The first invasive brain chip that Neuralink embedded into a human brain has malfunctioned, with neuron-surveilling threads appearing to have become dislodged from the participant’s brain, the company revealed in a blog post Wednesday.

It’s unclear what caused the threads to become “retracted” from the brain, how many have retracted, or if the displaced threads pose a safety risk. Neuralink, the brain-computer interface startup run by controversial billionaire Elon Musk, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Ars. The company said in its blog post that the problem began in late February, but it has since been able to compensate for the lost data to some extent by modifying its algorithm.

  • over_clox@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I thought the goal was to reconnect the brain to the spinal cord though.

    But dude is still stuck in a wheelchair, and so far it’s basically been just a fancy experimental mouse cursor? Installed in his brain? And already failing?..

    • CaptDust@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      I don’t really keep up with Elon moon shits, but I think the idea is to substitute the brains neurological commands. Research is still on the “read” stage, like knowing what information the brain is requesting. Eventually neurolink will also need to discover how to relay those signals back to the nervous system in a way it understands, engaging muscles and such, effectively rebuilding the bridge that was damaged. Or robot legs or whatever, but the key is first getting the information into a format they can act on. But I’m not smart, this is just how I understood it.

      • over_clox@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        And they already killed how many monkeys testing this stuff? Last I heard was that they tested 15 monkeys or so, and 13 of them ended up dying or having to be euthanized after only a few months.

        They already admitted they had problems with their brain electrodes corroding after a few months or so…

        I like to keep my noodle intact thank you very much. Even if I was a vegetable, I wouldn’t want a chip in my head that’s known to have corroding wires.

        • vrek@programming.dev
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          7 months ago

          See the corroding part scares me. Actual electrodes planted in the brain should never corrode. The company I work for actually makes brain implants(no, not nueralink) so I know it’s possible.

          That stuff is EXPENSIVE though … So he must of cheaped out with a cheaper metal and that’s why it corroded.

    • VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      Watching his videos he’s a clever snd self aware guy more than capable of thinking for himself. Hate Elon but you don’t need to shit on the disabled by acting like being in a wheelchair means you can’t think for yourself