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Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

fortune.com

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Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#311

Post by wordofx »

rc5150 wrote: post #233
ckemere wrote: post #227

I think that the negativity here is unfortunate. The reality is that it’s very hard to see a normal VC level return on the $100M+ Elon and friends have invested here. And don’t let anyone fool you - this is the fundamental reason the BCI field has moved slowly. If Neuralink proceeds to a scenario where quadriplegic patients can get reliable (ie lifelong) control of their computers for less than $100k that will be a h…

The unfortunate part is that your first thought went to return on investment rather than the humanitarian angle, which I think is the common perspective; optics and money. Then there's the pessimists, like me, wondering how long it'll take to Neuralink to turn their army of computer connected paraplegics into some Mechanical Turk-esque Grok clean up.

Things are only created or expanded if there is a return. Its that simple.

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#312

Post by BrandoElFollito »

jibal wrote: post #307
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you go for weight loss then? This is calories in - calories out. And as for which state one wants to be in, this is a matter of personal choice. I know that I will commit suicide right after I get a diagnosis of, say, Alzheimer's (after cleaning up my stuff). If I went blind and had a reasonable chance to get back to sight, then I would also go for it, weighing the risks. It all boils down to what someone p…

One cannot measure calories out (other than deducing it from calories in and weight change), which is a complex function of diet, metabolism, and a host of other factors. As for the rest--your other posts implicitly assume that everyone else shares your choices and priorities--and if not then they aren't relevant. (BTW, there is strong evidence showing neither you nor anyone else knows what they would do after receiv…

> One cannot measure calories out (other than deducing it from calories in and weight change), which is a complex function of diet, metabolism, and a host of other factors.

Sure, but when you eat sugar in several forms and overeat generally, you statistically get fatter. This works the other way round too. There are myriads of specific cases on the sides of the bell curve but the solution for the everyday Joe is to eat less, more healthily. Practicing sports helps too, but not so much (it is important for other health reasons)

> As for the rest--your other posts implicitly assume that everyone else shares your choices and priorities--and if not then they aren't relevant.

Wow, where do you get that from? The main point of asking questions here is not to be a troll and wait for internet fights but to get interesting insights from others. You may want to slow down with the pitchforks and such statements.

> (BTW, there is strong evidence showing neither you nor anyone else knows what they would do after receiving such diagnoses.)

Or not. You also have people who prepare for that in advance, with a clear decision path. I have, and have no doubts taht I will go for that having evidenced suffering in other people. Not everyone contacts a company such as Dignitas to make sure things are organized. Not everyone discusses with the funeral house details about their death at 45, not everyone has a "what to do when I die" booklet with key information (financial and how to de-smart the house :)). Not everyone gave a deeper thought about designing a kill-switch device that would poison them in case they are incapacitated.

Not everyone is like you so I would not be that fast in making such radical statements.

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#313

Post by lynx97 »

positron26 wrote: post #310
lynx97 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open Source Accessibility isn't sustainable right now. How on earth do you imagine open medical hardware to ever reach a level where it is generally useful to people with disabilities? In general, I find the negativity in this whole thread very sad. If I were in the situation were I was looking forward for technology like this, and I'd read the comments here, they would make me very sad. Because in essence, I would l…

By commercializing open source technology development so that the paying non-programmer and the ecosystem dependent SME's and Fortune 500's can meaningfully drive development of what they need. You can see my gloriously broken prototype at PrizeForge. Currently between iterations and still not quite viable enough to properly operate.

Well, Sun Accessibility Office already did great work from roughly 2003 to 2008. Then came 2008. And Sun AND IBM terminated their Accessibility work. From then on, Orca was basically kept alive by a single developer for roughly a decade. I am not 100% sure if she has given up by now, but I'd be surprised if she didn'.t

So, giving this job to Fortune500 companies is demonstratably not sustainable. A single higher up can terminate such projects with the wink of an eye.

I was more hopeful 20 years ago. Then I watched how all the good work on GNOME2 was basically trashed because of DBus transition, GTK3, and now Wayland. Fact is, hoping for the corporate world to do the work is no guarantee they will continue. And for "scratch your own itch"-philosophy to work, there are not enough disabled OSS devs. Maybe after WWIII there will be a surge in Open Source Accessibility.

