Doctors Concerned About Neuralink's First Patient

Plus, he likes to pretend he's an expert on the industries of the companies he runs. That's already potentially dangerous with Tesla and Space X, but in this case his hubris is very directly dangerous to the people receiving his services.

I think the government will be on his side

or some high person in charge decided to go all-or-nothing

I don't see what Elon's drug use and increasingly irratic decision-making have to to with this.

"move fast and break things people"

Agreed. And seems wild to allow that kind of coercion from powerful people to move into the human body stage without air tight everything.

I think it is unethical to test this technology on anyone who does not consent. It is too invasive and damaging. Our testing framework should be revised for brain interfaces.

I like "Elon's Twitter"

That was my thought when I started reading the piece. "Are we just going to call it XFT?"

You know you can just use twitter anyway, right?

In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Hippocratic Oath saying it didn't cover the latest developments in medical practice.

I'm just... gonna go scream into a pillow in the corner now.

The Hippocratic Oath is not a legally binding oath, and many doctors are not required to take this oath or any oath for that matter. Basically, at the end of the day, oaths only matter to the people who have the strength of character to hold to them no matter the cost and most people do not have that strength of character. Oaths mean nothing to those people when it comes down to it, it's just a thing that you said once, nothing more.

There are way less extreme example of doctors just fucking things up for a bag of money.

But is everyone working on this also an unethical twat? Kind of scary to think that might be true

People with the Power to do cruel things always find cruel people to do their bidding. Especially when they can justify it with science or it's "for the better of humanity". Even if every rational out stander is horrified by their doings.

Ethics only matters when there's an effort to enforce it. The Hippocratic oath is just a reason your employer can fire you for making risky decisions. It means nothing if nobody holds you to it.

If you're a doctor working for Neuralink, nobody will expect anything of you but to push the project forward as quickly as possible. For years you only work with monkeys, and when they do finally put a human in the O.R. it's someone who signed away all their rights and accepted all risks to install experimental brain chips. At that moment, that human patient becomes the single most important subject in the entire experiment.

Of course you do it. You're getting paid more money than you ever have in your life to do it, and the entire system is designed to protect you so long as you do what the boss says.

People are still people. Doctors are just as susceptible to compromising their ethics as everyone else, the only difference is that they probably have a higher bribe threshold.

I wouldn't be surprised if there somehow were a cover-up of safety and efficacy of these devices.

Well, it's possible that it was a robot doctor, kinda doubt they took a Hippocratic oath

Remember how they couldn't get the cyber truck to not rust? Or the bullet proof windows to work? Or how the milage for most Tesla's was impossible, so people thought their cars were broken, and instead of either confessing or fixing the mileage they created an elaborate scheme to cancel appointment so people couldn't get their batteries looked at? These are the people you trusted to put a chip in your brain...

I think it would be a lot more reasonable to expect undocumented issues. They have a lot to lose and it's controlled by a billionaire. As if they're not going to try to cover it up.

I doubt you'll hear any docs about failures. I think that's what this article is about? I.e. a lack of transparency?

i'd do it for money. Not much to fuck up with my brain

If my option was never move again and this would let me control a computer then I wouldn't care about the risk

"The government" doesn't want to argue that. Some idiot politicians do.

Claiming the schizophrenic US govt WANTS anything is dubious. Most of their attention is focused on fighting each other

JFC

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. Animal 15 began to lose coordination, and staff observed that she would shake uncontrollably when she saw lab workers. Her condition deteriorated for months until the staff finally euthanized her. A necropsy report indicates that she had bleeding in her brain and that the Neuralink implants left parts of her cerebral cortex “focally tattered.”

So they fuckin shredded the poor girl's brain.

Damn... I've heard that it was bad but I've never read it until now...

Wait til you find out about animal testing at large.

;-;

Fall of the house of usher shit 💔

Writing off a huge research project you know nothing about before it's even started is a clear sign that their opinion is worthless.

Musk has hired incredibly well educated people, I don't blame you for hating him but that doesn't tarnish the quality of anyone else

Somewhat, but theranos at least didn’t do brain surgery. This is theranos with far higher stakes

Does this remind anyone else of House of Usher?

I love seeing references to the Raelians in the wild! What a bonkers cult they are. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABl.