Well I was expecting some horror movie stuff with the headline Terrible Things. Monkeys fighting hallucinations or endless screaches of pain for no apparent reason.
This is just boring old paralysis and brain swelling. Poor monkeys.
Oh the monkeys also spoke with a clear and erudite Danish accent over and over “WHAT HAS BEEN DONE CANNOT BE UNDONE AND NOW ALL THAT IS WILL NOT BE”, and it’s said that those who looked upon the have not slept or spoken since. However that is not a vetinary issue.
True. The headline is sensationalist. It’s not unusual to have these types of effects from medical device testing, animals scratching at scars etc. but that doesn’t excuse the outright lying from Musk. These people signing up for the trial are insane.
He's testing it on paralyzed people, so they're probably depressed and desperate. It's kind of like he's trying to help, but it could be seen as sleazy because he knows these people will try anything to fix their situation.
When some stupid high percentage of animal test subjects die from the test, you would think they’d work on the product more before moving forward. Instead they’re like “welp caused paralysis and death in the majority of our animal test patients, this is totally ready for human tests!”
I’m not saying their methods aren’t flawed, just that testing a medical device on the targeted users is not at all unethical and is a requirement for approval.
So to phrase this appropriately: you could say the apartheid blood emerald trust fund baby is experimenting with dangerous technology on disabled people because he views them as less than human. I don’t think it can be viewed any other way than sleazy. Besides it’s not like people with disabilities are so desperate they don’t care about their quality of life.
Maybe it’s just because I have a deep-seated terror of brain surgery, but this all sounded absolutely terrifying to me.
I also hate, hate, HATE that Musk said that the monkeys were all ill. Not only is this 100% bullshit – this would completely invalidate the data – but it also indicates that like most things, he has a 13 year old’s understanding of life. He thinks that something that is sick has no right to safety, because, like, they’re already on borrowed time or something, right? I’m certain that to him, the stakes of these tests are lower because it’s not like, healthy full people like him who will eventually use these to get cybernetic super powers. These are humans with disabilities. They’re expendable test subjects. They’re lucky to get even a chance at improvement. Plus, serving as guinea pigs gives them a chance to be useful to the great Elon Musk’s ambitious. Absent that they’re just a waste of food to him.
Well yeah, eugenics is back and us disabled folks are terrified.
If my life wasn’t worth living I’d’ve killed myself. I don’t want some loser ass tech bro who can’t even be bothered to raise his children to try to declare himself the authority on whether or not I live/reproduce.
Oh my God! He’s forcing disabled people to undego his experiments?!
Oh wait, what’s that? They’re all volunteers? They’re all willing to go through with it despite all the risks? Oh, and what else is that? The decision to move forward with human trials comes from the experts running the trials and not just Elon himself? Well golly, that sure throws a wrench in my worldview. Guess I’ll just ignore all that in favor of keeping my hate boner directed at a single billionaire.
volunteers on false promises will become victims. let Elon get it first if he really believes in it, just like the ocean gate CEO believed in his submarine.
For context, I work in biotech. I’ve worked with animal subjects and human volunteers, and participated in the internal review process. I’m grateful for the guiderails that protect human subjects, and hope they hold up. Because as your comment points out, humans with disabilities are in a very vulnerable position. If experimentalists lack concern and patient consent is their only protection, human subjects will have no guarantees say all that the procedures are safe. These expert reviewers and regulators you mention are the only reason this article is about monkeys and not first round human subjects.
I’m sorry but, It really feels awful reading this comment, downplaying the horrific pain a torture these monkeys went through just to have some failed technology that did nothing for them… we did not even get good results from the test because a majority of the monkeys died from their complications… that’s is awful… most animals when ethical implications are considered for testing, don’t end up with majority of the subjects dying from terrible, preventable outcomes…
Ok but this isnt exactly some outlier. These kind of results happen pretty regularly with this kind of testing. People are only upset in this instance because it’s magnified by their hatred of Elon.
It’s like if everyone got mad at a factory farm for how it treated cattle, but only because it was owned by someone infamous. It just feels disingenuous. Like, you either knew about the standards for these conditions beforehand and didn’t care, or you’ve had your head in the sand and only just recently learned about it from media focused on a person you hate.
It just reeks of “I just heard about this thing, have done zero research on it, and have formed my opinion entirely from headlines; but I think it’s bad 🥺🥺😢. Plus the person who owns them is a big meanie poopoo head and I hate them.”
