Elon Musk wants to implant millions of people with Neuralink brain chips

shish_mish@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 217 points –
Elon Musk wants to implant millions of people with Neuralink brain chips
independent.co.uk
146

Dude can't build cars that don't fall apart when they get wet, and can't build a truck that doesn't fall apart for uh, existing, and we're supposed to let him stick stuff in our brains?

No, thanks, but no.

Let's not forget an important distinction here. This man is not making any of these things, and he isn't capable of making them. But, he is capable of directly and indirectly impacting the people who are capable of making them negatively enough that we get utter failures like the cybertruck.

Don't give him more credit than he deserves.

Also important:

This tech has been around for about 25 years already, first success was 1998...

Johnny received his implants in March 1998. During a 12-hour operation, Bakay inserted the electrodes, housed in two glass cones, into the area of Johnny's cortex that controls left-hand movement. Once the cones were implanted, the doctors believed that axons -- parts of the brain cell that transmit electrical impulses -- would grow through them. When an impulse passed along an axon, it would be intercepted by tiny gold contacts and transmitted through the electrodes. ''Axons are really like telephone lines,'' Kennedy explains. ''We're just diverting the lines and eavesdropping on the call.''

The hope was that by imagining he was moving his paralyzed left hand, Johnny would cause an increase in electrical impulses passing among the neurons there. These impulses could then be transmitted by the implanted electrodes to a receiver placed on Johnny's pillow, and from there, the analog brain signals could be translated into digital commands that Johnny's computer could understand. In theory, by controlling the frequency with which the neurons in his motor cortex fire, Johnny could move a cursor up or down, left or right on his screen.

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/11/magazine/tech-2010-07-brainpower-making-contact-the-mind-that-moves-objects.html

Musk is just paying people to miniaturize existing tech and is using marketing to make people believe he's personally inventing it

The bad part is his absolute disregard for basic lab safety and pretty much any other regulation.

It's like how SpaceX doesn't care how many rockets explode, Musk probably views early adaptors as sacrificial lambs.

Oh for sure: Musk can barely make a shitpost on Twitter, let alone actually do anything else.

But, conversely, he's in a position to dictate culture and policy and direction and that's led to shitty cars and whatever the fuck is going on at Twitter.

Aaaand yes, past performance is not a predictor for future outcomes, but uh, somehow I don't think it's irrelevant either.

Don’t give him more credit than he deserves.

Banks should have listened to this when he wanted a loan to buy twitter.

Why are you saying "No, thanks, but no" when you could be saying "FUCK NO! GET OUTTA HERE WITH THE GARBAGE!"

You can even add a jersy accient if you want to be extra fun in your telling elon to fuck off.

Or rocket launch pads that don't break the rocket launching/get destroyed on launch

I ignored SpaceX because as far as things go, they're pretty successful. Rockets blowing up and crashing during testing is pretty much just... a thing rockets do.

(And Shotwell is in charge far more than Spaceman Musk.)

It's more the issues and failures happen a lot more as soon as musk gets involved. Like the starship launchpad failure

He should be an example and do it himself.

Yeah that's not going to happen.

How crazy would it be tho if we found out he really was an early adopter, had one put it in a decade ago, and that's why he's so bat shit now?

He absolutely will. Granted it’ll be after all the little kinks like meningitis, aluminum poisoning, spontaneous ignition, malicious hacking, eternal nightmare states, blindness, cancer, and cluster headaches are ironed out. 90% death rate, babyyy

Just like colonization of Mars. He can go first, with or without others

Day 1 after implantation: this is great! I now have photographic memory of everything! Best decision ever.

Day 20: I've memorized so much so fast, I'm going to have to go for the next higher up subscription level to unlock more storage.

Day 200: I'm running out of space again. Going for the plus subscription.

Day 600: ran out of storage space again. I can't afford the next higher subscription. I'm going to have to start deleting unnecessary memories. My brain has lost its natural ability to make and retain memories by itself. I can't even function on a daily basis without free storage space.

Day 700: I have run out of memories that I'm willing to part away with. I still can't afford the higher subscription. Luckily there is a cheaper tier. All I have to do is give NeuraLink full access and rights over my memories for marketing and AI training purposes.

Day 900: They have increased the cost of subscription. I can't afford it. I'm going to lose half of my storage space. I have two days to choose which of my memories to keep. The rest will be no longer accessible to me, but will still be used by Neuralink for their own purposes as they own those memories now.

Day 1200: the chip will no longer be supported next month. I can't afford the new model. It will be disabled in 30 days.

Day 1235: I have just found this diary. It explains a lot. I only wished it told me what my name is.

