[txcwpalpha]

There are, and have been, many many people working on all of these problems long before Elon Musk (the tech announced today at Neuralink is entirely built on work that was done by people at UCSF and UC Berkeley, and even that is an iteration on technology that was developed by scientists over the past several decades). Neuralink the company was founded by eight people other than Musk. It's a huge disservice to all of these people to give Musk the credit for their work.

Musk sits in a weird position where his unique blend of controversy keeps him in the headlines and ensures he gets linked to these technologies, but that does not mean he is responsible for nor deserves the credit. It could be argued that his "ability" to constantly land in the limelight draws more attention (and thus progress) to these issues, but others would argue that we would be even further along if not for the constant controversy he creates.

[SECProto]

One speaker is a professor from UCSF who studied the brain's processing of motor signals. He explicitly credited Musk for having the right vision and the long term planning, and that's why he left his position after 16 years to come work with Neuralink.

No one credits Musk for solving bugs with the software on his products, or creating these brain-computer interfaces. But he can assemble the team to do, and motivate them to keep moving and progressing pretty aggressive schedules. And he frequently gives credit to his team (and doesn't sit there patting himself on the back).

[kranner]

> And he frequently gives credit to his team (and doesn't sit there patting himself on the back).

Yes, the list of authors on the whitepaper they released is "Elon Musk & Neuralink". I guess his team should be thankful.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6204648-Neuralink-Wh...

[SECProto]

As the other commenters said, that's not a research paper. Here is a link to an actual research paper where (at least some of) the authors work for neuralink.

https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(18)30993-0

[buboard]

thats a white paper , not the research paper (which is what ppl will read). You can also read it the other way around: He wanted to credit the entire Neuralink team, without claiming to be part if it or leading it

[kranner]

It would have read that way if the author list had simply said 'Neuralink'. He is definitely positioning himself as the leader here.

[frisco]

BioArxiv required at least one human author. We suggested this author list to him and, honestly, we just think it’s awesome.

[buboard]

Actually, the leader is usually the last author. The first author is usually the student doing the gruntwork

[awwstn]

Fred Wilson has a blog post where he outlines the role of a CEO like this:

>A CEO does only three things. Sets the overall vision and strategy of the company and communicates it to all stakeholders. Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company. Makes sure there is always enough cash in the bank.

Based on everything we saw in the Neuralink livestream, it seems like Elon is nailing all three of these. Doesn't mean he deserves all the credit, but it mean he's doing his job.

[cma]

> He explicitly credited Musk for having the right vision and the long term planning, and that's why he left his position after 16 years to come work with Neuralink.

How do we know that's why, vs his estimation of Musk being the right kind of showman to get a lot of investment.

[SECProto]

> How do we know that's why, vs his estimation of Musk being the right kind of showman to get a lot of investment.

Because it is what he explicitly said. As I pointed out in my parent comment.

Of course I'm sure access to capital plays a role. Otherwise it's just someone with a good idea and no money. A meh idea but lots of money also wouldn't attract these kinds of people.

[cma]

What people explicitly say is their reasoning isn't necessarily their reasoning; especially in an investor/recruiting hype presentation.

[derefr]

Technological R&D doesn't get you anywhere on its own. It's an important prerequisite, sure, but just as necessary is the next step, where a company is formed to commercialize/productize novel research through years of schlepping through market education and government safety trials, to pave the way for the technology to become a "safe" product category for other companies to follow on to. There are many technologies stuck between these two stages—thoroughly "researched and developed", but not yet commercialized.

People like Musk (and the people he co-founds these companies with) are important because they're taking nascent product categories that are "stuck" in the R&D stage with little attention being paid to them, and directing large-scale consumer demand onto them in a way that brings profit-driven industry interest—and therefore industry talent—into the picture. Even if it's not Musk's offering that end up winning the space, these efforts redefine the public perception of the category in a way that means that every company in the space wins.

(For another equivalent example: the creator of Bitcoin did more for smart contracts by creating one platform that lead to competitor platforms that actually had smart-contract support, than a thousand academic smart-contract systems projects ever could have.)

[daniel_iversen]

... and there were people working on electric cars and rockets before Musk came along too, but somehow he just manages to nudge things along a lot more than the average person!

[NetOpWibby]

Our media perpetuates and encourages erratic behavior. People like/love Musk because he does it, for science!

I personally have no problem with him.