Elon Musk wants to implant millions of people with Neuralink brain chips
2 years ago by shish_mish to c/technology
Let's not forget an important distinction here. This man is not making any of these things, and he isn't capable of making them. But, he is capable of directly and indirectly impacting the people who are capable of making them negatively enough that we get utter failures like the cybertruck.
Don't give him more credit than he deserves.
Also important:
This tech has been around for about 25 years already, first success was 1998...
Johnny received his implants in March 1998. During a 12-hour operation, Bakay inserted the electrodes, housed in two glass cones, into the area of Johnny's cortex that controls left-hand movement. Once the cones were implanted, the doctors believed that axons -- parts of the brain cell that transmit electrical impulses -- would grow through them. When an impulse passed along an axon, it would be intercepted by tiny gold contacts and transmitted through the electrodes. ''Axons are really like telephone lines,'' Kennedy explains. ''We're just diverting the lines and eavesdropping on the call.''
The hope was that by imagining he was moving his paralyzed left hand, Johnny would cause an increase in electrical impulses passing among the neurons there. These impulses could then be transmitted by the implanted electrodes to a receiver placed on Johnny's pillow, and from there, the analog brain signals could be translated into digital commands that Johnny's computer could understand. In theory, by controlling the frequency with which the neurons in his motor cortex fire, Johnny could move a cursor up or down, left or right on his screen.
Musk is just paying people to miniaturize existing tech and is using marketing to make people believe he's personally inventing it
The bad part is his absolute disregard for basic lab safety and pretty much any other regulation.
It's like how SpaceX doesn't care how many rockets explode, Musk probably views early adaptors as sacrificial lambs.
the strategy of sacrifical ginney pigs is good for progress, bad for ethics.
Oh for sure: Musk can barely make a shitpost on Twitter, let alone actually do anything else.
But, conversely, he's in a position to dictate culture and policy and direction and that's led to shitty cars and whatever the fuck is going on at Twitter.
Aaaand yes, past performance is not a predictor for future outcomes, but uh, somehow I don't think it's irrelevant either.
Don’t give him more credit than he deserves.
Banks should have listened to this when he wanted a loan to buy twitter.
Why are you saying "No, thanks, but no" when you could be saying "FUCK NO! GET OUTTA HERE WITH THE GARBAGE!"
You can even add a jersy accient if you want to be extra fun in your telling elon to fuck off.
AY! I'M THINKIN' 'ERE!!!
Or rocket launch pads that don't break the rocket launching/get destroyed on launch
I ignored SpaceX because as far as things go, they're pretty successful. Rockets blowing up and crashing during testing is pretty much just... a thing rockets do.
(And Shotwell is in charge far more than Spaceman Musk.)
It's more the issues and failures happen a lot more as soon as musk gets involved. Like the starship launchpad failure
we're supposed to let him
He won't ask you.
We can dream
Not if that brain chip malfunctions.
How would that be worse than the infant idiot we deal with now?
Stay away from sketchy chips, choom. They can fuck you up real good.
How crazy would it be tho if we found out he really was an early adopter, had one put it in a decade ago, and that's why he's so bat shit now?
Did kanye west get one too?
He absolutely will. Granted it’ll be after all the little kinks like meningitis, aluminum poisoning, spontaneous ignition, malicious hacking, eternal nightmare states, blindness, cancer, and cluster headaches are ironed out. 90% death rate, babyyy
He should do the same with "flying to Mars" first.
Just like colonization of Mars. He can go first, with or without others
Day 1 after implantation: this is great! I now have photographic memory of everything! Best decision ever.
Day 20: I've memorized so much so fast, I'm going to have to go for the next higher up subscription level to unlock more storage.
Day 200: I'm running out of space again. Going for the plus subscription.
Day 600: ran out of storage space again. I can't afford the next higher subscription. I'm going to have to start deleting unnecessary memories. My brain has lost its natural ability to make and retain memories by itself. I can't even function on a daily basis without free storage space.
Day 700: I have run out of memories that I'm willing to part away with. I still can't afford the higher subscription. Luckily there is a cheaper tier. All I have to do is give NeuraLink full access and rights over my memories for marketing and AI training purposes.
