Earlier quoted context omitted.
For all we know, the Neuralink is making him say that... /s
Not to go full tin-foil hat - but how do we know it isn't?
The fact that the CIA hasn't black-hole classified it is a good start.
Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed
391–400 of 481 posts
Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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 Is that why he sued to obtain his $29B package from Tesla shareholders?
> Is that why he sued to obtain his $29B package from Tesla shareholders?
I think you're confused on two sort-of-related things: one is the $56B package agreed to and approved in 2018 that a judge decided to revoke, for that he's suing.
The other one is the relatively recent (July/August) $29B package that was created by two indipendent board advisors to give him a "salary" (he did not participate or vote on the creation of this package), since apparently he received nothing from Tesla for the past 6-7 years. This comes as a result of him expressing that if he wants more control over the company, or he's going to build things (AI, robotics) outside of it. Part of the deal is that he's to forfeit this if the ruling on the 2018 package is in his favor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lawsuits_involving_Tes...
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...
https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/04/tesla-hands-29b-comp-packa...
Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed
#393Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed
#394I think anyone who chooses to undergo the first few trials of a new operation like this, and is informed about the risks, is very brave. I do not know much of anything about medical science, but my impression is that we are still very, very far from having a deep grasp of how both the brain and the immune system work. Ultimately, to the body an implant is simply a foreign object. Many tech professionals work on proje…
> Ultimately, to the body an implant is simply a foreign object. I get your point but, there's a lot of foreign objects going in by the way of various pores and openings. Biological beings are surprisingly resilient & fragile at the same time.
I think you narfed your own point by using objects getting into various pores and openings.
Pacemakers are somewhat similar devices that get implanted into bodies and still effectively are "foreign objects".
Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those openings lead to spaces that are not "inside" the body, though. For deuterostomes like humans, the digestive tract is still "outside" in a lot of important ways.
Well good golly miss molly, that's a word I had never heard of. Thanks!
For the lazy it basically means as embryos our anus forms before our mouths do. So we have to talk out our asses before we even leave the womb!
Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have never seen stats showing that FSD is "rapidly improving". Quite the contrary, it seems hobbled by its backward hardware and plateaued in terms of progress.
The backward hardware in my 2020 car has plateaued at driving me driveway-to-parking-lot on 100% of my drives in recent history. It’s a pretty nice plateau, really. (I admit I’m mocking your wording; in fact it has not plateaued. Just every update makes things slightly smoother in non-safety-critical ways.)
Very nice of you to put everyone's lives at risk.
Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If something cannot stand on its own two legs, then it can be the most awesome stuff in the world but it will die nonetheless. Being self-sustainable (i.e. profitable) greatly helps with keeping the show going. The alternative is either becoming publicly owned (i.e. paid with your taxes whether you want it or not) or to fail miserably and have all your technology and talent scattered.
Unfortunate phrasing about inability to stand on its own two legs or it dies here.
Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That is basically the textbook definition of unethical medical practice This is an extremely uncharitable interpretation of what was said. First of all, it's really hard to get malpractice here, as consent is implied (unless you'd think he'd purposefully do a bad or sloppy job). You could say it's irresponsible, and that argument holds more water, but when folks are in these terrible situations (i.e. terminally ill…
Being blind or disabled isn't anything like dying of cancer. We allow compassionate testing of therapies that might allow you to live longer because the alternative is an ugly death. Consent is never ever ever implied and you don't have to deliberately do a poor job to be liable. Just not having good evidence of the therapy is liable to improve their lot and doing it anyway or failing to impart an accurate picture of…
> We allow compassionate testing of therapies that might allow you to live longer because the alternative is an ugly death.
Calling many of these therapies "compassionate" is a bit of a stretch after you learn about their side effects...
Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed
#399I 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…
One of the biggest unsolved issues with BCI and neural implants is the immune response to implanted electrodes. The tissue buildup and fluid that encapsulates the probe or stimulator drastically increases the impedance of the device and causes all sorts of hard to solve problems for longevity of the implant and whatever therapy or recording it's trying to accomplish.
Re: Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
You started with "Why is anyone..." and you got your answer - the founder and promoter of the technology has been on record lying about it multiple times. There's lawsuits about it. Steelmanning Tesla's position makes no sense here.
I did not get a rational answer. If you're building a cheap mass market self driving vehicle that has to work everywhere you'll make completely different design decisions than a geo restricted taxi. Would you care to acknowledge that simple fact? The amount of hypotheticals you'd have to go through to compare these technologies in superiority up to this point is extensive. Go ahead, do the thought experiment. It woul…
I can acknowledge many facts, but since you seem to dodge that really big one I don't think we can have a productive discussion here. Talking about rationality in that context of what appears to be motivated thinking is ... interesting.