Notice how there’s not some big push to ban animal testing from this? It’s just use to point at Elon and go “Bad man, bad!”. Face it, people care WAY more about shitting on him than they do about the monkeys.
I agree here. Hope my comment didn’t downplay the severity of this. It is horrible and the investigation needs to continue. But I stand by saying the headline makes it sound like a Saw movie.
That being said, I hope the whole thing gets shut down at this point. It sounds like vapourware. Like full self driving I’m sure it all just works. Just wait 2 more months and they’ll release it. Yeah. Right.
It’s not sensationalist. Paralysis and brain swelling as a result of neuralink implants are terrible things. The headline is accurate. People have just developed a more theatrical view of the horrors of animal experimentation based on movie depictions, and cases like these feel understated in comparison, despite both being horrible in their own way. The reality isn’t usually as loud and in your face about it as movies, but that doesn’t make it any less terrible.
Idk, brain swelling is painful and suffering from it while paralysed until you die is kind of nightmarish. If anything, hallucinations look more tame than what actually happened.
Yeah the deaths from organ transplants, the risky operations performed as a last ditch effort to save patients who would otherwise die from incurable organ failure, definitely justifies killing 1500 monkeys to allow people to tweet by thinking.
So, what’s the point en neuralink that justifies killing monkeys and now a few humans? It’s that important to bring us a few steps forward into another dystopia?
Short term: giving people with certain disabilities control over their bodies. Things like allowing paralysed people the ability to move, or giving sight to the blind, etc. Long term: changing the way we communicate with computers and each other.
Neuralink is doing important research and their product has the potential to really help disabled people. Musk shouldn’t gloss over what happened to the test animals, he should say the truth which is, doing neuro surgery on anything and preventing complications is extremely difficult. My dad could benefit from this type of product and it’s offensive to hear people accuse Neuralink of taking advantage of disabled people like they are unable to make rational choices. There already are orgs and companies putting similar wired brain implants into human subjects. It is the job of regulators to ensure they are ready to take that step, regardless of what Musk says or does. We should put our Musk hate aside and be happy the science is being advanced and could do some good for people that really need it.
I assume those of you downvoting this comment think I’m a Musk fanboy. I’m not. Or you assume I don’t care about the animals. You’re partially correct. It sucks they died. But, it’s the best way to test this kind of technology before human trials, there are no better substitutes. I’m ok with sacrificing animal lives to save human ones. Downvote away.
Not necessarily a fanboy, but still incredibly naive to think that Elon has an actual plan to help people with these things rather than doing good ol’ Elon stuff which is experimenting with shit he does not understand just because it looks cool and makes him look like the Iron Man of real life. And while doing so, he is also torturing animals. Great!
Here is an interview from Wired with a scientist in this field of study discussing what Neuralink is doing as well as it’s similarities and differences to other brain implants. It might make you a bit less cynical. youtu.be/Gv_XB6Hf6gM?si=DJDw-ljuP8D1Frj8
Sorry man, but when it comes down to Elon Musk getting his filthy, greedy and insanely narcissistic hands on anything, there’s no way I am not going to be cynical about it. For what is worth, Jesuschrist himself could come and sing praises about him and I would still not believe anything good is coming from that man and brain chips.
I think it’s less Musk hate/taking advantage of disabled people and more the abuse and misconduct when it came to these animals, and putting the fear into people that would ever be interested in this procedure that Neuralink would be extremely negligent when it came to installing and maintaining these devices.
Musk has said that these animals were extremely unwell/close to death when they were initially inducted into the study, but multiple anonymous employees have come forward stating that this isn’t true, and Neuralink had extensive evaluation and training to ready them for the process.
Regardless of the state of their health or amount of training, multiple test subjects had bleeding of the brain, infections, and damaged caused by them picking/pulling at the devices installed onto them as a result of the negligence of the ones who conducted these experiments. Is it not common sense to assume an animal who has no idea of what is happening to them to understand that they need to leave the device alone? There should have been measures taken to prevent them from prodding at these devices so as not to cause damage to them and subsequent injury and infection. These animals are living, breathing, conscious beings that have thoughts and fears, and being a part of this experiment would be an absolute nightmare for any living being capable of thought.
As for installing these devices on people who suffer from paralysis, if the people involved in the trials are not challenged mentally and can make the fully conscious decision to give Neuralink their consent, then nobody can argue with that regardless of the possible dangers of doing so. The science and technology of brain computer interfaces is not something to be ignored. It can be extremely valuable and could quite literally change the world, but it has to be done correctly and with extreme caution.
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