Neuralink’s human trials volunteers ‘should have serious concerns,’ say medical experts::A medical ethics committee responded to Elon Musk’s brain-interface startup issuing an open call for patients yesterday.
Neuralink’s human trials volunteers ‘should have serious concerns,’ say medical experts::A medical ethics committee responded to Elon Musk’s brain-interface startup issuing an open call for patients yesterday.
What’s really sad is hearing how they treated them. Considering how intelligent they are, I find it disgusting that they treated them so bad they all died. It’s not worth a bunch of sentient creatures lives to do experiments like this and then just throw them away.
At least your lab was treating them with dignity.
Yeah, in academia getting approval for primate research projects is a huge process where you need to clarify every aspect of the protocol, housing, care, and experimental operations to submit before the project can start. I’m less sure if it’s voluntary or required, but we had funding allocated for their retirement from the start. They’re smart enough and strong enough that I’d be terrified to work with unhappy and unwell primates.
Not that all research projects are have happy endings, but I don’t think corporate research has the same restrictions and oversight that academic research does, given that this even happened. I’m pretty accepting of the necessity of primate research models, but we should be doing everything we can to treat them as best we can. Withdrawing a subject from the experimental protocol should be preferred over letting an infection fester just because the implant is in the way. Just seems really poorly done on their part.
If it makes you feel any better, they’d treat humans the same way if they could.