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The human cost of neurotechnology failure

nature.com

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Re: The human cost of neurotechnology failure

#111

Post by lotu »

rl3 wrote: post #89
drodgers wrote: post #5

I really like the proposal from John Scalzi's 'Lock In' series where companies that produce neural implants have to establish a trust or insurance contract with enough assets to pay for the maintenance of any implants for the lifetime of the recipients, regardless of what happens to the company. Governments could provide generous subsidies, tax breaks etc. to such funds to reduce the barrier for entry for companies.…

>… who would ever buy a neural lace from a startup — or even an established company like Google who might just lose interest — if there was no guarentee of patches and maintenance? Of course there’d be a guarantee: 5 years of security updates for your neural implant until you need new hardware. Golly, that almost sounds completely fucking crazy until you realize it’s already their current policy for smartphones-which…

You don’t have to have brain surgery to replace your smartphone.

Re: The human cost of neurotechnology failure

#113

Post by manholio »

Jochim wrote: post #99
manholio wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly doubt the issue preventing support for these patients is the intelectual property in general. Source code, I agree, but things like medical patents are irrelevant if you have to replace a battery cell in a custom form factor or chemistry that is no longer manufactured, per the article. The insurers actively fought the patient changing his own battery. You also diminish the expected value of the startup bec…

> And that's how you get to a 3 trillion ponzi bubble in crypto that solves no problem, while similar investment into medical startups would create thousands of products, treatments and long term wealth. I'm extremely glad that the types of people involved in crypto are in no way incentivised to do the same thing to the medical industry. Theranos was bad enough. I'm not sure why you'd ever want to see crypto's web of…

Flawless in principle, but harmful slogans in practice because it fails to develop those ideas for the particular situation at hand.

Sure, medical regulation should exist - I specifically mentioned the "primum non nocere" principle as the basis for that protection. Things like access to source code and right to repair, some guarantee the device can be removed and won't become actively harmful etc.

But some of the specific kind of regulation this article argues for are unreasonable to the point of killing the prospect of a cure.

The point of the crypto example is not that regulation is harmful, but that people respond to incentives - exactly the same investors have a choice between some sort of a MMORPG poker that is crypto versus a medical start-up. And guess what, they choose the "investment" where money is moved around and they have the chance to earn something at the loss of others, as opposed to the medical startup that could cure people but is - due to dumb regulations - more likely to lose money in the average/EV case. It's not me who brings the crypto madnesses into the medical field, it's whomever bombastically claims some irrational behavior from investors, while expecting them to foot the bill for medical innovation - that was the premiss of the comment you replied to.

Re: The human cost of neurotechnology failure

#114

Post by fragmede »

greggman3 wrote: post #97
skissane wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “opioid crisis” is a crisis because (1) it is easy to accidentally kill yourself with opioids; (2) drug criminalisation makes recreational drug use a lot less safe than it could be were it legal and regulated I doubt overuse of a “happy button” brain implant is going to kill you; and I doubt it is going to end up in a similar legal situation to recreational drugs. So, whatever the negative impacts of overuse of s…

> drug criminalisation makes recreational drug use a lot less safe than it could be were it legal and regulated This is debatable. Here's a legal drug that kills 3 million people a year https://www.alcoholrehabguide.org/resources/medical-conditio... Here's another that kills 7 million people per year https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast... Note that I'm mostly for legalized drugs. I just have…

Alcohol is a terrible drug and kills you in a known fashion, but you don't buy a can of beer from the store and then die from drinking that can because it was actually bleach, because alcohol is legal and regulated product. Drug addicts hooked on oxy getting their fix off the street are getting killed because street supply is dirty and inconsistent. Having a consistent supply would lead to fewer accidental deaths from unknown supply.

Re: The human cost of neurotechnology failure

#115

Post by Archelaos »

drodgers wrote: post #5

I really like the proposal from John Scalzi's 'Lock In' series where companies that produce neural implants have to establish a trust or insurance contract with enough assets to pay for the maintenance of any implants for the lifetime of the recipients, regardless of what happens to the company. Governments could provide generous subsidies, tax breaks etc. to such funds to reduce the barrier for entry for companies.…

I support this idea, but with an additional element: such private insurances should generally be backed by state funds in case that the insurance company goes bankrupt.

