Could cybernetic implants be done safely and responsibly? It's quite possible.
Will cybernetic implants ever be done safely and responsibly under capitalism? Hell no.
the fucking trials out of australia where they successfully gave people back like their sight or hearing or whatever it was, and then the trials ended and they had to have the implants removed or disabled so the company didn't have to keep supporting them was the most heartbreaking thing I had read that month.
edit: I'm wrong it was stopping her debilitating seizures 
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/05/25/1073634/brain-implant-removed-against-her-will/
If this is what they do now to the test subjects imagine how much worse and more insidious it can get as the tech matures
Anybody involved with making or enforcing that decision should be thrown in an oubliette
they WILL use this against people in the future. corporate non-compliance or even dissent will have your implants shut off.
turns out a bunch of nerds have basically been gaming this out in sci-fi for decades
Sci Fi nerd reporting in: it literally never turns out good. We don't know enough about what's going on there to do ANY fucking around.
Just like in the hit graphic novel Neuromancer 
It didn't stop her seizures, it predicted their occurance
Anyway after the American company Neuravista went bust there's been a lot of development in approaches which don't need brain implantation anyway:
The nature of implants is really grim - even Cochlear/hearing implants which are widely praised by people outside the Deaf community basically destroy and replace a considerable part of a person's remaining hearing ability.
Sound of music (2019) is a good film on that
yeah you're right I was lazy and didn't re-read the article when I posted it. But since she had effective medication she could take to stop them when the implant predicted them, its a bit potato potato. She got them under control in a way that was impossible before
I didn't know that about cochlear implants... geez
Your augs will play ads at random times unless you buy the premium upgrade. And they will play ads in your dreams
Dreams are basically the only place left capitalism hasn't colonized (sorry 
, SpaceX ruined that one). If they ever found a way to inject car insurance and fast food commercials into my dreams, I might actually 
Strawberry Mansion is a ‘fun’ 2021 movie about just that idea.
Or they'll move to a subscription model even though you paid initially for unlimited access to your [vital organ of choice]
When Arbaugh asked if his implant could be removed, fixed, or even replaced, Neuralink’s medical team relayed they would prefer to avoid another brain surgery and instead gather more information.
most ethical elon company
I mean, that does seem to be the best course of action. It's not hurting him to still be in there, but it could easily hurt him to remove it.
Yeah, I'm not going to fault them for that decision. Now if (when) they refuse to remove it if (when) it becomes inoperable, then that's an unjustifiable and unforgivable decision.
I'm glad they don't want to touch what they fucked up, but I think this is a case of referring him to actual neurosurgeons to help him mitigate any potential damage at their own expense. They won't because that's admitting fault for litigation purposes, but Jesus that's bad.
Imagine having a cybertruck put in your head
You go into a coma for opening your mouth while your brain firmware is updating
While I'm sure there are a number of worthwhile uses for brain implant tech (helping disabled people is the first thing coming to mind), the testing process just seems so cruel. Is there any way to perfect the tech that ISNT something out of a dystopian scifi?
Is there any way to perfect the tech that ISNT something out of a dystopian scifi?
Nope. The entirety of academic science is predicated on the dystopian scifi of modernity. E.g. the species of mouse that has been selectively bred to remain genetically identical (so it can be used as a scientific unit for experimentation) for more than a century, has been copyrighted, and is used in basically all testing. It's been squished, starved (lab animals are generally kept in a state of hunger to make them more easily controlled), diseased, burnt, drowned, cut open (while alive), shocked, etcetc. Similar treatment of many other animals (and humans in the global south, and people of colour and disabled people and women etcetc in the global north).
Our (Capitalist-European) ways of knowing are based on this brute force torture-science where we tear stuff apart to find out "what it is" (and more importantly, can it be made profitable or is it useless?) as soon as possible, and then we declare the results of this torture-science universally applicable, e.g. we declared animals stupid because we ran tests on animals we've captured, starved to ensure food motivation and locked up in cages for ease of access and tested on things humans find relevant (e.g. testing facial recognition on apes using human faces instead of ape faces; shockingly gorillas are better at telling gorillas apart than telling humans apart).
Like, it rly has to be remembered the basis of Academic European Science is rich fucks doing experiments for fun, using "raw materials" (living or otherwise) available to them as a result of their immense privilege. As their wealth was already based on e.g. literal chattel slavery they had no qualms doing literal torture on subhumans for fun and "progress", no qualms tearing up ecosystems to "study plants and animals" (bc of this, Academic science is still basically baffled by a lotta how plants and animals actually work in nature). They therefore had less than no qualms doing any of this to "improve the human condition (i.e. to make more shit for companies to sell)".
Capital was willing to work 2 year olds to death in lace mills for pretty dresses; it has less than no qualms about torturing apes or mice to death to ensure quality hair products or slightly longer human lifespans (for the rich, in the global north). Socialism (as it exists after imperialism dies, not as it exists while competing with imperialism) will likely have to (be forced to by the poorest) reconsider a lotta the stuff we in the imperial core take as necessities of life.
Mouse and other animal models are increasingly turning out to be pretty useless to predict what happens in humans and how things work
great comment/summary cde rat, do rats uh dislike mice?
The killing of a mouse by a rat is called muricide
Look who studied mouse law!
spoiler
Didn't know that was a thing
great comment
There isn't a capability to model a complete living brain in silico, so not really at this time.
Thanks for that. Given that's the current case, I'm now of the mind (tee hee) that we should...idk, maybe do that first before human and animal testing?
But that would delay pushing it to market so nope no siree can't have that
To get the data to build and validate that type of model, you would need to study a lot more living brains than these neuralink experiments. Like, orders on orders of magnitude more. You can't really model this sort of thing from first principles.
I would say that if people were set for life in a more humane, egalitarian society, one can choose to opt into experiments without there being financial incentives to ruin informed consent.
Volunteering in this society with how they treat test subjects (a term that's already loaded as fuck) is letting an unchecked researcher and/or corporation to fuck you up and deny responsibility while waiting you out in court.
Jesus fucking christ
It's exactly what I expected to happen, but being right isn't always much consolation.
Turns out there's nothing wrong with the chip, but the patient missed his most recent payment so they hit the "auto repossess" button and it withdrew the fibers from his brain
What part of the chimpanzee test subjects ripping their digits off made them think this was ready to work?
Damn. According to the article the Neuralink team pretty much certainly already knew this was very likely to happen. They're also telling the subject that they want to avoid the risk of another surgery to correct it.
So why the fuck did they go ahead with it before addressing the known problems??? 
So why the fuck did they go ahead with it before addressing the known problems???
Marketing.
It says he's still able to play games and move a mouse cursor and click on things so it's not entirely useless and it's better than not being able to do any of those things. But the article is really light on details and citations so who knows what they're covering up.
The capacity you describe is already available in hobbyist grade products. Not consumer grade yet, but you can see youtubers playing with kits to do all that in their gamer chair with no surgery.
Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.
No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
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Dunk posts in general go in the_dunk_tank, not here
Don't post low-hanging fruit here after it gets removed from the_dunk_tank