Neuralink wants 3 more quadriplegic patients for its brain control interface trial Elon Musk's Neuralink is recruiting another three subjects for its brain implant study. The first patient received their implant in January. Neuralink was quick to show off evidence of the technology's effectiveness in March – at least in terms of the subject being able to play some games – before admitting this month that …
The biggest question any patient in these trials should have is: What happens after 72 months (or even sooner) if Neuralink either no longer exists or moves on to newer prototypes. How long will they actually support the devices they implant? Or will participants end up with a dead, unsupported device in their body that the manufacturer no longer wants to support or where the manufacturer and records on what exactly is implanted and how to remove it are no longer available?
I have a hard time trusting a company operating in the medical field that seems to hold a "move fast and break things" approach to medical device creation.
I would upvote you multiple times if I could.
That exact thing (company bought out, new owners discontinued all support for the device and canceled all pending upgrades/fixes and laid off most of the employees with little to no notice) happened with an optical implant company, Second Sight. (link is to a 2022 article on the IEEE site about the entire debacle- it's pretty well researched.)
To be fair that's probably true of any company working in this field. They won't "support" their one-off experimental devices forever, if they figure out how to make a stable one that's FDA approved they'll want to remove what you have and implant the new one.
I'm sure that's covered somewhere in the huge number of pages they have to read/sign to be a candidate.
> if they figure out how to make a stable one that's FDA approved they'll want to remove what you have and implant the new one.
There's a possibility that if you've had this kind of device before then it may not be possible to have a new one fitted as the brain was damaged by the first. That's the kind of question I'd ask if I had the misfortune to need one.
No, trusting the twat who fired the whole charging department because he didn't like someone disagreeing with him is by far the biggest risk they're taking. If the man-child decides you've looked at him in a funny way watch out, that implant is coming out a fuck sight faster than it went in.
"If the man-child decides you've looked at him in a funny way watch out, that implant is coming out a fuck sight faster than it went in."
Just as scary is the CEO of the company, Jared Birchall, who many consider as Elon's henchman and overseer of dirty jobs. A shadowy figure with little published on his past and few photos.
> They won't "support" their one-off experimental devices forever
That's fine for a phone, or car, or disk drive, but that's bullshit for a medical device surgically implanted in someone. You need to support that for as long as they need it.
That's known as "taking responsibility for your actions" - remember when people used to do that?
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