this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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Privacy

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[–] [email protected] 213 points 1 year ago (11 children)
[–] [email protected] 103 points 1 year ago

This was the original cyberpunk-transhumanist message. Not "cybernetics will destroy your soul" but "corporations own your body, or worse parts of your body"

[–] [email protected] 71 points 1 year ago

That's a new hell-on-eath I wasn't aware of. Yikes.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago (3 children)

A good argument for open source

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (6 children)
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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Terrifying. No government bailout for improving people's life quality...

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[–] [email protected] 131 points 1 year ago (13 children)

imagine physically embedding the fucking musk into your brain, VOLUNTARILY. i can't imagine anything worse in the world

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (6 children)

People are still driving Teslas right now. Pretty much the same in my book. You're trusting your life to a proven moron.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Elongated Muskrat has very little to do with the inner works of the company now. Even in the heights of his involvement, by his own account, his input was tangential at best, like "we make expensive car now, use this money to make cheaper car" and "we call it x because x is the best name ever"

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[–] [email protected] 113 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Musk is doing more to make people realize how garbage capitalism is than Marx ever could.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I want to thank Facebook for making it blatantly obvious to us that we should never get any brain implants. They'll definitely use them to read your thoughts and push ads straight into your consciousness. Oh, and you'll probably have to pay a subscription.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Your tinnitus will get progressively louder until you pay your bill

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago

Hello Satan. I didn't realize you use Lemmy.

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I’m not putting anything in me that’s not foss. I worry for the tech illiterate though when they eventually adopt this idea.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

I agree, I love the idea of a brain chip, but not if someone can change licensing terms on something that's INSTALLED in me.

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago

There'e not enough knowledge and connectivity in the entire internet that could convince me to ever put a connection directly to my mind online.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (18 children)

Neuralink is an excellent advancement for brain science and it is greatly going to help disabled people and those with little function left over their bodies. It's okay to celebrate this technology while also hating musk.

Like SpaceX, they've both been excellent ventures that he so far hasn't ruined (probably thanks to the people he delegates to). Just because it's fashionable to hate him for how he's absolutely fucked over Twitter (which i'll remind everyone we've always hated and agreed is bad, use Mastodon instead) doesn't mean his other companies largely spearheaded by others, and their results, are also bad.

That's not even to mention that the kind of dystopian technology people are imagining isn't anywhere close to what the Neuralink device is actually capable of. What everyones fearmongering over is still just science fiction. It's just barely able to interpret brain signals, it's not as powerful as everyone makes it out to be.

2nd edit: forgot what instance I'm on, this comment probably ain't going to do well lol

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The big issue I have with brain chips is longevity. How long until the electrodes degrade? When will the chips fail? Once they fail, will it be fail safe or fail deadly? Also, what will be the power source? Will it use inductive power, or battery power? They are both awful options. What if the chip overheats? The implementation is the real question here, but neuralink refuse to give any answers because it proprietary.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

That's not even to mention that the kind of dystopian technology people are imagining isn't anywhere close to what the Neuralink device is actually capable of.

Yet. They'll get to work on that just as soon as they can, don't you worry!

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I'm sure these implants will give much needed ease to patients who suffer frem tremors like parkinson and other neurological diseases. But the things I'm mostly concerned about are:

  • Will health insurance pay for the implant in a one-time-payment? Will it be a subscription model? What happens when you can't pay your subscription? Will it be shut off?
  • Will the implant be operated through firmware (like a pacemaker) or software, which reqires frequent updates? If so, will there be - like computer software - "new features" implemented ("With version 2.0 you will be able to share your Neuralink experience with other Neuralink users. Your data may not be leaked, pinky promise."
  • What if a certain mentally unstable CEO throws a tantrum that will affect the performance of the Neuralink implant negatively? Will there be any legal protection from such thing?
[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The thought that frightens me even more (although I am not a neurologist) is that if this is installed in children, and the neural pathways for the child's basic functions are formed to pass through that implant, removing the implant will render the child unable to think.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oh god, new horrors just dropped

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I accidentally uninstalled the visual cortex drivers and now I can't use my eyes to reinstall, any help is appreciated

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago

Drink verification can to continue.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago

Fox Viewers: 'Don't get vaccinated because there are brain controlling microchips hidden in the jab.' Also Fox Viewers: 'I can't wait to get one of Elon's brain chips to own the libs!'

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (3 children)

A long time ago I read some cyberpunk novel, and one of the characters had an ocular implant that got infected with malware that flashed spam ads for Indian brothels in his vision 24/7, even with his eyes closed, until he went completely postal.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Wow, who did Elon have to fuck to get FDA approval for a brain chip that's killed numerous test subjects.

Edit: Just a friendly reminder that ublock, sponsorblock, newpipe x sponsorblock, libretube, youtube piped exist

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (5 children)

There comes the time you have to root your own brain and install CyanogenMod 23.0 "BrainIac" on it, maybe "TorView" and "OpenMath" too. I recommend "FreeTaste 2.0" as an addon.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On one hand I'm excited for what the tech can do for medical purposes and future applications... On the other hand I'm terrified on what governments and corporations have in mind for it, cause I guarantee it will not be good

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Looking forward to the eventual open source/Linux version of this lol.

My brain runs Arch BTW

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You mean the FDA approved of lobotomizing a select few of desperate people to satiate the narcissistic impulses of its founder. Anyone else wanna take a ride in this plastic submarine???

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago

Uh, it's a "submersible" and it's not plastic, it's throwaway expired carbon fiber from Boeing...

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (7 children)

As someone who suffers daily from a traumatic brain injury 5 years ago that's caused me to become physically disabled and cognitively declined, I'm super excited about this.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I think of this as being straight up horrifying. This isn't exciting, this is going to be dystopian nightmare fuel. It's not hard to imagine this being imbedded into human beings against their will too, like prisoners in the US.

I would rather be a Borg, at least they were motivated by a collective good will to move to perfection, not puppets of a dying capitalist state and it's related ideology.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60416058 related. It's going to be a subscription service and Musk is going to have his fanboys hooked in for the short life of the company.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can't wait to sell my excess brain power to crypto miners

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

Even if Muskrat weren’t involved, this still has a hell no from me. You leave me and the voices alone.

Although Star Wars cybernetic hands would be dope.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah nothing is even going close to my brain unless the hardware itself is open source

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Just wait until it's not technically mandatory, but you can't do your taxes, find a job or participate in society without beaming ads straight to your brain.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

Brain-computer/machine interfaces are really interesting when treating conditions like paralysis or Parkinson's disease, and to a certain extent severe psychiatric conditions if you count deep brain stimulation for e.g. severe OCD. I don't think we'll be anywhere near sending detailed multisensory content like ads into people's brains for a long time though. That's so far outside the scope of what brain stimulation can do right now, it's really just scifi.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Remember that episode in Futurama where they got personalized ads fed to their brains while they slept?..... 😔

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

LastWeekTonight made an interesting episode about medical devices and how they are cleared or approved. The OP's post is about approval for human trials, but I think Neuralink getting approved for the market by FDA and then ruining many lives anyway is a real possibility.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

Pretty soon you'll be required to get one of these as a condition of employment. Just watch.

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