5 ms·

I can't even imagine how these experiments are passing an ethics committee. I had never heard of this experiment before, but this report is one of these moment

I can't even imagine how these experiments are passing an ethics committee. I had never heard of this experiment before, but this report is one of these moments, that make me question, if we took the wrong branch of reality. A billionaire torturing animals for a self gain goal disguised as scientific research sounds like a plot from a James Bond movie of my childhood. I just can't wrap my head around.

imdsm 5y ago
To be fair, it's easy for us to sit here and dismiss research into brain implants while we have full use of our bodies and are fit and healthy. On the other hand, people who have suffered horrific injuries likely feel quite differently about the research. While what's allegedly happening to the animals is horrible, let's just be clear that "self gain goal disguised as scientific research" is a highly subject take. No progress happens without research and I dare to say, many of us take medicines that we wouldn't have without animal trials. Are we not guilty then too?
- sterlind 5y ago
  I'm suffering through learning to code again without much use of my hands. I would very much like Neuralink to be a thing.
  - cheeze 5y ago
    Anywhere that I can read more about this? How do you do the coding? Feet? Something else? Very cool - definitely an a11y area I don't really think about
    - sterlind 5y ago
      legs are messed up too. I use voice and eye tracking with talon and cursorless and a tree-sitter extension I wrote that enables different command grammars based on where the cursor is, and syncs the vocab list with the symbols in scope.
  - austinjp 5y ago
    Out of genuine curiosity, without wishing to seem challenging, and appreciating that engaging in lengthy conversation online might be difficult for you... I wonder if other technologies might come to market quicker. Frankly, I wonder if neuralink will come to market at all, and how affordable and accessible it will be. I can't imagine someone without the use of their limbs in a developing nation benefiting from neuralink ever, for example.
    - sterlind 5y ago
      oh, I definitely have no loyalty to Neuralink. I'd particularly like it if something like Open Water, a non-invasive IR refraction imager, would succeed. Implants sound dangerous, difficult to maintain and intractable to upgrade. And accessibility tech tends to be crappy and massively overpriced unless it's marketed to able-bodied users as well. My eye tracker was $200, because it's for "gamers", while the eye trackers for disability cost >$10K despite having the same hardware. Neuralink is never going to be affordable. I probably overstated my impairments a bit. I can type and walk for short periods, just not sustainably. Basically my joints dislocate constantly and my nerves are unreliable. I'm at the level where e.g. something like a powered exoskeleton would be extremely useful, but not bad off enough for insurance to cover it if it costs $200K (since I can get around the house most of the time as long as it's short, and wheelchairs are cheaper.) So even in developed countries cost is an issue.
      - imdsm 5y ago
        My response to this is a few days late. I thought to check my replies after reading the recent lack of notifications thread. And I had a thought. As you say, implants sound dangerous and hard to maintain but also, intractable. I wonder if a solution may be to have a client/server approach. When I've used arduinos in the past (and it has been some years since I've had the time to tinker with them), I remember writing some software to act as a client on the arduino, that would receive commands and pass back telemetry to a raspberry pi. I wonder if the same style implant could work. Something to handle IO but which relied on an external, upgradable unit for processing? Just a random thought. Hope that your journey to handsfree programming goes as well as it can.
  - hughrr 5y ago
    But are you comfortable torturing other entities for your personal gain? That’s pretty much what this comes down to.
    - zihotki 5y ago
      It's not the personal gain. The results of the experiment can be used not only for humans but for animals as well. Refrasing your comment, are you comfortable torturing many humans and animals (alive and not yet born) in order to save several tens of monkeys?
