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Comment by scientaster2 | Hacker News Reader

> Founded in 2016, Neuralink has devised a sewing machine-like device capable of implanting ultra-thin threads inside the brain.

I know people get elective surgeries all the time (plastics, etc), but I feel hard pressed that this company is going to convince people to open up their skull for some promise of cool technology.

Even if it is successful from a technology perspective, the chicken and egg problem they'll face with developers is an order of magnitude or two higher than with AR/VR headsets. It's already an uphill battle without having to convince people to open up their brain, I just can't see this gaining any adoption unless there's a surgery-lite path outside the skull.

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I think you underestimate what people with disabilities are willing to try to lessen their disabilities. This isn't for making people pretty, it's to (potentially) help people lead mostly normal lives. Similar things that are currently on market are way more invasive than what Neuralink wants to offer, so it would already be a major upgrade, and look mostly normal from the outside.

Unfortunately, that's always the promise. To make the better world. But the money and investment will quickly and increasingly focus elsewhere once the concept is proven.

Will it?

I can think of quite a few initiatives which have taken in countless billions of dollars, cancer research, Alzheimer's, Dementia, Cystic Fibrosis, etc.

Nothing sexy about that at all, just helping people lead normal lives.

Those are all 'good' causes by definition with gradual progress.

Here, the snake oil is in the comments similar to 'Neuralink will help disabled people'. But Neuralink so so wide spectrum that, if it works, it will spawn multiple different industries. And capital will find it's way to the most lucrative applications, as it always does ... and those applications won't be 'helping disable people'.

erm, if their latest "cranioplasty w/ eCoG" thing that's being rumored is real, that's way more invasive than the current deep brain stimulation or utah array systems...

>sewing machine-like device

Unless my brain has a bobbin in it, it probably doesn't work like a modern sewing machine.

You have to pass a loop of wire up your nose.

> Unless my brain has a bobbin in it

This is your brain on dance music

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