You forgot the part where you agreed to let them harvest your organs if you fail to pay your subscription fees.

Also, suddenly you're unable to say negative things about Elon Musk for some reason.

He hopes to woo advertisers back by beaming ads directly into your most treasured memories

The only dipshits stupid enough to get Musk implants will be the same dipshits who think vaccines have mind-control trackers.

You say that as if there aren't a ridiculous amount of those people.

Then thinning out their numbers can’t be a bad thing.

If he doesn’t go first no nation should allow it. Dude is a fraud.

Are you a bot?

No, you?

I mean I can certainly understand where the confusion may have come from.

Oh that’s weird, no idea, thanks 🤣

Yeah skimming it very briefly, it looks like your instance doesn't even show bot indicators, so, no way you could've known really. But there should be a button to turn it off somewhere in your user settings, probably down near the bottom.

I don't have a "bot account" indicator, so ... no. Though I have been confused for one.

Sorry, no idea why it says that but I’m pretty new to lemmy so it’s probably something I did, I’ll look into it

Sorry I snapped at you, being mistaken for ai or bots is a sore spot for me

Elon can go first.

I don't trust this guy with anything he touches. I'm a transhumanist and this technology is intriguing, but again, Elon fucking upwards Musk.

Another weird thing that Conservatives want to do.

While complaining that "the left" are trying to inject tracking chips into our bodies.

Many of their conspiracy theories are distractions from the very real and very scary conspiracies they're actually engaged in

I do love this. They worry about Bill gates doing this, a guy who is primarily focused on putting toilets in Africa.. When an electric car guy (they used to hate electric cars) wants to literally microchip peoples brains but also gives mega money and a platform to the GOP, he's great, no conspiracy theories to be found here.

With his ethics there's no way I'd let any company controlled by him attach itself to my brain.

I have a hard time imagining that for any profit driven corporation, but most especially him.

Musk wanting it is more than enough reason for me to want to avoid it like the plague.

Not that I would want any sort of brain implant anyway, but Musk being involved make it even less desirable than it already was.

After COVID we have to retire "avoid like the plague". Too many people were happy to go to plague gatherings.

Too many people were happy to go to plague gatherings.

I also avoid the types of people who would intentionally do something that idiotic.

Made by the same guy who brought you the cyber truck , yeah, I'll pass

To be fair, I don't think he was really involved in the development of that thing other than the original idea maybe. But, to be fair, that original idea was probably even worse than the finished product.

What is really scary to me is that many people dont see billionaires as they are, especially since they want to be rich themselves and likely look up to them like some twisted rolemodels.

Ultimately, we are at the mercy of the masses and those masses are somewhat controlled by few people. If somehow people want to start using those implants, those who dont want to will be pressured to get one too.

I bet this evil fuck has all kinds of patents around this idea so when someone who isn't a psychopath James Bond villain wants to help people with disabilities by developing a similar device...they won't be able to.

I really don't understand why anyone is giving that goofball a platform.

He pays for it lol

This is 2024, you should know this.

then we circle jerk him in the comments, so we are also part of the circus

I do not get how this asshole gets approved for this when he can't even make a car correctly.

They're injecting microchips! Said no antivaxx about this ever.

Godspeed to all the brain dead idiots who will sign up for this, and will become even more literally brain dead after getting the implant.

Elon wants to make more money. One of the ways he can envision making more money is selling brain implants and the procedure to install them

The thing he seems to have forgotten is that unlike the automotive industry where the regulation is designed to allow companies to fuck up then fix things as long as they have the systems in place to fix the fuck up and to know when they fucked up, the medical device industry is very much designed so that the default stance is "this is dangerous and will kill people" unless you can prove otherwise

It would probably be wiser to implant a bullet in your brain then let that man do neurosurgery on you.

Why can this loser fart in an elevator and it warrants an article?

And why are so many engaged to the point, including government, that they will listen to that? Like abandoning highspeed rail in favor of hyperloop?

Like what the fuck is going on?

Like abandoning highspeed rail in favor of hyperloop?

They wanted to do that and he gave them the excuse.

See, that's how this works.

Like it or not, when the richest man in the world wants to do something big. even if bad, it is worth it to report on it instead of quietely allowing him to do it.

Just stop him, remove all his government contracts, and never allow him anywhere near anything of value. And when he does something stupid, report it honestly. With all his current fuckups.

I have seen the engineering failure that is the cybertruck, no thanks.

Elon musk: is inventing brain chips

People: oh okay.

Elon musk: wants people to use them

People:

And anyone stupid enough to get one deserves the brain damage that comes with it. Hell, maybe they’ll then buy Twitter and run it into the ground. Oh wait, some other moron did that.

