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Are the risks associated with invasiveness fixed (eg, there will always be at least a 1/15000 chance that a patient dies within the first year of receiving a neural implant), or can they be reduced with better technology and more understanding of the brain?

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At the moment, there will always be damage.

There’s also risks associated with the surgery (that’ll be much higher than 1/15,000; you’re probably talking at least 1/1000 just for risk of initial surgery).

Further, no implants last forever. They develop scar tissue around the implant. So you’ll have multiple surgeries if you survive years.

Technology can mitigate much of that risk, but we are pretty far away from removing risk. We also will need multiple major independent breakthroughs.

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