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this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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My criticism of Neuralink’s response has nothing to do with whether or not the first patient was treated unfairly. It’s that it reveals Neuralink’s priorities: they had a choice going forward of trying to fix the first patient’s implant or giving up and starting over with a fresh patient, and they chose the latter.
In animal testing, that decision would depend on how valuable the guinea pigs are.
Okay, no. As much of an issue as I have with musk and the way he bullrushes into these things, this really was the right response at this point.
It's a new tech. That goes into someone's brain. You do not just go rutting around up there if the first attempt failed, and further tests (which have a significant element of risk) shouldn't be in the brain that's already been through this, not until it's much better tuned.
Brain surgery isn't a minor procedure.
If they're able to fix it for him, there's a fair chance they will, I'd imagine.
But continuing to dig around after that failure is what treating him like a disposable Guinea pig would look like because that's how they'd very likely kill him or substantially diminish his quality of life with brain damage.
There are lots of real reasons to hate musk. This isn't one of them.
No? That’s insane. “We don’t k ow exactly what’s going on, but we are going to go poke around inside- oh shit he’s dead, if only we had waited until things stabilized and we had the information we needed.”
Come on, don’t be ridiculous. “Try to fix it” could easily result in a dead patient, and I’m sure you’d be all for praising their attempt to fix it, right?
They didn't exactly say no, they just said they want more data. It might not be that crazy not to rush things with a patient that needs re-implantation when you're trying to test the next revision of the implant and have willing patient who only requires an initial implantation.
As long as these patients are properly informed on the risks and limitations of this experimental tech, I don't see a problem. There's no evidence that they are treating their patients badly, or failing to fulfill any promises in regards to the efficacy of the implants, or commitment to support these early test implants insofar as they agreed to provide to their patients (to my understanding, they are informed that the implant could be a total failure with no opportunities to re-implant.).
My guess is you know nothing about this. They may think reinserting them is too risky for the patient because they don't know. You're almost certainly just making up facts to justify your conclusions, rather than assessing the facts and coming to a conclusion based on them.