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#314

Post by p_v_doom »

orbital-decay wrote: post #269
bluefirebrand wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things have costs so we should be ok with a society where the wealthy exploit poor and desperate people?

The supposedly cynical comment above talks about giving quadriplegic people a reliable way to control computers for <$100k, something that was science fiction before. Is this what you call exploitation of the poor and desperate by the wealthy? You have to finance things somehow, or they won't be done at all.

There are many ways to finance this without strapping a parasite to leech off of it on top

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#315

Post by ValentinPearce »

maxlin wrote: post #270
ckemere wrote: post #227

I think that the negativity here is unfortunate. The reality is that it’s very hard to see a normal VC level return on the $100M+ Elon and friends have invested here. And don’t let anyone fool you - this is the fundamental reason the BCI field has moved slowly. If Neuralink proceeds to a scenario where quadriplegic patients can get reliable (ie lifelong) control of their computers for less than $100k that will be a h…

Companies like this going under is a horror story for the patients I've seen playing out a few times. But I honestly can't see something as public and well-funded having the same fate. "Elon Musk losing interest" isn't really something I see likely as he doesn't function in the money-oriented ways pretty much almost all other billionaire-types do. He loves the tech and the ideals, and Neuralink is past the point of e…

> he doesn't function in the money-oriented ways pretty much almost all other billionaire-types do

I'm pretty sure he does, his actions in government and his lobbying were specifically so he made more money. He does love the tech, though I'm not as optimistic about his love of the ideals (but that might be the socialist in me talking).

I'm am wary about how brain implants could be abused further down the line, but for now it's not the main thing I'm looking at with Neuralink. It seems to be a positive change for the patient, and if costs can be reduced to make it affordable to the masses, it can be a great thing.a

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#316

Post by cal85 »

abrookewood wrote: post #179

This is genuinely exciting, but I still can't help thinking about the Black Mirror episode where a woman requires a subscription to stay alive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_People_(Black_Mirror)

Don’t we all need subscriptions to stay alive?

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#317

Post by mailund »

weregiraffe wrote: post #300
gethly wrote: post #284

I'm sure that lives of those animals whom are being tortured for this tech to be developed were changed as well.

As you typed these words, millions of animals out in the wild were being devoured alive by other animals. Torture was here before humans.

I don't feel like it is unreasonable to put a different set of ethical standards to an animal out in the wild and a human.

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#318

Post by stavros »

weregiraffe wrote: post #300
gethly wrote: post #284

I'm sure that lives of those animals whom are being tortured for this tech to be developed were changed as well.

As you typed these words, millions of animals out in the wild were being devoured alive by other animals. Torture was here before humans.

Given the billions of animals we torture for food, at least the ones tortured for the good of humanity are slightly less unjustified. However, "animals kill each other in nature all the time" is not a good argument, because I don't have to hold myself to the moral standards of a hyena.

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#319

Post by CalRobert »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #254
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Things have costs so we should be ok with a society where the wealthy exploit poor and desperate people?

Pretending scarcities don't exist is one of the biggest problems with current policy.

Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

#320

Post by jibal »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #312
jibal wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One cannot measure calories out (other than deducing it from calories in and weight change), which is a complex function of diet, metabolism, and a host of other factors. As for the rest--your other posts implicitly assume that everyone else shares your choices and priorities--and if not then they aren't relevant. (BTW, there is strong evidence showing neither you nor anyone else knows what they would do after receiv…

> One cannot measure calories out (other than deducing it from calories in and weight change), which is a complex function of diet, metabolism, and a host of other factors. Sure, but when you eat sugar in several forms and overeat generally, you statistically get fatter. This works the other way round too. There are myriads of specific cases on the sides of the bell curve but the solution for the everyday Joe is to e…

> Sure, but when you eat sugar in several forms and overeat generally, you statistically get fatter. This works the other way round too.

I wrote about calories OUT.

In respect for dang I won't comment or engage further.

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