this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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Elon lied about the monkeys — and he shouldn't be trusted to put his Neuralink chips in human brains.

"They are claiming they are going to put a safe device on the market, and that's why you should invest," Ryan Merkley at the Physicians Committee, told Wired. "And we see his lie as a way to whitewash what happened in these exploratory studies."

Really heartbreaking reading what happened to the monkeys.

People quite rightly think of Elizabeth Holmes as a fraud for making false medical claims about what the Theranos machines could do. So why aren't Elon's claims at Neuralink being held to the same level of scrutiny?

https://futurism.com/neoscope/terrible-things-monkeys-neuralink-implants

@technology #Elon #Neuralink #ElonMusk

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[–] Lmaydev@programming.dev 151 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Let's not pretend Musk has fucking clue what's going on or the science behind it.

He isn't down in trenches making discoveries. That's just the image he presents.

He buys companies and lets the actually competent people do the work while claiming credit.

He's been doing it since PayPal.

He's not a genius, he just has enough money to get actual geniuses to work for him.

[–] maegul@lemmy.ml 77 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Someone put it well, if insensitively, about Sam Bankman Fried (FTX etc):

Not actually smart but just LARP-ing the “Aspy genius” persona.

However accurate that take is or offensive, I think it captures something about how nerd culture has gone mainstream and how it’s perceived.

[–] _number8_@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

'nerd' has disappeared as an insult now that we're all on the computer all the time

[–] TheMauveAvenger@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As The Boys lovingly put it so many years ago, "nerds is cool now and jocks is pumping our gas."

[–] Lmaydev@programming.dev 15 points 1 year ago

I think that's pretty romanticised.

Assuming they leave their home town many end up in sales or similar making really good money.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 26 points 1 year ago

He buys companies and lets the actually competent people do the work while claiming credit.

Sometimes he actively interferes with those competent people too.

[–] Piers@beehaw.org 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He buys companies and lets the actually competent people do the work while claiming credit.

No he doesn't. He meddles and interferes constantly and convinces himself that he's adding value by doing so. That's why Neuralink is dangerous. Meta or Alphabet or Microsoft or whoever can be trusted to let the scientists and the legal team ensure there's very little risk of everything blowing up in their face horribly. Elon's little empire is constantly on the verge of an absolute disaster. I would not be remotely surprised if Neuralink messes everything up so much that it sets back brain implants and BCI's in general by decades. Purely because Elon can't just supply the people at his businesses with the tools they need then get out of their way.

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I'm hoping this becomes another Chernobyl type incident where instead of people being against nuclear energy, it's people against brain implants over the fear of how dangerous they are. At least for the implants that are not made specifically as medical devices that help instead of dumb people down with forced ads and memes.

[–] raymccarthy@historians.social 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Lmaydev @ajsadauskas
Peter Thiel sacked him as a PayPal boss?
He didn't "invent" Paypal.

[–] Lmaydev@programming.dev 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It was formed by merging his company X with Confinity. All he did was profit off it but many people seem to think he created it.

[–] Piers@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago

To be clear, he did try to make them use his own work instead and it was awful so they pushed him out to protect the company.

[–] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

LMFAO, I had no idea this wasn't even the first time he called his dumb company X. He really is obsessed with that letter.

[–] NattyNatty2x4@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

X.com, SpaceX, now changing Twitter to X. Dude has an obsession

[–] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Don't forget his dumbass name for his child.

[–] Lmaydev@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

He was just looking for a reason to use the domain name I'm pretty sure.