. You leave me and the voices alone.
Although Star Wars cybernetic hands would be dope.
A LOT of things would have to change for me to consider it. For a start, I wouldn’t want it made by a shareholder owned, for-profit corporation.
I’ll take the Army of Darkness gauntlet version thank you
Based.
But are you Good Ash or Bad Ash?
Yes.
Gimmie some sugar baby.
Oh that? That’s just pillow talk, baby.
Good? Bad? I’m the guy with the gun.
If he’s bad ash he could lie…
Bad Ash has a temper he can’t hide though. It wouldn’t take much to sus him out.
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
All the Elon stans can get brain chips implanted in their head while buying Twitter X merchandise.
