Elon lied about the monkeys — and he shouldn’t be trusted to put his Neuralink chips in human brains.
“They are claiming they are going to put a safe device on the market, and that’s why you should invest,” Ryan Merkley at the Physicians Committee, told Wired. “And we see his lie as a way to whitewash what happened in these exploratory studies.”
Really heartbreaking reading what happened to the monkeys.
People quite rightly think of Elizabeth Holmes as a fraud for making false medical claims about what the Theranos machines could do. So why aren’t Elon’s claims at Neuralink being held to the same level of scrutiny?
https://futurism.com/neoscope/terrible-things-monkeys-neuralink-implants
Let’s not pretend Musk has fucking clue what’s going on or the science behind it.
He isn’t down in trenches making discoveries. That’s just the image he presents.
He buys companies and lets the actually competent people do the work while claiming credit.
He’s been doing it since PayPal.
He’s not a genius, he just has enough money to get actual geniuses to work for him.
Someone put it well, if insensitively, about Sam Bankman Fried (FTX etc):
Not actually smart but just LARP-ing the “Aspy genius” persona.
However accurate that take is or offensive, I think it captures something about how nerd culture has gone mainstream and how it’s perceived.
He buys companies and lets the actually competent people do the work while claiming credit.
Sometimes he actively interferes with those competent people too.
He buys companies and lets the actually competent people do the work while claiming credit.
No he doesn’t. He meddles and interferes constantly and convinces himself that he’s adding value by doing so. That’s why Neuralink is dangerous. Meta or Alphabet or Microsoft or whoever can be trusted to let the scientists and the legal team ensure there’s very little risk of everything blowing up in their face horribly. Elon’s little empire is constantly on the verge of an absolute disaster. I would not be remotely surprised if Neuralink messes everything up so much that it sets back brain implants and BCI’s in general by decades. Purely because Elon can’t just supply the people at his businesses with the tools they need then get out of their way.
@ajsadauskas @technology
I was astounded to read Neuralink is to be permitted to experiment on humans. Instead they should have any animal experiment licences revoked.Why? We already have brain interface links that do similar damage to neuralink, this isnt unusual or unexpected. In its current form it is rightfully used on terminal patients with locked-in syndom. In other words, people before it damaged their brain in a meaningful way and whom cant be further paralyzed.
It would give these people a chance at someinteraction with the real world… What happened with the monkeys was about in line with other neural interfaces, its a consequence of the limits of the tech not negligence.
Headline:
TERRIBLE THINGS HAPPENED TO MONKEYS AFTER GETTING NEURALINK IMPLANTS, ACCORDING TO VETERINARY RECORDS
What are these terrible things?
Up to a dozen monkeys suffered grisly fates after receiving a Neuralink implant, including brain swelling and partial paralysis.
First is the case of the monkey “Animal 20.” In December 2019, an internal part of the brain implant being inserted into the primate “broke off” during surgery. Later that night, the monkey scratched at the implant site, drawing blood, and yanked on the implant, partially dislodging it. Follow-up surgery discovered that the wound was infected, but that the placement of the implant prevented treatment. The monkey was euthanized the next month.
Before that, a female monkey designated “Animal 15” began to press her head against the ground after receiving the brain implant, pick at the site until it bled, and eventually lost coordination, shivering when personnel entered the room. Scientists discovered she had brain bleeding, and in March 2019, she too was euthanized.
The following year, a primate called “Animal 22” was put down in March 2020 after its brain implant became so loose that the screws attaching it to the skull “could easily be lifted out,” according to a necropsy report.
“The failure of this implant can be considered purely mechanical and not exacerbated by infection,” the necropsy states.
As Wired notes, that statement alone seemingly contradicts Musk’s claims that no monkeys directly died from Neuralink brain implants.
And so would the account of an ex-Neuralink employee, who told Wired that Musk’s claims that the monkeys were already terminally ill are “ridiculous,” even a “straight-up fabrication.”
“We had these monkeys for a year or so before any surgery was performed,” the ex-employee said.
The testimony of an anonymous scientist conducting research at CNPRC seems to corroborate the ex-employee’s allegations.
“These are pretty young monkeys,” they told the magazine. “It’s hard to imagine these monkeys, who were not adults, were terminal for some reason.”
