Comment on First human brain implant malfunctioned, Neuralink says
Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
When did they work? Prior to getting approved in humans they were killing animals at a high rate. To the point where animals were smashing their heads against shit to get the chip out.
Additional veterinary reports show the condition of a female monkey called “Animal 15” during the months leading up to her death in March 2019. Days after her implant surgery, she began to press her head against the floor for no apparent reason; a symptom of pain or infection, the records say. Staff observed that though she was uncomfortable, picking and pulling at her implant until it bled, she would often lie at the foot of her cage and spend time holding hands with her roommate.
I understand testing on animals is tough but this was straight cruelty.
When I was in college working in a lab, we were worried about accidentally killing frogs with our equipment because we didn’t have anything filed with the IRB about frogs.
Everything with Elon bewilders me. I thought this is why we had regulatory agencies.
This is also why regulatory agencies have been systematically crippled over the last 40 years or so. Damn near every sector has had their regulatory agencies crippled by some combination of reducing authority, underfunding, and understaffing. When the agencies work, the message is “see, we don’t need those regulations anymore because we’re taking care of things fine on our own,” and when they stop working, the message is “we shouldn’t be spending money on these agencies! They don’t do anything anyway!”
As we see most regulation agencies are underfunded and undermanned on purpose. I’m sure they are the same.
I’m not defending this, but at least a human electively chooses this procedure and understands why they have a device attached to their head. The monkeys must have had no idea what was going on and just wanted to remove the foreign object.
Very valid point.
I could argue that the person was mislead, thinking it was successful in animal trials when it wasn’t. Plus the mental manipulation on a person that is a paraplegic, having hope this will improve their life is sad. Musk falsely claimed it was safe and no monkeys died due to the implant.
they’re mice, they’re supposed to be used for testing. Yeah its unfortunate but its not like they are trying to hurt them.
monkey
mice
Can you read?
Ah but you see, that was when they were testing the Worker Attitude Modulation software. (Researchers called it WAM for short and vehemently denied any connection to the word Wham.)
Windex007@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It was working for a while for the guy. He was paralyzed from the neck down and he was able to use it to play some lame game like LoL or something.
Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
Yeah I seen a money kinda play pong on it. It was cool and all but not ripping at your skull cool.
It sucks bc there are real companies developing the tech for an amazing cause. Elon is a dip shit that has no clue on how to run a company and he is actually hurting the research.
curiousPJ@lemmy.world 5 months ago
You don’t even need to be inserting probes to be able to do that…
OCZ had this ‘toy’ out in 2008.
www.newegg.com/p/N82E16826100006
reddithalation@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
ok but the real interesting stuff like reading hand writing from a paralyzed person imagining writing it and etc are all only for actual electrodes in brains.
rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 5 months ago
This thing seems to be a later iteration of the Atari Mindlink idea from the 1980s, which presented the illusion of controlling the game with just your thoughts/brain waves/whatever but which was actually just reading the neuromuscular voltage from your forehead (meaning you scrunch your forehead muscles around to control it).
deafboy@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I still have this, but suspect it’s bricked after I’ve pressed the “do not press” button on the side. (i’m a filthy button pusher) If anybody has some firmware dumps or at least documentation, I’d appreciate it.
Never managed to use the brainwaves, but it was sensitive to the facial muscle movement. Good enough to play pong.
QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world 5 months ago
IIRC dude went home and played Civ all night