This afternoon Elon Musk and a team from Neuralink provided an update on their work on advanced brain computer interfaces. Some quick takeaways from me on the event.
You forgot to include any update on recent work that's achieved a successful outcome, rather than a series of speculations about what might be achieved in the future.
There is no "new stuff". It's PR puff, verging on science fiction. The actual achievements to date are minor, incremental and purely technical, not in any way medical breakthroughs. Patient outcomes and safety are what initially counts with medical devices coming to market. Then you need to break into a commercial environment stacked with big incumbents. Just look at the respective hype, fate and ongoing struggles of recent healthcare entrants like Theranos, Babylon and Butterfly. Neuralink isn't currently backing up its futuristic claims with trial data, or even a visible prototype pipeline. Sticking needles into people's brains to provide benefit without causing harm isn't like launching a device which can be triggered to destruct, be dumped in an ocean, destroy infrastructure or harm other people. There well may be a transhuman convergence agenda, but futuristic visioneering is a very easy game to play and promote compared to achieving a series of viable long-term products. Let's first try and live on the Moon fifty years after being promised we would, or have a car drive us around a decade after being sold the non-reality, or generate plentiful fusion-based energy, before indulging in another round of corporate sponsored make-believe.
You forgot to include any update on recent work that's achieved a successful outcome, rather than a series of speculations about what might be achieved in the future.
Not forgot -- just focused on the new stuff as the achievements have been widely covered :)
There is no "new stuff". It's PR puff, verging on science fiction. The actual achievements to date are minor, incremental and purely technical, not in any way medical breakthroughs. Patient outcomes and safety are what initially counts with medical devices coming to market. Then you need to break into a commercial environment stacked with big incumbents. Just look at the respective hype, fate and ongoing struggles of recent healthcare entrants like Theranos, Babylon and Butterfly. Neuralink isn't currently backing up its futuristic claims with trial data, or even a visible prototype pipeline. Sticking needles into people's brains to provide benefit without causing harm isn't like launching a device which can be triggered to destruct, be dumped in an ocean, destroy infrastructure or harm other people. There well may be a transhuman convergence agenda, but futuristic visioneering is a very easy game to play and promote compared to achieving a series of viable long-term products. Let's first try and live on the Moon fifty years after being promised we would, or have a car drive us around a decade after being sold the non-reality, or generate plentiful fusion-based energy, before indulging in another round of corporate sponsored make-believe.
I agree with this so hard. Elon is famous for bluster; there’s zero reason to believe anything from any of his companies that’s speculative.
Great insights and recap!