Edit> Found the Musk sycophants :)

I would love a brain implant. I want to live in the Matrix, I want to have the Feed. Just not from him. Never from him.

"business wants to sell lots of products" fucking duh who cares.

What in the hell are people with brain implants going to do when they stop supporting their hardware or keep additional features behind a paywall. People would be forced to pay whatever the company wanted.

This is ripe for human rights abuse on a level we have never seen before. Imagine being locked out of your own body. Without important safety guards and laws to protect people it would surely cause untold suffering.

Either that, or just straight up obsolescence like what happened with some bionic vision aids

Just stops working one day, or eventually an exploit will drop that will never end up patched because the company folded. or due to planned force-upgrade

How do you even exploit a bionic eye, it should just DAP the picture.

Even better way to enslave people than tying basic things like food, water and shelter to money and controlling how to get money. You will have to pay anything you are told or you will die and/or suffer. Try to rebel in any way and its kill or pain switch for you or refusal of service if its too early for that.

Its scary how this doesnt sound as crazy as it should

Well, one can design and make and test implants that'll still work 50 years after there's no more Elon.

But! Today's "progress" is about increasing functionality and performance, not reliability. And such implants will be made only when there's taboo on unreliable stuff in such critical areas in 3 different dimensions - company getting murdered legally is the first, its management getting murdered physically is the second, nobody in their right mind buying such is the third.

Ok now the "number of the beast" types are starting to sound a lot more logical somehow...

Are those compatible with my COVID vaccine Bill Gates microchip?

I bet the guy down the street wants to sell millions of hot dogs.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution was not a manual, Elon

And we won't be the cool protagonist with sleek looking augs and doing parkour with Icarus either. We'll be the ones hooked on neuropozyne hoping for our implants not going haywire at some point.

sure; it's not like the monkeys and the first human person you did it to didn't die or anything....

Not to say that anything about the project is good, but the first human implantee is very much alive.

If there were a software that aught to be in control of the user (rather than the developer) then it's software running inside of you.

When things really matter all we have is conversation or violence. If our understanding of neuroscience gets good enough.. this is where violence can/will happen.

I have a couple former coworker friends who slob this dude's knob all the time. One of em is staunch anti-govt (but loves his orange dictator obviously) and refuses flu shots from work every year because according to his this year is the year they start micro-chipping people.

Both of em would be the first in line for musk's chip

Gotta harvest massive amounts of training data somehow. Thats the way to stay ahead.

I really hope this technology advances enough to help people in their daily lives. By neuralink or other people idc as long as it's good.

Pretty sure Elon musk also wants to hangout at Epstein's Island again for intercourse with minors.

As it requires going inside me, i wound never use it regardless of what it can do.

Elon Musk wants to do a great many things he can go cram up his butt and twist hard.

Don't really like the guy but the implants are for people with disabilities that stop/hinder their ability to interact with the digital world, which is certainly fun and exciting for those who want that ability. It's a shame Musk is the figurehead for many of these projects because his brand is dirt to anyone that isn't neck deep in blockchain, AGI, culture war, and general scam content.

They've existed for decades but required a "helmet" like device.

There's no people waiting for this who can't use the existing and safe tech.

We were literally doing this with monkeys 50 years ago, and Musk killed all his monkey subjects because they couldn't even do basic brain surgery in a sterilized lab

Now he wants to do it to humans.

In less than a day of training, both participants broke the record of all previous implants for a game which tests your ability to select items In a grid

Today, Nolan would probably beat you at that game even with you practicing for (edit quite) a bit.

Hate the man if you want but this isn't the same tech that anyone can get and use that's 50y old.

Aye, GSF above has a fundamental ignorance (and I mean that in the neutral, descriptive way) of what the technology is doing. Not going to comment on Musk's ability to run a company that performs these studies well of course but it's in clinical trials and there are plenty of punitive regulations in that system to control what people do. Also not saying Musk won't try to circumvent those like a impatient bozo though. 😂

And FYI, plenty of asshole scientists, CEOs, and inventors around discovering and making things that make the world what it is today. Musk's just the one you're hearing about right now.

Are you trying to quote an article or something?

Or are you just really sure about what you're saying ..

Because you shouldnt be

Millions of people would like to implant ethics or reason (or both!) into Elon.

Those are the names of my two guns

Yeah, nah. I see less Night City and more…permanent night city in that were all blind and/or dead. Although maybe the rampant all-powerful capitalism of the cyberpunk lore would still happen.

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Put this verification int your butthole to access the free service

Downvote because I don't give a flying fuck what Musk wants and random shit about musk is not technology