This is rather old news, predating Neuralink entirely even. There used to be an unlisted YouTube video by Gray(Grey?) Newell that showed off what they were working on back a few years ago, too.
Yeah. I’ve been out of the loop apparently, because today was the first that I heard of it.
Haha glad that I brought it up on your radar! I like this one cause it seems much more medically oriented, vs. Neurolink existing “just because it can”.
Which normally, I don’t really have an issue with. I think it’s great to do things just because we can (within reason ofc!), but I am definitely more skeptical of the fraud-Hyperloop flamethrower space-car man.
Yeah. Gaben has a strong track record of bringing technology to the market that works, from a company that wasn’t already around and doing things better overall before he got involved with it.
spoiler
sdfsaf
Neuralink has a technology that specifically addresses two of the main issues with BCI: data density, and implant effective duration.
There are more issues, but it addresses those two in particular, which is something quite interesting to see, and can be turned into patents that can be sold to other BCI initiatives.
The rest of Musk is… well, he’s kind of an “unstable genius”, with enough money to blow on random moonshots, marketing stunts, and random publicity. Honestly, if I had his money, I’d probably do the same: build a few core businesses, then go on tangents to see what sticks to the wall. It can all still be seen under the general theme of “colonizing Mars” though, which is a guiding starshot as good as any, with Hyperloop and Boring company having kind of exhausted what can be done on Earth, Tesla being a borderline failure, SpaceX, StarLink, or indoor farming working pretty well, and X being an experiment at social manipulation.
Taking his ethics and actions out of the equation for a second – I would have no issues with his businesses weren’t scamming states out of legitimate transportation and fucking with people just because he could.
While dangerous, I’m not really against the idea of selling flamethrowers, kind of. It is kind of the American right, which may be dumb, but fuck if I have anything to say about it. And while it produces a lot of space junk, I’m not against Starlink or SpaceX. especially the former since it does do a lot of good. Coverage in the middle of the U.S. is not good, and anything more is good.
Ultimately what it comes down to is the fact that the more money tends to side on less regulation, and reintroducing ethics and actions into the mix he is abusing that. The flamethrower ploy could have been snark against the United States for not having regulation on that (if it were something that were actually important, that may have mattered…), and similarly the Hyperloop scheme could have been some form of commentary on how easy it is for a billionaire to manipulate voters with obvious pipe-dreams, then gone ahead with the high speed train plan.
Instead, he gets butthurt and lashes out. I know we’re on the same page, if anything I’m disappointed specifically because he is in a position to be doing a lot of good, has convinced some people that he is.
Neurolink existing “just because it can”.
“Aperture Science, we do what we must because we can”
You guys seeing this shit?
Joke aside, iirc Neurolink already been used on disabled people, allowing them to use a computer easily. Whether it will have any use case on healthy people it’s still not clear so far.
Neurolink has been used on 1 disabled person, and it was “working” for about 2 weeks before it was announced there are “problems” with the connection to the brain.
Oh, and it has killed a bunch of monkeys.
I dislike the thought of ol musky rushing neurolink or even being remotely involved with something put into someone’s brain, the also claimed they doubled the bandwidth of the connections via software optimizations so the disconnected wires doesn’t have a large impact. Also from the comments of other Lemmy users from that article, my understanding was that it is a common problem for some of the wires used to probe the brain for input to pop out after surgeries where they implant a processing chip into a person’s brain.
Half-Life 3 is gonna be full dive VR.
Which implies that the brain-computer interface will never be viable as a product
You’ll have to install it onto your soul, once again revolutionising the video game industry - and the world at large.
Gosh darn it, Newell. It’s too much winning. So much good faith. Leave some for the rest of us! Look at Elon! He’s dying over there!
shudders thinking about SAO
Welcome to city 17, Kirito
Imagine you damage the brain cells to quit the game. Instant isekai irl.
First news I hear since hearing about Gabe working on BCIs and it’s just… An announcement of something that was already known. 😮💨
Man, the way that headline begins, I thought he had died.
On a macabre, but related, note: how long after Gabe’s death before Steam goes public and turns to shit? I’d give it 6 months.
Just so we’re clear here, it’s the game marketplace called Steam. Not just, you know, steam.
Before Gaben, there was only vapour. He invented, nay, created steam.
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As one eagle-eyed user on the site formerly known as Twitter pointed out earlier in the week, the website for Newell’s Neuralink competitor, Starfish Neuroscience, has been updated to reflect its forthcoming wares.
Newell, who is president and cofounder of Steam’s parent company Valve, has also promoted the tech’s other, far more sci-fi-esque use cases — including, as he told a New Zealand news station back in 2021, the ability to edit one’s feelings.
At the time, Gaben was working on developing a BCI headset, though it seems now that Starfish is, like its Elon Musk-founded competitor, interested in “minimally-invasive” brain implants.
Besides bringing his BCI endeavor out of stealth, the famously reclusive billionaire has also been embroiled in an antitrust lawsuit alleging that Steam is essentially running a monopoly on PC gaming and charging exorbitant fees in the process.
He also, as the yachting blog Luxury Launches reported in February, sold his 220-foot megayacht, which he’d converted into a mobile hospital during the beginning of the pandemic.
It’s clearly been an interesting few months for Gaben — though given that lawyers are collecting sign-ons for the class-action lawsuit against Steam, he may need some help raising money for Starfish once the settlements start being paid out.
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