[wazdra]

Am I the only one a bit disturbed by this whole communication ?

I mean, we all know helping disabled is not the end-game objective of neuralink. And right now, from a very cynical point of view, disabled people constitute a large reservoir of cobayes and free marketing for Neuralink

I don’t know how much has been invested in R&D on Neuralink, but I doubt we have ever invested that much money in any other technology to provide autonomy to the disabled.

And it is not perfectly clear to me that, for the sole prospect of helping paralysed people, Neuralink is the best way to go. It sure is the one that looks the coolest, but it’s going to be very expensive, hard to fix when something goes wrong, and it is also hard to trust. Those issues do not seem to be avoidable

Don’t get me wrong, I admire the huge QoL gain for the three patients. As individuals, they sure benefited from this. Idk if the same is true of the disabled as a social group

[andsoitis]

> we all know helping disabled is not the end-game objective of neuralink.

Can you tell us more what you surmise we all think is the end-game objective?

[consumer451]

> Can you tell us more what you surmise we all think is the end-game objective?

Musk's original stated end-game objective is to give humans a chance against ASI by removing the biggest impediment that humans have to communicate digitally, the keyboard.

This is hard to believe as the truth, as it is extremely short-sighted. If ASI can think 1000x faster than a human brain, and with much more intelligence, then what does giving humans even a 100x improvement in I/O achieve? Also, if ASI is achieved, then it will continue to self-improve. The meat brain is stuck at our current speed.

Please see my HN profile for a privacy rant about the downsides, which only assumes a read capability. Once a write capability is introduced, I mean you gotta be kidding me. Who should you trust with that power? The answer is no one.

[dmbche]

Isn't it to sell brain-computer connectivity to the masses?

[isoprophlex]

Jensen Huang becoming a sandworm from Dune, only he keeps shitting out mountains of NVIDIA cards instead of spice. Elon Musk and the rest of the technorati using neuralink to upload themselves into said mountain of GPUs to become immortal.

[Terr_]

Wait... A sandworm with a mountain of GPUs ravaging a country ruined by a Technorati-coup's failed dreams of immortality?

The anime movie Vexille (2007) has you covered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Ti8mjRXsc&t=34

Technically the worms ("jags") are unintended junk rather than tools of apotheosis, but the overlap is striking.

[golol]

powerful general BCI, FDVR, cyborg intelligence and so on. Elon Musk clearly stated this many times.

[computerthings]

Someone who has genuine concern for helping people doesn't cut medical programs in fly-by-night operations to leave people with medical devices in their body and whatnot. Empathy and caring about suffering can be ruled out.

Generally speaking, the demo is always about finding the green ball on top of a red cube, or the person who went missing in a land slide, but what sells it is detecting and aiming at the dissident hiding under a truck.

And isn't it weird how "think of the children" is always ridiculed but "think of the paralyzed etc." is just fine? I've seen it countless times in the last decades. Just recently when I said on here I want "AI" art to be marked as "AI" made and someone claimed I don't care about the people who have Parkinson's and can't hold a brush, but wouldn't answer why we can't mark it anyway. It's not the people with Parkinson's that want to pass of their creations as hand-made. They're just getting used.

Sure, paralyzed people would love to be able to control a cursor with their mind etc., but even more than that they don't want cuts to social programs, that enable them a dignified life beyond "making them as functional as a healthy person", to allow tax cuts for the super rich. They want friends to have time for them instead of working 3 jobs, that sort of stuff. But Musk and his spiritual brethren are gleefully moving in the opposite direction, as fast and ruthlessly as they can.

So I say this particular doctor is three butchers in a trench coat. I can't prove it, because I can't read minds, but nobody else can either, and this is the "bet" I'm going with. Vulnerable and sick people can only have things that would a.) help super rich people with the same conditions and b.) enable more persecution and exploitation, and an easier discard of undesirable, unproductive or rebellious members of society.

[yreg]

> And isn't it weird how "think of the children" is always ridiculed but "think of the paralyzed etc." is just fine?

Isn't the difference that "think of the children" is used to ban stuff and "think of the paralyzed" is used to enable stuff?

[computerthings]

Well, even to genuinely protect children it often means removing things from impacting them. You don't give a newborn honey; we don't invent some kind of pill that allows us to give them honey on day 1, they can't deal with honey, it's fine, just keep it away from them. Then the older they get, the more it's about giving them the tools to make their own decisions -- but children can't consent, so yes, you have to ban adults from doing some things. You can't usually just "enable" something else so they don't harm children. Children grow on their own, provided they get what they need and some stimulus, but also crucially safe space to grow in, from which to extend their feelers so to speak. That must be carved out negatively. And frankly, society totally threw them under the bus even when it was just TV and ads, with phones it's so much worse. But that's a total tangent and besides the point.

"think of the children" can and is also be used as a fig leaf, to just ban things or get control, but that fact in turn is then used as a fig leaf for dismissing any concern for children. While "think of the disabled people whose welfare the broligarchy wants to see cut" somehow is just taken without second thought.

[Terr_]

> Vulnerable and sick people can only have things that would a.) help super rich people with the same conditions

I have occasionally wondered if, in some kind of time-travel scenario, I could convince the local royalty that subsidizing healthcare for the masses would ultimately benefit them years down they line when they need an experienced doctor who knows how to do some kind of surgery.

> Someone who has genuine concern for helping people doesn't cut medical programs in fly-by-night operations to leave people with medical devices in their body and whatnot.

Some folks might miss the political reference: https://www.citizen.org/news/egregious-abandonment-of-ongoin...

> but what sells it is detecting and aiming at the dissident hiding under a truck

Mildly relevant: https://xkcd.com/2128/

[andsoitis]

> I have occasionally wondered if, in some kind of time-travel scenario, I could convince the local royalty that subsidizing healthcare for the masses would ultimately benefit them years down they line when they need an experienced doctor who knows how to do some kind of surgery.

Your intuition that subsidies can increase outcomes for even the super wealthy is correct, but it should be noted that this already happens today.

Subsidies for healthcare, including for highly specialized and technical procedures that are expensive, yield:

- Increased Access to Cutting-Edge Treatments

- More Skilled & Experienced Surgeons

- Lower Costs Through Economies of Scale

- Encouragement of Medical Research & Innovation

For instance, for heart surgery in particular, in the US, there is Government Subsidies and Assistance (Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, VA, and ACA) as well as Private and Non-Profit Aid (HealthWell and PAN Foundation, American Heart Association & Mended Hearts, Hospital Financial Assistance).

Then there are major healthcare foundations funded by billionaires, focusing on medical research, global health, and disease prevention. Some of the more notable and impactful ones are:

- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

- Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

- Howard Hughes Medical Institute

- Michael & Susan Dell Foundation

- Helmsley Charitable Trust

- Open Society Foundations

- Bloomberg Philanthropies

- The Wellcome Trust

[tdeck]

Apparently "cobaye" is guinea pig in French. I learn something new every day :).

[Terr_]

My first puzzled interpretation was of a "reservoir of co-pays", as if there was some kind of financial/insurance exploitation going on.