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Comment by brettv2 | Hacker News Reader

I haven't followed Neuralink too closely since it was announced, so I was not expecting to see what I just saw. I've seen a handful of breakthrough moments in my life - I think this will be remembered as one.

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Why would this be remembered as a breakthrough? Playing games with a BCI is many years old at this point. Here is an article from 2020 talking about playing Sonic the Hedgehog, amongst other games [1]. Here he is fist bumping President Obama in 2016 with a brain controlled robot arm.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/12/16/brain-...

Yeah game/simulator control by neural interface is old news (and has been demonstrated with non-invasive interfaces.)

[2015] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/paralyzed-woman-op...

[2013] With a non-invasive interface: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1741-2560/10/4/04...

[2011] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

[2010] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20876032/

I don't think the device itself is a breakthrough, the issue beforehand was that tissue in the brain tries to heal from the implant, it can be lethal, I don't know what they're doing to have a PERMANENT implant, completely stop that area from "healing" so tht the implant doesn't become a legitimate hazard.

The main issues with previous BCIs were that the electrodes were larger, less flexible, and not as biocompatible. This caused scar tissue to form around the electrodes, degrading the quality of the signals and eventually making the device useless. Neuralink has apparently reduced scar tissue formation enough that the implant receives usable signals for years. Neuralink also uses far more electrodes, improving signal quality and adding redundancy. The number of electrodes necessitates the use of a robot to place them. The robot is programmed to avoid blood vessels, which also reduces bleeding and scarring.

It will be quite a while before we know if they've managed to mitigate the issues enough to last a lifetime (and support upgrades), but it's better than previous devices.

Can you point to a study showing that Neuralink has achieved any of those things you mentioned? What evidence is there that the implants have reduced scar tissue formation and what supports the assertion that they would be usable for years? What other previous devices are you comparing it to that allows you to positively assert that it is better than them?

You can not just reel off every bullet point on the marketing slides without support as if it is the truth.

the only development (and it wasnt invented by neuralink) is flexible and smaller electrodes seem to take longer for scarring to take over than larger and more rigid ones. Right now, it seems that their only path is to help people with severe disabilities get better quality of life for a few years, which many people might take.

I've worked with Deep Brain Stimulation and other cranial implants before. Mostly on the hardware side and the implantation side.

I want to stress that giving a person a few years is a big deal. It's not something to scoff at. Even a few months can really help someone out.

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