As much as I like regaining autonomy, we should hold back those tears until a patient's implant outlasts a product cycle. I can't find the article to link to, but there's an ongoing issue with tech companies producing assistive devices or prosthetics and obsoleting them when the company pivots, gets bought or goes under.
Corporate cyborg parts are an already-predicted nightmare, already taking place, unfolding in slow motion, and soon it will breach the sanctity of human thought.
The simple solution is that all such devices must be submitted to a central government database and all blue prints, source code etc. will be released into the public domain is the company no longer supports the device or closes down.
This is indeed the solution for every industry. The main issue is that really often companies get bought with assets by another company that just let them rot. So you would need a provision that in case of non maintenance it should be released. But then they would fight you in court because they use specific code or design in a newer device and that would release it to the public... So while it would be the perfect solution for the patients I doubt our society is really organized to represent their rights and needs (and we see that with insurance as well)
I'm pretty confident that anything involving a central government database won't really fly under the current political climate. Definitely not in the US, but many other countries are bowing to US pressure to limit regulation.
The same disabled people whose hard earned rights are on the chopping block right now in the name of anti wokeness? I’ll say, taking away their ability to participate in society first, then selling it back to the richest of them is an ingenious business approach.
> These tools need to be paid for. By people whose welfare is currently being taken away by the same man who owns NeuraLink.
I'm struggling to understand your point. You seem to be saying that Musk is trying sell a product to people but at the same time taking away their ability to pay for it. Logically, that means nobody would be buying the product, which leads me to conclude the thinking you express above is flawed.
For one, they enable, yes. So there's a market to create here.
But. It also doesn't take a lot of imagination to see what other beneficial uses they promise to bear, as a general device. Imagine having a computer plugged-in permanently in your brain. Both in reading (and reacting by providing a stimulus, whatever it is, however you may do so directly or indirectly), and perhaps even, some day, in writing.
When you see what you can achieve with an individual, customised touch-screen computer in the pocket, something that didn't even exist a quarter of a century ago. The potential. The horizon. How would you not invest in that vision if you had the money for it?
What a striking coincidence that the man behind this project has now access to the resources of a huge country, which administration happens to deport "illegal" immigrants here and there, without due judiciary process (that is, publicly documented), in territories outside of judiciary overview (like Guantanamo).
The same guy who felt brazen enough to make twice a nazi salute in front of televisions.
Far fetched scenario? Yes, obviously. Improbable? Also yes. Impossible? No.
> But it won’t help get them a job because DEI is bad.
That's an uncharitable take that focuses on the wrong issue, in my opinion.
Noland's life was pretty dire: "Since dislocating his C4-5 vertebrae in a 2016 swimming accident, Arbaugh had dropped out of Texas A&M and returned to live with his family in Yuma, Arizona. Due to the combination of Yuma’s scorching heat — from May to September the average high temperature is 99 degrees or more — and the intense spasms he experienced when sitting in his power chair, Arbaugh spent most of his time in bed, watching TV. With no sensation or function below his shoulders and having limited caregiving hours provided by the state, he relied heavily on his parents and brother and often felt like a burden." [1]
After Neuralink, the abilities that Noland gained is best represented by his own words: “Before, I would wake up and just [watch] my TV,” he says. “Now, I wake up and [work] on my computer. It’s very similar, but at the same time, my daily routine has changed from just watching stuff to being more active and interactive with the world.”
So yes. Throwing out the vulnerable onto the streets, to promise a future where those who can afford it can be made to function as good as healthy people, to earn their human rights and dignity with cold hard cash, like everyone else. The rest, who cares... they don't have a voice even while they live, so nobody will ask about them when they no longer do.
Corporate cyborg parts are an already-predicted nightmare, already taking place, unfolding in slow motion, and soon it will breach the sanctity of human thought.