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Exclusive: Musk's Neuralink has faced issues with its tiny wires for years, sources say (www.reuters.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Neuralink's disclosure last week that tiny wires inside the brain of its first patient had pulled out of position is an issue the Elon Musk company has known about for years, according to five people familiar with the matter.

The company knew from animal testing it had conducted ahead of its U.S. approval last year that the wires might retract, removing with them the sensitive electrodes that decode brain signals, three of the sources said. Neuralink deemed the risk low enough for a redesign not to be merited, the sources added.

The company said last week that the implant's tiny wires, which are thinner than a human hair, retracted from a patient's brain in its first human trial, resulting in fewer electrodes that could measure brain signals.

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[–] [email protected] 85 points 6 months ago (7 children)

I don't mean to backseat engineer, but ensuring your BRAIN INTERFACE DEVICE succsessfully connects seems pretty fucking vital and worth of a redesign. Even if its expensive. Even if the probability is low, it needs to be virtually zero.

Its hard to take a step back and view this as regular product development that has timelines and such strictly due to the nature of the product. This is almost literally the most invasive a product can be, you better fucking nail your execution.

The people that actually would benefit from this technology deserve better.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 months ago

Agreed. Seems like the actual connection is, like, 90% of the product if not more.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago

“Go fast and break ~~things~~ people.”

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

capitalism should stay the fuck away from peoples bodies, let alone the inside of their skulls

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

you better fucking nail your execution

Musk: it seems the public isn’t so against our proposal to extend the testing pool to death row inmates.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I believe Musk's reply would be, "concerning."

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

You have said the actual truth.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Profits > anything else

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

The people that actually would benefit from this technology deserve better.

100% correct. The issue is that this is not the goal of those developing this technology, the goal is (checks notes), money... All they care about is money and if some disabled people suffer some more, well, that's the price they are willing to pay to get richer

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

It depends on how many of the electrodes are affected.

For instance, your phone screen is probably expected to develop dead pixels over time, but there is a big difference between expecting a handful of pixels to stop working and expecting half of them to stop working. The former has virtually no effect, whereas the latter makes the phone unusable.

Likewise, the most important question for a brain interface is not "Are all the sensors working?", it's "Is the patient experiencing reduced performance?"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Also the timeline that's expected to happen on. I'd be pretty fucking mad if my phone had dead pixels less than 6 months after buying it. 10 years, not so much.

Likewise, I'd be pretty mad that if a reportable amount of my brain electrodes detached within the first 6 months of having them, but I'd be less mad if it was a few years down the line (not that I'd ever be fully okay with it. This is my brain, after all).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I'd be pretty fucking mad if my phone had dead pixels less than 6 months

That's because screens are a mature technology. Twenty years ago, you expected one or two dead pixels in every brand new screen.

Here's an example of a replacement policy from those dark ages:

The LCD display of products under warranty will be replaced if CTL determines that it has 6 or more bright sub-pixels, 6 or more dark sub-pixels or a combination of 6 or more bright and dark sub pixels.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's a lot easier to warranty a phone screen than it is brain surgery. That's why that expectation was acceptable for screens.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

By the same token, medical devices have more built-in redundancies in case of partial failure. That's why the overall impact on the patient is more important than how many electrodes are operational.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I will admit, I think I'm coming from a place of zero trust that anything musk has his hands in has any amount of safety or redundancy built in, because that might hurt the bottom line

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Pretty much every medical device is made by people who are equally interested in the bottom line, they just aren't constantly in the media spotlight like Musk.

Fortunately there are government agencies that closely watch these companies to make sure patient safety comes first.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I understand that paralyzed people are desperate to be able to move again, or at least control things that will move for them, but trusting Neuralink to do it right just seemed like a bad plan the first time they announced human trials. Just don't do it. The initial patient is lucky they're not dead.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

These patients need to just come to terms with needing to go Super-Duper HARD-CORE Mode (tm) and realize that Neuralink is here to Move Fast And Break Things (tm) -- like your brain.

/s (for the sarcasm-impaired)