Day 900: They have increased the cost of subscription. I can't afford it. I'm going to lose half of my storage space. I have two days to choose which of my memories to keep. The rest will be no longer accessible to me, but will still be used by Neuralink for their own purposes as they own those memories now.
Day 1200: the chip will no longer be supported next month. I can't afford the new model. It will be disabled in 30 days.
Day 1235: I have just found this diary. It explains a lot. I only wished it told me what my name is.
You forgot the part where you agreed to let them harvest your organs if you fail to pay your subscription fees.
He hopes to woo advertisers back by beaming ads directly into your most treasured memories
Well done, do you write for work/hobby?
Well kudos bored guy on the internet. It was a riveting read.
So the plot of Johnny Mnemonic?
Well I’d like to implant my foot in his ass so….
The only dipshits stupid enough to get Musk implants will be the same dipshits who think vaccines have mind-control trackers.
You say that as if there aren't a ridiculous amount of those people.
If he doesn’t go first no nation should allow it. Dude is a fraud.
Are you a bot?
No, you?
Oh that’s weird, no idea, thanks 🤣
I don't have a "bot account" indicator, so ... no. Though I have been confused for one.
Sorry, no idea why it says that but I’m pretty new to lemmy so it’s probably something I did, I’ll look into it
Sorry I snapped at you, being mistaken for ai or bots is a sore spot for me
Elon can go first.
I don't trust this guy with anything he touches. I'm a transhumanist and this technology is intriguing, but again, Elon fucking upwards Musk.
Let's give him a chip and watch for the next 5+ years how it goes, then decide how to go on.
Maybe that's what we watched for the last 5 years?
Ah, that explains it. ;-p
I do love this. They worry about Bill gates doing this, a guy who is primarily focused on putting toilets in Africa.. When an electric car guy (they used to hate electric cars) wants to literally microchip peoples brains but also gives mega money and a platform to the GOP, he's great, no conspiracy theories to be found here.
Musk wanting it is more than enough reason for me to want to avoid it like the plague.
Not that I would want any sort of brain implant anyway, but Musk being involved make it even less desirable than it already was.
Made by the same guy who brought you the cyber truck , yeah, I'll pass
To be fair, I don't think he was really involved in the development of that thing other than the original idea maybe. But, to be fair, that original idea was probably even worse than the finished product.
What is really scary to me is that many people dont see billionaires as they are, especially since they want to be rich themselves and likely look up to them like some twisted rolemodels.
Ultimately, we are at the mercy of the masses and those masses are somewhat controlled by few people. If somehow people want to start using those implants, those who dont want to will be pressured to get one too.
nobody is giving him a platform so he had to spend $44b to buy one.
Elon wants to make more money. One of the ways he can envision making more money is selling brain implants and the procedure to install them
...and the ads that go in them
And millions of people want Elon Musk to get one himself.
It would probably be wiser to implant a bullet in your brain then let that man do neurosurgery on you.
The thing he seems to have forgotten is that unlike the automotive industry where the regulation is designed to allow companies to fuck up then fix things as long as they have the systems in place to fix the fuck up and to know when they fucked up, the medical device industry is very much designed so that the default stance is "this is dangerous and will kill people" unless you can prove otherwise
I thought the default stance was to leave people in life crippling debt for having the audacity to use the hospital.
Only in the States.
Why can this loser fart in an elevator and it warrants an article?
And why are so many engaged to the point, including government, that they will listen to that? Like abandoning highspeed rail in favor of hyperloop?
Like what the fuck is going on?
Like abandoning highspeed rail in favor of hyperloop?
They wanted to do that and he gave them the excuse.
See, that's how this works.
He's rich and says controversial things.... that's about it
And anyone stupid enough to get one deserves the brain damage that comes with it. Hell, maybe they’ll then buy Twitter and run it into the ground. Oh wait, some other moron did that.
Edit> Found the Musk sycophants :)
Cool, he can want whatever he wants, but I'm certainly not going to be one of them.
Bold of you to assume you'll still have a choice.
