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I think that the negativity here is unfortunate. The reality is that it’s very hard to see a normal VC level return on the $100M+ Elon and friends have invested

I think that the negativity here is unfortunate. The reality is that it’s very hard to see a normal VC level return on the $100M+ Elon and friends have invested here. And don’t let anyone fool you - this is the fundamental reason the BCI field has moved slowly. If Neuralink proceeds to a scenario where quadriplegic patients can get reliable (ie lifelong) control of their computers for less than $100k that will be a huge win for them for a cost that no one else was willing to pay. To be clear, at that order of magnitude they might make back their investment, but it won’t be 10x or 100x, and the potential healthy-brain-connected-to-the-AI play is much less rooted in reality than Teslas all becoming taxis. Worst case scenario is that Elon loses interest and pulls the plug and Mr Arbaugh loses continued tech support a la a google product. I think that’s the one question I wish the author had asked…

chakintosh 1y ago
The endgame for Neuralink here, and most other competitors in the field is to use these transplants on healthy people as well to "enhance" human function.
hnthrowawayacct 1y ago
One of the biggest unsolved issues with BCI and neural implants is the immune response to implanted electrodes. The tissue buildup and fluid that encapsulates the probe or stimulator drastically increases the impedance of the device and causes all sorts of hard to solve problems for longevity of the implant and whatever therapy or recording it's trying to accomplish.
torginus 1y ago
VCs don't actually like risk, and can't distinguish snake-oil from groundbreaking inventions - more news at 11
g42gregory 1y ago
Don’t forget, we are currently running “Elon is bad” narrative. Apparently, many people listen.
- multjoy 1y ago
  Did you somehow sleep through the whole doge debacle?
- Xss3 1y ago
  He objectively is a bad person and a notorious liar.
rc5150 1y ago
The unfortunate part is that your first thought went to return on investment rather than the humanitarian angle, which I think is the common perspective; optics and money. Then there's the pessimists, like me, wondering how long it'll take to Neuralink to turn their army of computer connected paraplegics into some Mechanical Turk-esque Grok clean up.
- wordofx 1y ago
  Things are only created or expanded if there is a return. Its that simple.
- Almondsetat 1y ago
  If something cannot stand on its own two legs, then it can be the most awesome stuff in the world but it will die nonetheless. Being self-sustainable (i.e. profitable) greatly helps with keeping the show going. The alternative is either becoming publicly owned (i.e. paid with your taxes whether you want it or not) or to fail miserably and have all your technology and talent scattered.
  - butterandguns 1y ago
    Unfortunate phrasing about inability to stand on its own two legs or it dies here.
- DoesntMatter22 1y ago
  To me that's the greatest part. Probably everyone working on this is interested in the humanitarian angle, and they know this can benefit potentially millions. But ROI is partly what's required to make it sustainable long term. And that's a great thing to me. It motivates business people to put money into it.
- SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - bluefirebrand 1y ago
maxlin 1y ago
Companies like this going under is a horror story for the patients I've seen playing out a few times. But I honestly can't see something as public and well-funded having the same fate. "Elon Musk losing interest" isn't really something I see likely as he doesn't function in the money-oriented ways pretty much almost all other billionaire-types do. He loves the tech and the ideals, and Neuralink is past the point of ever being potentially a dud
- ValentinPearce 1y ago
  > he doesn't function in the money-oriented ways pretty much almost all other billionaire-types do I'm pretty sure he does, his actions in government and his lobbying were specifically so he made more money. He does love the tech, though I'm not as optimistic about his love of the ideals (but that might be the socialist in me talking). I'm am wary about how brain implants could be abused further down the line, but for now it's not the main thing I'm looking at with Neuralink. It seems to be a positive change for the patient, and if costs can be reduced to make it affordable to the masses, it can be a great thing.a