      - hughrr 5y ago
        They wouldn't be used for animals because there is no return of investment on that. Ethics don't by nature stop suffering of the many. What they do is protect the few from being defined as arbitrarily less valuable than the many and thus being exploited. I think there are plenty of history lessons around that one which are worth reflecting on. Edit: to be clear, both our perspectives are valid. But one does not allow arbitrary escalation of harm to others.
    - sterlind 5y ago
      I'm not sure. if I need it to survive? yeah, probably. I'm vegetarian but I'd kill animals if the alternative were starving. all the meds I take were tested on animals, some of them probably primates. if there's an alternative that's a bit crappier but pretty usable? then I'd choose that. if the alternative only lets me eke out a meager existence, dependent on help and unable to work? I'd probably still go with what works, even if it means animals were harmed. I dunno if that makes me a crappy person, but it's hard feeling this helpless.
      - imdsm 5y ago
        I think this makes you an honest person. I imagine most people wouldn't admit to it, but when it came down to it, would go the same way. Hunger and survival changes people.
cloutchaser 5y ago
A billionaire who doesn’t give two shits about money and lives in a box, who is looking at technologies to make paraplegics be able to walk again or even communicate. For some reason your attitude is very sceptical for no reason. I imagine you want to dismantle capitalism too while you’re at it?
- sdoering 5y ago
  Interesting jumps you make. Why should I want to dismantle capitalism? I have no qualms with people making money. I like to make money myself. As long as I treat others fairly and take care of others, why shouldn't I be compensated for that? I think in the end it comes down to values. I believe in things like ensuring that my negative impact on this world is as little as possible. While I try to maximize the positive impact on the other hand. There is prior scientific exploration of things like Musk is testing. With proper protocols in place to ensure minimal suffering (and yes probably some suffering can't be foregone). Why not support these? Why do his own thing without these long honed traditions in science to also take the animals' suffering into account? I would neither want to dismantle capitalism nor scientific inquiry. But I can't say that egomanical ideas (imho) thinly veiled in science for humanity don't make me want to forget my good upbringing. But I admit. I just might be wrong, his intentions might be great and only this experiment failed in a horrible way.
  - cloutchaser 5y ago
    Why do you think he doesn’t take these protocols into account? Based on the word of a newspaper? Did anyone even say this? You are assuming bad intentions without any proof or response from the accused.
- austinjp 5y ago
  One reason work like neuralink can be unhelpful is that it can distract from other (often more promising) work. Medical experimental and academic work is (ideally) conducted in public at every stage, and is announced via peer-review. Privately developed work may also go through peer-review, but often makes heavy use of PR tactics like press conferences, puff pieces in popular media, snazzy videos, etc. Sure, the public sector can learn a lot from the private sector, but vice-versa is also true. I'm well aware of the issues with academic processes and peer-review publication, but I'm also aware of the ongoing efforts to improve them, which gives me hope. Also, this painful evolution is happening in public too, as it should be.
dzhiurgis 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant Has been around for half a century Move on
- austinjp 5y ago
  That seems like an odd comparison. And anyway, cochlear implants were developed with human volunteers in the 60s and 70s. Some modern cochlear implant experiments use animals that have been deliberately deafened, and this most certainly raises ethical concerns. The words "move on" are particularly odd. What do you mean? Should we never look back at what we've already done, and work out how to do it better? That really doesn't feel like progress or to me.
callesgg 5y ago
Imagine they have the potential to make people with broken backs walk again.

