• Concerns rise as Neuralink fails to provide evidence of brain implant success, raising safety and transparency questions.
• Controversy surrounds Neuralink’s lack of data on surgical capabilities and alarming treatment of monkeys with brain implants.
• While Neuralink touts achievements, experts question true innovation and highlight developments in other brain implant projects.
I really wonder about the Doctors associated with this. How are they squaring things with their Hippocratic oath? This just seems really close to the ethical line, maybe over it. Nothing about how musk is treating this surprises me. But is everyone working on this also an unethical twat? Kind of scary to think that might be true.
In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Hippocratic Oath saying it didn’t cover the latest developments in medical practice.
I’m just… gonna go scream into a pillow in the corner now.
The Helsinki declaration https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Helsinki
Is the reference for health sciences these days.
This appears to be more geared towards experimentation. Super interesting and more relevant to the article for sure though!
There’s nothing here that would violate it anyway. These people are literally working on tech to help quadriplegics. Even this article is mostly just “I wish they were more open about their research”, which is true of basically every research hospital in the world.
I mean… That’s the claim, but there’s no real explanation on how their implant could help quadriplegics more so than the current computer brain interface we’ve had for +10 years.
Computer brain interfaces have been around for years, the only novel idea is making it into a permanent implant. That being said, novel doesn’t necessarily mean good.
Ah yes, the classic “unless you think it will have a long-term benefit to someone else” exception to “do no harm”. I always forget about that part. /s
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The Hippocratic Oath is not a legally binding oath, and many doctors are not required to take this oath or any oath for that matter. Basically, at the end of the day, oaths only matter to the people who have the strength of character to hold to them no matter the cost and most people do not have that strength of character. Oaths mean nothing to those people when it comes down to it, it’s just a thing that you said once, nothing more.
Oh I know all that, but still…
Can’t wait to see the medical drama where one doctor says “you took an oath, god dammt!” And for the other to reply “nope”
There are way less extreme example of doctors just fucking things up for a bag of money.
And more in general, humans. Imagine if Clarence Thomas had taken medicine instead of law when he was young
People with the Power to do cruel things always find cruel people to do their bidding. Especially when they can justify it with science or it’s “for the better of humanity”. Even if every rational out stander is horrified by their doings.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there somehow were a cover-up of safety and efficacy of these devices.
People are still people. Doctors are just as susceptible to compromising their ethics as everyone else, the only difference is that they probably have a higher bribe threshold.
Ethics only matters when there’s an effort to enforce it. The Hippocratic oath is just a reason your employer can fire you for making risky decisions. It means nothing if nobody holds you to it.
If you’re a doctor working for Neuralink, nobody will expect anything of you but to push the project forward as quickly as possible. For years you only work with monkeys, and when they do finally put a human in the O.R. it’s someone who signed away all their rights and accepted all risks to install experimental brain chips. At that moment, that human patient becomes the single most important subject in the entire experiment.
Of course you do it. You’re getting paid more money than you ever have in your life to do it, and the entire system is designed to protect you so long as you do what the boss says.
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Well, it’s possible that it was a robot doctor, kinda doubt they took a Hippocratic oath