  - maxlin 1y ago
    Recent things with the government could sell an image of political games. But then again, he has laid out a quite high effort reasoning behind his candidate's support outside any business relation, and has kept consistency on those beliefs. Don't see any real comparison to acting like this; Jensen & Co sure as hell would rather be strategically ambiguous or a weather vane than state controversial beliefs on podcasts "just for political games". Also, no people of the class we're alluding to would found SpaceX knowing its very likely going to fail and will be an absolute waste of money and potentially risk their whole luxurious welfare. Or do that twice, with Tesla having teetered as badly too. With him sleeping on the couches in the plants. And not just during crises, as he seemingly visits his operations every week if you see how much he makes good use of his jet. He's an alien compared to the lot.
- LunaSea 1y ago
  > isn't really something I see likely as he doesn't function in the money-oriented ways pretty much almost all other billionaire-types do Is that why he sued to obtain his $29B package from Tesla shareholders?
positron26 1y ago
Probably a decent reason that all such augmentations need to be built on open technologies. If no provider can guarantee future support, only open strategies are even viable for users.
- lynx97 1y ago
  Open Source Accessibility isn't sustainable right now. How on earth do you imagine open medical hardware to ever reach a level where it is generally useful to people with disabilities? In general, I find the negativity in this whole thread very sad. If I were in the situation were I was looking forward for technology like this, and I'd read the comments here, they would make me very sad. Because in essence, I would learn that politics is more important to some SV people than actual progress. Frankly, if Elon ended up creating a technology that helps people, I wouldn't care about his politics at all. I'd be damn grateful for someone investing in something that ended up helping me. But obviously, politics trumps empathy here, which is very very sad. I am still a magnitude off regarding 100k for assistive technologies, but sufficiently large braille displays cost 10k$ to 15k$ in Europe. That is a plain display of 80!!! characters in a single line. No 1080p, mind you. This has been the case since I am alive. The costs are mostly driven by redistriibutors, who usually add around 70% when importing from the US. Do I feel exploited? No, I am glad the technology exists. And frankly, if you have any empathy left, you should as well.
  - positron26 1y ago
    By commercializing open source technology development so that the paying non-programmer and the ecosystem dependent SME's and Fortune 500's can meaningfully drive development of what they need. You can see my gloriously broken prototype at PrizeForge. Currently between iterations and still not quite viable enough to properly operate.
    - lynx97 1y ago
      Well, Sun Accessibility Office already did great work from roughly 2003 to 2008. Then came 2008. And Sun AND IBM terminated their Accessibility work. From then on, Orca was basically kept alive by a single developer for roughly a decade. I am not 100% sure if she has given up by now, but I'd be surprised if she didn'.t So, giving this job to Fortune500 companies is demonstratably not sustainable. A single higher up can terminate such projects with the wink of an eye. I was more hopeful 20 years ago. Then I watched how all the good work on GNOME2 was basically trashed because of DBus transition, GTK3, and now Wayland. Fact is, hoping for the corporate world to do the work is no guarantee they will continue. And for "scratch your own itch"-philosophy to work, there are not enough disabled OSS devs. Maybe after WWIII there will be a surge in Open Source Accessibility.
wolvesechoes 1y ago
> If Neuralink proceeds to a scenario where quadriplegic patients can get reliable (ie lifelong) control of their computers for less than $100k that will be a huge win for them for a cost that no one else was willing to pay. Until subscription price is increased.
nzrf 1y ago
That’s last point reminds me of the Second Sight situation where they abonan their tech. Previously discussed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30349871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30349871
