https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/30/business/elon-musk-brain-implant-neuralink-intl-hnk/index.html
If you know anyone who is a prisoner in their own body, you can only wish Musk well.
Yes, I do hope he is exploring that type of use. In the story I saw on it, Musk talked about being able to use your phone with your mind. That made me think of other completely stupid uses, and I was not impressed. Then someone talked about how an earlier chip developed by medical researchers and implanted in a brain had allowed a man to control his prosthetic hand. That made me realize that it does have practical uses.
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Or you might think that they are being offered unrealistic hope that will end up being cruelly dashed. We don’t yet know if this is another SpaceX or another Boring Company/Hyperloop. But it seems like rather too much of a coincidence that Musk is choosing to hype this now, just when Tesla is running into challenges.
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So far he’s just said that they recorded neuron spikes in the human. That started in the 1950’s. It’s a daily occurrence in a bunch of universities across this country: in animals in research labs, and in operating rooms in hospitals. I’ve taught undergrads to do this (in rodents).
He’s claiming that they’ll be able to mentally control their phones: he’s calling the first product “Telepathy”. Okay, like the Neuralink monkey mentally playing pong? A monkey first mentally controlled a robot in 1969 and much more has happened since then.
He’s claiming that people with spinal cord injuries will be able to walk again. That’s literally impossible with just a brain implant. He’s claiming that people blind from birth will be able to see again.
There are amazing researchers making real strides in all these fields. But I don’t think Neuralink will be able to live up to any promises it’s made that haven’t already been accomplished by other researchers. Would love to be wrong though!
I’m not holding my breath for any novel results other than improving the existing hardware a bit (make it somewhat smaller, etc). He didn’t show anything new in the monkey experiments. And Neuralink committed egregious animal welfare violations that have disgusted neuroscientists worldwide. I am just hoping that the humans all turn out okay.
@Rivet2000 and I have already gone back and forth on Neuralink on another thread, so I’m preemptively bowing out of doing that with them here 
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So that explains my headache this morning…
So do you still “knowstuff”?
… Lol
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