Fuuuuuuckk no.
It's called a jingle and it's catchy
What in the hell are people with brain implants going to do when they stop supporting their hardware or keep additional features behind a paywall. People would be forced to pay whatever the company wanted.
This is ripe for human rights abuse on a level we have never seen before. Imagine being locked out of your own body. Without important safety guards and laws to protect people it would surely cause untold suffering.
How do you even exploit a bionic eye, it should just DAP the picture.
Even better way to enslave people than tying basic things like food, water and shelter to money and controlling how to get money. You will have to pay anything you are told or you will die and/or suffer. Try to rebel in any way and its kill or pain switch for you or refusal of service if its too early for that.
Its scary how this doesnt sound as crazy as it should
Well, one can design and make and test implants that'll still work 50 years after there's no more Elon.
But! Today's "progress" is about increasing functionality and performance, not reliability. And such implants will be made only when there's taboo on unreliable stuff in such critical areas in 3 different dimensions - company getting murdered legally is the first, its management getting murdered physically is the second, nobody in their right mind buying such is the third.
Free with every X Premium subscription!
You'll get all of Elon's brain farts beamed straight to your brain.
I bet the guy down the street wants to sell millions of hot dogs.
sure; it's not like the monkeys and the first human person you did it to didn't die or anything....
If there were a software that aught to be in control of the user (rather than the developer) then it's software running inside of you.
When things really matter all we have is conversation or violence. If our understanding of neuroscience gets good enough.. this is where violence can/will happen.
I have a couple former coworker friends who slob this dude's knob all the time. One of em is staunch anti-govt (but loves his orange dictator obviously) and refuses flu shots from work every year because according to his this year is the year they start micro-chipping people.
Both of em would be the first in line for musk's chip
Straight up his ass, via a boot?
Millions of people want to plant Elon Musk six feet under.
I want to implant Elon with 00 buck
I really hope this technology advances enough to help people in their daily lives. By neuralink or other people idc as long as it's good.
Gotta harvest massive amounts of training data somehow. Thats the way to stay ahead.
Not a chance.
Elon Musk wants to do a great many things he can go cram up his butt and twist hard.
Lol, hard FUCKING pass
-my wife when I pitched the idea of get some toys for sexy time-
Approved. Let him pay and let Darwin sort it out.
Millions of people would like to implant ethics or reason (or both!) into Elon.
Those are the names of my two guns
Don't really like the guy but the implants are for people with disabilities that stop/hinder their ability to interact with the digital world, which is certainly fun and exciting for those who want that ability. It's a shame Musk is the figurehead for many of these projects because his brand is dirt to anyone that isn't neck deep in blockchain, AGI, culture war, and general scam content.
They've existed for decades but required a "helmet" like device.
There's no people waiting for this who can't use the existing and safe tech.
We were literally doing this with monkeys 50 years ago, and Musk killed all his monkey subjects because they couldn't even do basic brain surgery in a sterilized lab
Now he wants to do it to humans.
In less than a day of training, both participants broke the record of all previous implants for a game which tests your ability to select items In a grid
Today, Nolan would probably beat you at that game even with you practicing for (edit quite) a bit.
Hate the man if you want but this isn't the same tech that anyone can get and use that's 50y old.
Aye, GSF above has a fundamental ignorance (and I mean that in the neutral, descriptive way) of what the technology is doing. Not going to comment on Musk's ability to run a company that performs these studies well of course but it's in clinical trials and there are plenty of punitive regulations in that system to control what people do. Also not saying Musk won't try to circumvent those like a impatient bozo though. 😂
And FYI, plenty of asshole scientists, CEOs, and inventors around discovering and making things that make the world what it is today. Musk's just the one you're hearing about right now.
Are you trying to quote an article or something?
Or are you just really sure about what you're saying ..
Because you shouldnt be
Him first
Downvote because I don't give a flying fuck what Musk wants and random shit about musk is not technology
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Dude can't build cars that don't fall apart when they get wet, and can't build a truck that doesn't fall apart for uh, existing, and we're supposed to let him stick stuff in our brains?
No, thanks, but no.
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