imdsm 5y ago

To be fair, it's easy for us to sit here and dismiss research into brain implants while we have full use of our bodies and are fit and healthy. On the other hand, people who have suffered horrific injuries likely feel quite differently about the research. While what's allegedly happening to the animals is horrible, let's just be clear that "self gain goal disguised as scientific research" is a highly subject take. No progress happens without research and I dare to say, many of us take medicines that we wouldn't have without animal trials. Are we not guilty then too?

sterlind 5y ago
I'm suffering through learning to code again without much use of my hands. I would very much like Neuralink to be a thing.
- cheeze 5y ago
  Anywhere that I can read more about this? How do you do the coding? Feet? Something else? Very cool - definitely an a11y area I don't really think about
  - sterlind 5y ago
    legs are messed up too. I use voice and eye tracking with talon and cursorless and a tree-sitter extension I wrote that enables different command grammars based on where the cursor is, and syncs the vocab list with the symbols in scope.
- austinjp 5y ago
  Out of genuine curiosity, without wishing to seem challenging, and appreciating that engaging in lengthy conversation online might be difficult for you... I wonder if other technologies might come to market quicker. Frankly, I wonder if neuralink will come to market at all, and how affordable and accessible it will be. I can't imagine someone without the use of their limbs in a developing nation benefiting from neuralink ever, for example.
  - sterlind 5y ago
    oh, I definitely have no loyalty to Neuralink. I'd particularly like it if something like Open Water, a non-invasive IR refraction imager, would succeed. Implants sound dangerous, difficult to maintain and intractable to upgrade. And accessibility tech tends to be crappy and massively overpriced unless it's marketed to able-bodied users as well. My eye tracker was $200, because it's for "gamers", while the eye trackers for disability cost >$10K despite having the same hardware. Neuralink is never going to be affordable. I probably overstated my impairments a bit. I can type and walk for short periods, just not sustainably. Basically my joints dislocate constantly and my nerves are unreliable. I'm at the level where e.g. something like a powered exoskeleton would be extremely useful, but not bad off enough for insurance to cover it if it costs $200K (since I can get around the house most of the time as long as it's short, and wheelchairs are cheaper.) So even in developed countries cost is an issue.
    - imdsm 5y ago
      My response to this is a few days late. I thought to check my replies after reading the recent lack of notifications thread. And I had a thought. As you say, implants sound dangerous and hard to maintain but also, intractable. I wonder if a solution may be to have a client/server approach. When I've used arduinos in the past (and it has been some years since I've had the time to tinker with them), I remember writing some software to act as a client on the arduino, that would receive commands and pass back telemetry to a raspberry pi. I wonder if the same style implant could work. Something to handle IO but which relied on an external, upgradable unit for processing? Just a random thought. Hope that your journey to handsfree programming goes as well as it can.
- hughrr 5y ago
  But are you comfortable torturing other entities for your personal gain? That’s pretty much what this comes down to.
  - zihotki 5y ago
    It's not the personal gain. The results of the experiment can be used not only for humans but for animals as well. Refrasing your comment, are you comfortable torturing many humans and animals (alive and not yet born) in order to save several tens of monkeys?
    - hughrr 5y ago
      They wouldn't be used for animals because there is no return of investment on that. Ethics don't by nature stop suffering of the many. What they do is protect the few from being defined as arbitrarily less valuable than the many and thus being exploited. I think there are plenty of history lessons around that one which are worth reflecting on. Edit: to be clear, both our perspectives are valid. But one does not allow arbitrary escalation of harm to others.
  - sterlind 5y ago
    I'm not sure. if I need it to survive? yeah, probably. I'm vegetarian but I'd kill animals if the alternative were starving. all the meds I take were tested on animals, some of them probably primates. if there's an alternative that's a bit crappier but pretty usable? then I'd choose that. if the alternative only lets me eke out a meager existence, dependent on help and unable to work? I'd probably still go with what works, even if it means animals were harmed. I dunno if that makes me a crappy person, but it's hard feeling this helpless.
    - imdsm 5y ago
      I think this makes you an honest person. I imagine most people wouldn't admit to it, but when it came down to it, would go the same way. Hunger and survival changes people.

cloutchaser 5y ago

A billionaire who doesn’t give two shits about money and lives in a box, who is looking at technologies to make paraplegics be able to walk again or even communicate. For some reason your attitude is very sceptical for no reason. I imagine you want to dismantle capitalism too while you’re at it?

sdoering 5y ago
Interesting jumps you make. Why should I want to dismantle capitalism? I have no qualms with people making money. I like to make money myself. As long as I treat others fairly and take care of others, why shouldn't I be compensated for that? I think in the end it comes down to values. I believe in things like ensuring that my negative impact on this world is as little as possible. While I try to maximize the positive impact on the other hand. There is prior scientific exploration of things like Musk is testing. With proper protocols in place to ensure minimal suffering (and yes probably some suffering can't be foregone). Why not support these? Why do his own thing without these long honed traditions in science to also take the animals' suffering into account? I would neither want to dismantle capitalism nor scientific inquiry. But I can't say that egomanical ideas (imho) thinly veiled in science for humanity don't make me want to forget my good upbringing. But I admit. I just might be wrong, his intentions might be great and only this experiment failed in a horrible way.
- cloutchaser 5y ago
  Why do you think he doesn’t take these protocols into account? Based on the word of a newspaper? Did anyone even say this? You are assuming bad intentions without any proof or response from the accused.
austinjp 5y ago
One reason work like neuralink can be unhelpful is that it can distract from other (often more promising) work. Medical experimental and academic work is (ideally) conducted in public at every stage, and is announced via peer-review. Privately developed work may also go through peer-review, but often makes heavy use of PR tactics like press conferences, puff pieces in popular media, snazzy videos, etc. Sure, the public sector can learn a lot from the private sector, but vice-versa is also true. I'm well aware of the issues with academic processes and peer-review publication, but I'm also aware of the ongoing efforts to improve them, which gives me hope. Also, this painful evolution is happening in public too, as it should be.

dzhiurgis 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant Has been around for half a century Move on

austinjp 5y ago
That seems like an odd comparison. And anyway, cochlear implants were developed with human volunteers in the 60s and 70s. Some modern cochlear implant experiments use animals that have been deliberately deafened, and this most certainly raises ethical concerns. The words "move on" are particularly odd. What do you mean? Should we never look back at what we've already done, and work out how to do it better? That really doesn't feel like progress or to me.

callesgg 5y ago

Imagine they have the potential to make people with broken backs walk again.