torium 1y ago
[flagged]
thinkingtoilet 1y ago
After nearly two decades of flat out lying about Tesla's capabilities and then the last year of insane lies, I literally don't believe anything that comes out of any of his companies. Perhaps you do.
- MrResearcher 1y ago
  It's not really a lie, it's so-called "make-belief", which entrepreneurs exude in order to justify their own time and money investment, as well as spreading it to the army of employees. This sort of delusion is necessary for the inaugural period of concept development, until you prove whether the concept is viable or not. Some people call it vision. It is an entirely fictional concept, of course. Sometimes you stumble onto something working that gets traction. Then this lie turns into reality, and the entrepreneur is raised to the rank of prophets. In other words, he doesn't do it out of malice. These are the rules of the game.
  - 542354234235 1y ago
    I have to disagree. The differnce in in degree. salemanship and fraud are two different things. Painting a rosy picture of something is difference than lying about specific capabilities. Giving your production capacity using the most ambitious numbers is different than saying you can produce numbers you factually can't in any scenario. Having a future roadmap that is a goal and may not be achieved is different than promising a capability in the near future, as if it is almost ready, when there is no capability coming is lying. That's like saying a Ponzi scheme is just another investment.
latexr 1y ago
> Worst case scenario is that Elon loses interest and pulls the plug and Mr Arbaugh loses continued tech support a la a google product. That’s not even close to the worst case scenario. There are many worse outcomes than the product becoming inoperative, such as it malfunctioning in a way that significantly worsens the person’s quality of life, or its creator deliberately holding functionality hostage. Musk is known for being incredibly petty and thin skinned, I wonder how he’d react to Neuralink users doing or saying things he doesn‘t agree with. I am genuinely glad this participant and presumably others have a new chance at quality of life, but it would be better if the one in control of the technology weren’t a private individual with such a history, and that the process to reach this milestone had been handled more responsibly and respectfully. https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-pcrm-neuralink-monkey-deaths/ https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-pcrm-neuralink-monkey-...
Cthulhu_ 1y ago
From a capitalist point of view, Neuralink will only become profitable and valuable if they go full sci-fi and offer a brain/computer interface that anyone can use, AND that there's systems and applications that use it, AND that it becomes popular and "better" than e.g. smartphones. But that last one is the kicker. AR never became mainstream. Unless a brain interface is faster and more intuitive than e.g. a physical keyboard, it will never become mainstream either.
- kaliqt 1y ago
  AR will become mainstream with time. It's a question of UX which has very heavy investment behind it.
  - freedomben 1y ago
    Exactly. AR is still extremely early days, limited by hardware and software. I have no doubt that it has a future, there are just some impediments that have yet to be remedied (but I have no doubt that they will)
xyst 1y ago
> The reality is that it’s very hard to see a normal VC level return on the $100M+ Nobody gives a shit about the iNvEsToR rEtUrN on iNveStMeNt. This is a humanitarian project which should be owned by the people, not a select few billionaires or investors to license out and dangle yet another expense, subscription, or ad model.
- freedomben 1y ago
  Why aren't any humanitarian organizations doing it currently?
  - AngryData 1y ago
    Maybe because so much of our capital is tied up in the hands of a handful of billionaires.
- DoesntMatter22 1y ago
  Nothing is stopping them from doing it. You sound mad that he's actually out there making it happen because some theoretical humanitarian project should. Why not be happy he's actually out there solving this for people and the fact that real people are materially benefitting?
- CrimsonRain 1y ago
  WHo iS SToPPiNg YoU? Typical communist attitude.