Re: The human cost of neurotechnology failure

#116

Post by bombolo »

concordDance wrote: post #101
hinkley wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we were a lot better about not letting your teens and twenties so heavily define your story arc as a human, maybe. But without some sort of insurance and/or escrow program any implant than gives you any kind of edge will be accepted by people too young to really understand the consequences. Especially the sorts of people who think they'll dead by 30 so side effects that show up in your 40's are no big deal.

What kind of consequences are people in their 20s too young to understand? In democracies we generally assume those 21+ can understand all the issues, which is why we let them vote. This seems sorta like not letting 80 year olds have email because they don't understand it and might get scammed.

You're either 20 or haven't met a 20 year old in a looooong time.

Re: The human cost of neurotechnology failure

#117

Post by gmueckl »

63 wrote: post #76
gmueckl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The design, documentation and especially source code should only be ever made available to entities with the knowledge and skill to maintain these implants safely and purely for the benefit of the users. If any random Joe Garage Hacker can get the source and devise patches for implant devices, the result will be an endless hellish nightmare for whoever has these implants in them. It'd be the IoT mess all over again,…

That's just an argument for why it should be open source from the beginning: let bugs be spotted early and be sure the designs are as secure as we can make them before somebody gets saddled with one in their skin for life. Security through obscurity is not the answer.

That's exactly why the source code cannot be open to hacking by random people who suddenly wake up to a feeling of being qualified to work on something like that. There's a a general attitude of overconfidence among software developers that extends into other areas of expertise that they actually know nothing about. HN reflects this very well. And that's exactly why some things can never be allowed to be fully open.

To whoever reads this comment, just ask yourself this: how much vetting and testing do you want for the code on a pacemaker or insulin pump? Do you think you can perform that level of testing at home? If you think that you can, you're exactly the kind of dangerous person that can't be allowed to mess with this stuff.

Re: The human cost of neurotechnology failure

#118

Post by tsimionescu »

slibhb wrote: post #15
drodgers wrote: post #5

I really like the proposal from John Scalzi's 'Lock In' series where companies that produce neural implants have to establish a trust or insurance contract with enough assets to pay for the maintenance of any implants for the lifetime of the recipients, regardless of what happens to the company. Governments could provide generous subsidies, tax breaks etc. to such funds to reduce the barrier for entry for companies.…

Two kinds of people will buy them: enthusiasts and people suffering from chronic conditions with nowhere else to turn. Similarly, you can buy unapproved, unresearched medication on the internet. You take on the risk. Personally I like the idea that people can take their lives in their own hands. As long as it's clear that they're opting out of the guiderails put into place for those of us who are more cautious.

I think the biggest problem is that people desperate for a cure or even a bit of relief are the easiest possible prey for fraudsters peddling snake oil. You need extremely good regulation to be able to both allow innovative life-saving treatments to be tested and offered to those in need as soon as possible, but also to prevent too-good-to-be-true lies to be sold to the most vulnerable.

Re: The human cost of neurotechnology failure

#119

Post by adolph »

heavyset_go wrote: post #52
adolph wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the longer term crisis comes from maladaptive coping mechanisms. Time will tell if a “happy button” is adaptive or not. My guess is that those tools which promote use ahead of outcome aren’t really fit for purpose. That said, I’d gladly stick my head in a microwave if it’s make a bad day more bearable.

There are plenty of people on long-term treatment with opioids, like Suboxone, that almost eliminate the major problems concerning illicit opioid addiction. Plenty of people live normal lives while on Suboxone, where they might have been living on the streets and doing things no one wants to do in order to obtain illegal opioids. A lot, if not the majority, of those people used illegal drugs as coping mechanisms. Cri…

This comment almost reads like an ad, like everyone should take this magical substance that alleviates the problems of the world.

https://www.drugs.com/suboxone.html

Re: The human cost of neurotechnology failure

#120

Post by concordDance »

bombolo wrote: post #116
concordDance wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of consequences are people in their 20s too young to understand? In democracies we generally assume those 21+ can understand all the issues, which is why we let them vote. This seems sorta like not letting 80 year olds have email because they don't understand it and might get scammed.

You're either 20 or haven't met a 20 year old in a looooong time.

Mid 30s but do have one acquaintance who's 20. It's possible I have a biased sample, but I have honestly not noticed a big difference in decision making between 20 year olds and 40 year olds.
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