Mr. Musk’s neuro consultation hour

by time news

2024-05-09 08:46:32

Now what the social media has to offer is being copied again, it is the spoken word of Elon Musk’s PR specialists in his brain implant company Neuralink. On the company’s blog page, on which Neuralink now provides updates of the “Prime Study”, the most recent entry from May 8th contains an “experience report” from the Neuralink experts and that of the first patient, one hundred days after the operation Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona.

Peppered with some euphoric quotes from the completely paralyzed patient Noland Arbaugh, who is happy that he can do things again “that I haven’t been able to do in the last eight years”, the progress after the implantation of the Neuralink brain chip is reported : that he can now play chess, Mario Kart and the computer game Civilization IV with his friends while lying in bed and using only mind control; that he can even beat his friends in games that require great skill in using a joystick, like Mario Kart.

A world record for brain control?

The “connection” through the Neuralink enables fine control of the cursor movement by evaluating the brain waves, the Neuralink blog authors comment, which makes it possible to operate the smallest symbols and buttons. Arbaugh has set a world record for the standard measure for measuring the speed and accuracy of cursor control – bits per second (BPS): no patient equipped with a human-machine interface has ever been able to operate at 4.6 BPS. He then went as high as 8 BPS, and currently Arbaugh is trying to get around 10 BPS.

But what can also be seen on the graphic shown in the daily log: There were a few days on which the patient acted weaker or nothing worked. The last paragraph of the experience report states: “In the first few weeks after the operation, some electrodes in the brain became loose,” as a result of which the accuracy of the transmission and the “effectiveness” suffered – temporarily. The solution: The algorithm that evaluates the brain signals from the hundreds and hundreds of finest electrodes has been adapted. And just like that, the initial problems were solved: “This adjustment resulted in a rapid and lasting improvement in BPD,” one that even increased the performance of the brain chip.

If this rough and incomplete description of the neurotechnical process is actually an attempt to publicize the genius of the Neuralink brain chip operators, then the PR maneuver has apparently succeeded once again. The experiment has had a lasting impact on the public. The fascinated audience is presented with a narrative that is neither verifiable nor independently evaluated. In any case, there have been no corresponding announcements from Neuralink to date. As in the Faustian world of legends, the company operates in a Wagnerian experimental chamber more or less undisturbed and untested in order to create something that eclipses everything humanly possible up to that point. Openness is feigned and scientific standards are pushed into the background.

What is really possible and true in neurotechnology cannot be determined with the persistently non-transparent scientific understanding of Musk’s brain chip company.

So why not just wait until verifiable reports and logs are available? And thus maintain a cloak of silence about it, as with all other demanding – potentially disruptive – experimental projects that only really bring something to the interested audience if the progress is empirically comprehensible and repeatable.

#Musks #neuro #consultation #hour

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