chakintosh 1y ago

The endgame for Neuralink here, and most other competitors in the field is to use these transplants on healthy people as well to "enhance" human function.

hnthrowawayacct 1y ago

One of the biggest unsolved issues with BCI and neural implants is the immune response to implanted electrodes. The tissue buildup and fluid that encapsulates the probe or stimulator drastically increases the impedance of the device and causes all sorts of hard to solve problems for longevity of the implant and whatever therapy or recording it's trying to accomplish.

torginus 1y ago

VCs don't actually like risk, and can't distinguish snake-oil from groundbreaking inventions - more news at 11

g42gregory 1y ago

Don’t forget, we are currently running “Elon is bad” narrative. Apparently, many people listen.

multjoy 1y ago
Did you somehow sleep through the whole doge debacle?
Xss3 1y ago
He objectively is a bad person and a notorious liar.

rc5150 1y ago

The unfortunate part is that your first thought went to return on investment rather than the humanitarian angle, which I think is the common perspective; optics and money. Then there's the pessimists, like me, wondering how long it'll take to Neuralink to turn their army of computer connected paraplegics into some Mechanical Turk-esque Grok clean up.

wordofx 1y ago
Things are only created or expanded if there is a return. Its that simple.
Almondsetat 1y ago
If something cannot stand on its own two legs, then it can be the most awesome stuff in the world but it will die nonetheless. Being self-sustainable (i.e. profitable) greatly helps with keeping the show going. The alternative is either becoming publicly owned (i.e. paid with your taxes whether you want it or not) or to fail miserably and have all your technology and talent scattered.
- butterandguns 1y ago
  Unfortunate phrasing about inability to stand on its own two legs or it dies here.
DoesntMatter22 1y ago
To me that's the greatest part. Probably everyone working on this is interested in the humanitarian angle, and they know this can benefit potentially millions. But ROI is partly what's required to make it sustainable long term. And that's a great thing to me. It motivates business people to put money into it.
SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
[flagged]
- bluefirebrand 1y ago

maxlin 1y ago

Companies like this going under is a horror story for the patients I've seen playing out a few times. But I honestly can't see something as public and well-funded having the same fate. "Elon Musk losing interest" isn't really something I see likely as he doesn't function in the money-oriented ways pretty much almost all other billionaire-types do. He loves the tech and the ideals, and Neuralink is past the point of ever being potentially a dud

ValentinPearce 1y ago
> he doesn't function in the money-oriented ways pretty much almost all other billionaire-types do I'm pretty sure he does, his actions in government and his lobbying were specifically so he made more money. He does love the tech, though I'm not as optimistic about his love of the ideals (but that might be the socialist in me talking). I'm am wary about how brain implants could be abused further down the line, but for now it's not the main thing I'm looking at with Neuralink. It seems to be a positive change for the patient, and if costs can be reduced to make it affordable to the masses, it can be a great thing.a
- maxlin 1y ago
  Recent things with the government could sell an image of political games. But then again, he has laid out a quite high effort reasoning behind his candidate's support outside any business relation, and has kept consistency on those beliefs. Don't see any real comparison to acting like this; Jensen & Co sure as hell would rather be strategically ambiguous or a weather vane than state controversial beliefs on podcasts "just for political games". Also, no people of the class we're alluding to would found SpaceX knowing its very likely going to fail and will be an absolute waste of money and potentially risk their whole luxurious welfare. Or do that twice, with Tesla having teetered as badly too. With him sleeping on the couches in the plants. And not just during crises, as he seemingly visits his operations every week if you see how much he makes good use of his jet. He's an alien compared to the lot.
LunaSea 1y ago
> isn't really something I see likely as he doesn't function in the money-oriented ways pretty much almost all other billionaire-types do Is that why he sued to obtain his $29B package from Tesla shareholders?

positron26 1y ago

Probably a decent reason that all such augmentations need to be built on open technologies. If no provider can guarantee future support, only open strategies are even viable for users.

lynx97 1y ago
Open Source Accessibility isn't sustainable right now. How on earth do you imagine open medical hardware to ever reach a level where it is generally useful to people with disabilities? In general, I find the negativity in this whole thread very sad. If I were in the situation were I was looking forward for technology like this, and I'd read the comments here, they would make me very sad. Because in essence, I would learn that politics is more important to some SV people than actual progress. Frankly, if Elon ended up creating a technology that helps people, I wouldn't care about his politics at all. I'd be damn grateful for someone investing in something that ended up helping me. But obviously, politics trumps empathy here, which is very very sad. I am still a magnitude off regarding 100k for assistive technologies, but sufficiently large braille displays cost 10k$ to 15k$ in Europe. That is a plain display of 80!!! characters in a single line. No 1080p, mind you. This has been the case since I am alive. The costs are mostly driven by redistriibutors, who usually add around 70% when importing from the US. Do I feel exploited? No, I am glad the technology exists. And frankly, if you have any empathy left, you should as well.
- positron26 1y ago
  By commercializing open source technology development so that the paying non-programmer and the ecosystem dependent SME's and Fortune 500's can meaningfully drive development of what they need. You can see my gloriously broken prototype at PrizeForge. Currently between iterations and still not quite viable enough to properly operate.
  - lynx97 1y ago
    Well, Sun Accessibility Office already did great work from roughly 2003 to 2008. Then came 2008. And Sun AND IBM terminated their Accessibility work. From then on, Orca was basically kept alive by a single developer for roughly a decade. I am not 100% sure if she has given up by now, but I'd be surprised if she didn'.t So, giving this job to Fortune500 companies is demonstratably not sustainable. A single higher up can terminate such projects with the wink of an eye. I was more hopeful 20 years ago. Then I watched how all the good work on GNOME2 was basically trashed because of DBus transition, GTK3, and now Wayland. Fact is, hoping for the corporate world to do the work is no guarantee they will continue. And for "scratch your own itch"-philosophy to work, there are not enough disabled OSS devs. Maybe after WWIII there will be a surge in Open Source Accessibility.

