Neuralink Eyes Fundraise at $8.5B Valuation
bloomberg.com
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I think that the current systems being tested by Neuralink are (1) a connection to motor cortex allowing quadriplegic/locked-in to type/control a mouse; (2) a connection to visual cortex to provide vision for patients with bilateral complete vision loss.
(1) has been documented fairly well; provides some benefit (let's say 10x) for patients beyond eye trackers / sip-puff interfaces but at a cost that is easily 10000x greater. Unclear whether insurance would cover this. Even if they did, total patient population increase per year is probably ~1000, so asymptotic market is tiny.
(2) has not been documented. Historically, there are lot of challenges with cortical stimulation for vision, and the company's distaste for doing science / acknowledging scientific uncertainty makes me skeptical. Same issues as (1) apply if it does work.
I think that people who worry about black-mirror style issues have been overwhelmed by the hype machine. These things are infinitely worse than natural senses and motor control. They are using bluetooth connections and they have no R&D path to increasing bandwidth to neurons in a way that would grow exponentially.
What is possible in this space is something that has real but marginal benefit to a small number of patients. I had hoped that somehow Musk was motivated to solve the insurance and regulatory challenges towards deploying things to these patients, but I think unfortunately that the more their valuation rises, the greater the likelihood that they will close up shop sooner.
I get that you can do bad things with it, but that goes for anything that requires brain surgery? Why is this inherently undoubtedly bad and evil?
Think of the profit potential of being able to directly influence consumer brains patterns. It's a multi-trillion dollar industry, minimum.
The fear isn't that it's an option; It's creating a world where you can't afford not to. Much like how modern life requires internet participation, the idea of a potential world that requires neural implant participation and the economic incentives described above is viscerally horrific.
It's not even just that I couldn't afford not to. It's that in a way, I couldn't choose not to. Anything anyone says that has Neuralink installed is compromised. Any friendly suggestion to grab lunch at Major Chain Restaurant TM could be an ad. Any anecdote could be political campaigning.
It's not just not having it myself, it's the fact that those around me having it is a problem.
What a terrible position to be in if the technology actually helps disabled folks though. On one hand their quality of life may improve. On the other, there may be a huge (possibly justified) stigma on all implanted people due to what you're writing about.
In the long term (if the do have a long term, I expect them to fail due to technical reasons i.e. fibrosis around electrodes not being a solved problem)
Last I checked they where probably treating their animals the best out any research lab world wide?