Musk and his board at Neuralink should be first test subjects. But we know that'll never happen. Thousands of people will receive brain damage as they submit for trials hoping to have horrible conditions lessened.

[–] DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world 36 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Musk himself would be just fine, just like Frankenstein.

[–] Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 9 months ago (4 children)

The first person to receive the neuralink is a paralyzed individual with no quality of life. This may help them communicate with their loved ones.

I don't get why people don't see that this is a medical device.

[–] SacralPlexus@lemmy.world 49 points 9 months ago

People do understand this is a medical device. What you seem to not be getting in this situation is that Elon Musk is an absolutely horrible human who has a long track record of badness. There are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic that this project will end badly for people who aren’t him.

Awhile back it was discovered that Tesla had quietly programmed Autopilot to disengage if it detected a crash was eminent. Why? Because they were asked to report how many crashes occurred while autopilot was active. Their solution was to game the system rather than actively try to solve any potential problems and be honest / critical of what they had built. This is a system that already has the potential to get people killed. Do you suppose that sort of unscrupulous decision making is going to stop when his people are implanting devices in human brains?

[–] Jomega@lemmy.world 27 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Medical devices aren't supposed to kill their users, which is what happened in the animal testing phase. It didn't even have a single successful case of doing what it's supposed to.

[–] JungleJim@sh.itjust.works 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Jesus, it didn't? I already know I never want this horrible thing and I know all those monkeys died so I don't read about it in depth, but they never even got the thing to work? Somebody needs to stop him.

[–] Daxter101@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

It did work in terms of output, I'm pretty sure. It's just that all the monkeys (and pigs) died due to complications, and some had gruesome deaths

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 25 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

We get what it is. We just don't remotely trust the self-serving conman behind it.

What you're saying here is "The first victim is an incredibly vulnerable person who deserves so much better than being offered false hope by a manipulative bastard with a God complex."

Picking suffering people to prey on only makes him more of a bastard.

[–] kboy101222@sh.itjust.works 5 points 9 months ago

Cause they've been hyping it up as the next big thing for everybody

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

But how will we know if it causes brain damage or loss of free thinking?

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 2 points 9 months ago

You ask them what they think of Musk after being so close to him for a couple of days

[–] ProgrammingSocks@pawb.social 8 points 9 months ago

I hope the first victim will be Musk. But even he doesn't drink the koolaid as hard as the average techbro.