Neuralink, Elon Musk's brain-computer biz, unveils pig with computer chip implanted inside brain

The only real breakthrough I’m seeing here is somewhat more bio-compatible materials (and I’m not even sure it’s their breakthrough). We still don’t know how durable it is (i.e. how long you can leave it in place), and they’re still no closer to well, doing any of the things they’re talking about doing with the tech. At this point, it seems like yeah, it could, eventually turn into something significant, or… it could not.

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Trends in shorter hospital stays is consistent across the OECD, and not because of for-profit institutions. For example, eye surgery is now out patient due to assembly line methods. Minimally invasive surgery has also decreased surgical morbidity, leading to shorter stays. But even then the vast majority of thoracic and abdominal surgery is more than a few days. For example, touching the GI tract often shuts down motility. The rule is to wait until a patient farts before releasing them.

Robotic surgery is a different sort of beast. For most surgeries, it’s actually more expensive than other surgery and has higher rates of clinical complications. It does well with prostate, but that is a declining procedure. The reason it’s used is not to save money but to reassure people that they are a cutting edge institution because they use robots.

(Full disclosure: I design surgical instruments, including accessories for robots.)

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Hmm interesting. For the radical nephrectomy I had a month ago I had no argument with the outcome. This was at a public hospital which never advertises for patients. You get the procedure done there or not at all.

The hospital expected to be neck deep in covid patients a few days after my procedure so they may have pushed me through quickly in the hope I would take the earliest possible opportunity to get home, which of course I did, taking bag full of meds.

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I believe they made a movie about that called, “Strange Days”.

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On a similar note, William Gibson has noted that after giving talks/book signings, a fair number of GenXers will come up to him thanking him and his Neuromancer for inspiring them to get a career in tech.

As he said, “They’d read a book in which there didn’t actually seem to be any middle class left and in which no characters had employment. They were all criminal freelancers of one sort or another. So, it was always quite mysterious to me.”

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surgeons have been putting wires inside people’s heads for years

putting entire semiconductor chips in there means they’re now using my brain as a heat sink :face_with_head_bandage:

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Oh my Gawd! The Russians weren’t trying to hack the Tesla Battery Factory; they were trying to hack the Neuralink Pig!

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I get cloning himself, but what’s the chip for?

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Memories…
You’re talking about, memories…

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Can you explain how it would help solve any of mankind’s pressing and relevant challenges. Because otherwise it would be merely a distraction with a massive potential for abuse.

Hmm. I had an aunt who would still be in the hospital bed now, if that were the case. :wink:

Or what happens if you’re in say a car crash with some implant in this very soft tissue.

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I can already save and replay memories in high definition. It’s called having crippling regrets

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I would give that two likes if I could…

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Its just billionaire envy. The Koch’s implanted a chip in a pig a long time ago, and installed it in the White House.

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Kathryn Bigelow had the right idea about this kind of tech, 25 years ago:

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I was one such example, although I had already discovered modems by the time I started reading Gibson. But it certainly allowed me to better understand what the world I would live in would likely end up looking like, and knowing a bit about technology might be quite useful.

Here we are in Gibson’s vision, cartoonish media-savvy villains and manipulative algorithms included, the USA quickly falling apart as a meaningful entity. I’ve made a career in tech, despite much of the middle class collapsing.

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