Human Dr. Frankenstein Syndrome Chapter "A Million"
 

Look at this: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/30/12278...clinical-trial

The look at this: https://www.amazon.com/Terminal-Man-.../dp/0804171297

Chrichton's implant is more like Larry Niven's droud, but stll...

It is isn't science fiction anymore. Brain stimulation i.e. implanting electrodes in the brain has been used for awhile now to control hand tremors in Parkinsons patients and more recently with epilepsy patients to control seizures. More recently I saw on a news program on a new study applying directed ultrasound to the brain to help with tremors as well as helping with drug addiction.

It's kind of funny but recently I was digging through boxes in storage and spotted both "Ringworld" and "Ringworld Engineers" and reread them both. Within a month I saw reviews/readings of the whole Ringworld series on YouTube. Way cool. It must be "a thing" since I turn off networking, use a Linux/Android security OpSys, disable never use Alexa, and never use my phone for webwork so I'm pretty sure it wasn't data mining. Truth be told I also hope it is just regaining some exposure 'cuz Larry Niven's books are great! Chrichton was cool in his early days but I think got a bit spoiled by his prose becoming movie scripts. The new Dune movie is excellent however as it sticks so closely to Frank Herbert's original, vastly better than David Lynch's version.

I think that the essential idea is to try to avoid having electrical cables to external equipment (literally ...) coming out of holes drilled in the patient's head.

True, however if it improves your quality of life then it is a no brainer. The story of the epilepsy getting an implant I just heard on the radio yesterday. I 30 year old that could not work, drive a car or basically go out in public for fear of having a seizure would be quite depressing.

Video of first person implanted with a Neuralink chip moving a cursor and playing games by 'thinking' about it.


Elon Musk

@elonmusk
"Livestream of @Neuralink demonstrating “Telepathy” – controlling a computer and playing video games just by thinking" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1770565942168420750

Incidentally: the amino-acid Taurine – which can be cheaply purchased anywhere – has clinically-proven(!) anti-seizure properties. If you suffer from seizure disorders and are treated by a physician with an open mind, you should discuss this option with him or her. Perhaps this treatment will work for you, without the side-effects of the medications (e.g. "Dilantin") that you are now taking. I am personally aware of several people for whom this turned out to be the case. "Ask your doctor.™"

For example: this link. The authors aren't from the United States, but they are doctors and experts who can recite biochemistry as long as you care to read before your eyes glaze over. The science is out there.

If the blind vet can see.
A parkison patient quits twitching.
A paralyzed vet can walk again.

I'm all for it.

The point of my post was missed. I don't think the current medical applications are the problem (although , if quality of life wasn't horrible I personally wouldn't be first in line for them). Musk probably hopes to be the Emperor of Mars before he dies (especially if earth goes tits up due to climate change and related resource crisis causing global warfare). I think he looks forward to the day he can replace mouse, keyboards, and VR headsets with this. Then instead of invading our privacy by stealing our browser history and reading our email and controlling our minds with targeted clickbait and disinformation (big IT 's current buisness model), his new IT model will be to directly read our minds and directly program them like a pc (no ghost in the shell fans in the room?) Did you think the space race which started at the height of cold war was about science? Duh! Von Braun was the most talented Nazi weapons scientist and Saturn V was his wet dream. USA embraced a Nazi to put a moon rock in a museum? It was about perfecting ballistic missles and getting the ground work research on experimental speculative next gen military tech funded through auxilliary pathway, and laying the ground work for imperial competition over resources in space. Similarly humanitarian medical aspect of this technology is a smokescreen for a dystopian nightmare being conceived.

I doubt a people paralyzed from the shoulders down and controlling their World with sip straws are worried about 'mind control' by Elon Musk.

You are both right! So how do we arrange to get the benefits of this technology without the nightmare that could accompany them?

That's a good question hazel and one for which there is no readily apparent answer. 100 days in both Musk and Neuralink are promoting the trial as a success but there has been a setback or two. Some of the 'threads' connecting the implant to various electrodes have lost connection. In response the test subject's response time with cursor control dropped. Adjustments to the algorithm controlling the implant resulted in an increase that surpassed his previous level of cursor control and, allegedly, is about 80% that of non-handicapped people using a mouse.
https://neuralink.com/blog/prime-stu...er-experience/

Meh. I saw a non-invasive, three-electrode headband demoed at the end of the 1990s which could be used to steer the pointer about as well as a ball mouse. The guy doing the demo could not talk and move it accurately though. He had to be quiet and concentrate. Again, that headband was non-invasive and the sensors only rested on the skin.

There are also other approaches such as tracking a reflective dot on a headband for the X and Y coordinates and sip-and-puff for the clicks. There are devices on the market which work like that. Or you could build something with an accelerometer instead of the reflective band.

Given the Neuralink's failure rate in the primate experiments, it is not even ready for animal testing yet. There are also some reservations I have about the very design, such as the idea that the wires penetrate (and thus destroy) a bit of grey matter instead of only resting on the surface of the grey matter. Either way there is the question of what happens if the person has a physical shock to their head, say get hit with something or fall down or are a passenger during a vehicle accident.