wolvesechoes 1y ago

> If Neuralink proceeds to a scenario where quadriplegic patients can get reliable (ie lifelong) control of their computers for less than $100k that will be a huge win for them for a cost that no one else was willing to pay. Until subscription price is increased.

nzrf 1y ago

That’s last point reminds me of the Second Sight situation where they abonan their tech. Previously discussed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30349871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30349871

torium 1y ago

[flagged]

thinkingtoilet 1y ago

After nearly two decades of flat out lying about Tesla's capabilities and then the last year of insane lies, I literally don't believe anything that comes out of any of his companies. Perhaps you do.

MrResearcher 1y ago
It's not really a lie, it's so-called "make-belief", which entrepreneurs exude in order to justify their own time and money investment, as well as spreading it to the army of employees. This sort of delusion is necessary for the inaugural period of concept development, until you prove whether the concept is viable or not. Some people call it vision. It is an entirely fictional concept, of course. Sometimes you stumble onto something working that gets traction. Then this lie turns into reality, and the entrepreneur is raised to the rank of prophets. In other words, he doesn't do it out of malice. These are the rules of the game.
- 542354234235 1y ago
  I have to disagree. The differnce in in degree. salemanship and fraud are two different things. Painting a rosy picture of something is difference than lying about specific capabilities. Giving your production capacity using the most ambitious numbers is different than saying you can produce numbers you factually can't in any scenario. Having a future roadmap that is a goal and may not be achieved is different than promising a capability in the near future, as if it is almost ready, when there is no capability coming is lying. That's like saying a Ponzi scheme is just another investment.

latexr 1y ago

> Worst case scenario is that Elon loses interest and pulls the plug and Mr Arbaugh loses continued tech support a la a google product. That’s not even close to the worst case scenario. There are many worse outcomes than the product becoming inoperative, such as it malfunctioning in a way that significantly worsens the person’s quality of life, or its creator deliberately holding functionality hostage. Musk is known for being incredibly petty and thin skinned, I wonder how he’d react to Neuralink users doing or saying things he doesn‘t agree with. I am genuinely glad this participant and presumably others have a new chance at quality of life, but it would be better if the one in control of the technology weren’t a private individual with such a history, and that the process to reach this milestone had been handled more responsibly and respectfully. https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-pcrm-neuralink-monkey-deaths/ https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-pcrm-neuralink-monkey-...

Cthulhu_ 1y ago

From a capitalist point of view, Neuralink will only become profitable and valuable if they go full sci-fi and offer a brain/computer interface that anyone can use, AND that there's systems and applications that use it, AND that it becomes popular and "better" than e.g. smartphones. But that last one is the kicker. AR never became mainstream. Unless a brain interface is faster and more intuitive than e.g. a physical keyboard, it will never become mainstream either.

kaliqt 1y ago
AR will become mainstream with time. It's a question of UX which has very heavy investment behind it.
- freedomben 1y ago
  Exactly. AR is still extremely early days, limited by hardware and software. I have no doubt that it has a future, there are just some impediments that have yet to be remedied (but I have no doubt that they will)

xyst 1y ago

> The reality is that it’s very hard to see a normal VC level return on the $100M+ Nobody gives a shit about the iNvEsToR rEtUrN on iNveStMeNt. This is a humanitarian project which should be owned by the people, not a select few billionaires or investors to license out and dangle yet another expense, subscription, or ad model.

freedomben 1y ago
Why aren't any humanitarian organizations doing it currently?
- AngryData 1y ago
  Maybe because so much of our capital is tied up in the hands of a handful of billionaires.
DoesntMatter22 1y ago
Nothing is stopping them from doing it. You sound mad that he's actually out there making it happen because some theoretical humanitarian project should. Why not be happy he's actually out there solving this for people and the fact that real people are materially benefitting?
CrimsonRain 1y ago
WHo iS SToPPiNg YoU? Typical communist attitude.