Elon Musk’s Neuralink Looking to Treat Tinnitus

[Padraigh Griffin]

I remember in the 80s folks saying a cure for baldness was 5-10 years away.

In the 90s cures were 10 years away for MS, Parkinson's etc.

These days they're saying a cure for Alzheimer's might be 10 years away.

I'm very cynical now about any prediction made by pharma or tech people.

At certain points in time a revolution occurs. Three critical areas are progressing rapidly nearly every day. Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Brain Tech. This decade will see these progress to make medtech the next big revolution. You can already see the trend starting with 'wearables'. Medtech is the next big thing.

A less significant revolution occurred in tech in the 2000s. Virtually no one in 1999/2001 could envisage what occurred up to 2010/2011 where you had all the world's information at your fingertips and could connect with anyone on the planet in so many ways.

That Stanford depression breakthrough is astonishing. Five days to remission for severe refractory depression. Would you not agree?

 

[Dizzyhead888]

I remember in the 80s folks saying a cure for baldness was 5-10 years away.

In the 90s cures were 10 years away for MS, Parkinson's etc.

These days they're saying a cure for Alzheimer's might be 10 years away.

I'm very cynical now about any prediction made by pharma or tech people.

There is no "cure" for almost anything.

There are treatments.

It's just a misused term.

The only way to cure a body (return it to original state and reverse the damage) is through natural means if those natural means are strong enough to enable cure.

Medicine will not cure anything in the next 100 years.

I am sure effective treatments that reduce symptoms or improve damage can be made.

When something goes wrong in the body, millions of thing are affected. Some kind of external intervention won't address all those things affected i.e. curing is impossible - but some things affected can be treated.

 

[Gb3]

At certain points in time a revolution occurs. Three critical areas are progressing rapidly nearly every day. Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Brain Tech. This decade will see these progress to make medtech the next big revolution. You can already see the trend starting with 'wearables'. Medtech is the next big thing.

A less significant revolution occurred in tech in the 2000s. Virtually no one in 1999/2001 could envisage what occurred up to 2010/2011 where you had all the world's information at your fingertips and could connect with anyone on the planet in so many ways.

That Stanford depression breakthrough is astonishing. Five days to remission for severe refractory depression. Would you not agree?

I agree, the problem before was we were limited by what humans can do, now we have machine learning and the ability to process and analyze data at unimaginable rates.

 

[morgothaod]

I'm hoping to be tinnitus free when I retire in 30 years.

 

[volsung37]

That Stanford depression breakthrough is astonishing. Five days to remission for severe refractory depression. Would you not agree?

Sounds good. I hope it lasts for them. I could do with a bit of that right now!

 

[ThomasF]

I'm good with having an AI in my brain. The monthly subscription to stop the tinnitus is going to be a real downer though.

 

[Mathew Gould]

I'm good with having an AI in my brain. The monthly subscription to stop the tinnitus is going to be a real downer though.

Neurolink was on Bloomberg TV (stock channel) about how they are hiring a clinical officer to work with the FDA. They said a few hundred thousand people already have chips in their brain to combat strokes, etc...

 

[Padraigh Griffin]

Yes and how many more have pacemakers in their heart, etc.

Not controversial but progressive. Neuralink remains a great source of hope to us.

 

[ThomasF]

In general it is wonderful to see so many different avenues that may lead to effective treatment or even a cure for tinnitus.

 

[Brian Newman]

I wouldn't keep our hopes up on Neuralink anymore. This is hot water for Elon. I'm going to do more research on synchron.

Elon Musk's Neuralink allegedly abuses monkeys as part of its brain implant experiments

 

[jc canedo]

I wouldn't keep our hopes up on Neuralink anymore. This is hot water for Elon. I'm going to do more research on synchron.

Elon Musk's Neuralink allegedly abuses monkeys as part of its brain implant experiments

I was one of those who had all my faith in Neuralink, but I saw a video in my language of a scientist who said that in reality Neuralink has nothing innovative: it recovers the electromagnetic signals of the brain (that had already been done before) and what it would be revolutionary it would be to KNOW AND INTERPRET those signals (something that to date cannot be known), we would literally have to learn the language of the brain in order to develop the treatments that Elon boasts so much that Neuralink can cure. I'm not a hater of Elon, but he hasn't done anything revolutionary so far. In fact the ones I hate are the children (and not so children) who say he is the Da Vinci of our time.

 

[ThomasF]

Animal testing by itself is a source of concern to many people. I include myself among them.

However, to torture them in the aims to better understand the mind, is disturbing to say the least. My conscience would sit more at rest if the testing was being done on humans and as humanely as possible.

That being said, putting computers inside the brain of any animal is a leap of science that has horrid results if the process yields nothing. I can barely imagine the misery of having one's own mind meddled with and the repercussions of having computer chips wired into one's mind.

 

[volsung37]

Sounds horrific to me.

 

[Brian Newman]

I was one of those who had all my faith in Neuralink, but I saw a video in my language of a scientist who said that in reality Neuralink has nothing innovative: it recovers the electromagnetic signals of the brain (that had already been done before) and what it would be revolutionary it would be to KNOW AND INTERPRET those signals (something that to date cannot be known), we would literally have to learn the language of the brain in order to develop the treatments that Elon boasts so much that Neuralink can cure. I'm not a hater of Elon, but he hasn't done anything revolutionary so far. In fact the ones I hate are the children (and not so children) who say he is the Da Vinci of our time.

Yeah, I never had much confidence Neuralink would be it but it was definitely something good. I did think it was a good backup if all else fails. Maybe those brain chips or AI could help ear stuff. Synchron claims it too and they are testing in humans. I like Elon, he does over-exaggerate though.

 

[Brian Newman]

Animal testing by itself is a source of concern to many people. I include myself among them.

However, to torture them in the aims to better understand the mind, is disturbing to say the least. My conscience would sit more at rest if the testing was being done on humans and as humanely as possible.

That being said, putting computers inside the brain of any animal is a leap of science that has horrid results if the process yields nothing. I can barely imagine the misery of having one's own mind meddled with and the repercussions of having computer chips wired into one's mind.

Yeah, I definitely don't think animals being tortured is the way to go. There's some research saying animals are completely different from humans, ear and brain wise. Others say they are really close. There are some animals closer to humans than others. Animals should not be mutilated out of laziness or just lack of respect. If I was them, I would do my best to treat the animals as well as possible.

Unfortunately scientific advances require animal testing and will never make it to clinical human trials without animal testing. There's just no way. Animal testing has gotten us to where we are today, because most humans would not take a drug knowing no organism has taken it before them.

We need animal testing but in the nicest most humane way. In my case I am suffering horribly, I would do whatever I needed to do to get better and I mean anything. Neuralink is a different story.

 

[ThomasF]

I'd personally love to be a cyborg. However, as much as I'd like that world to be "Deus Ex" like, I have a strong feeling that it would more likely be similar to "Repo" where the cost will be so high that the companies involved will be legally allowed to harvest the organs you financed from them.

That mortality rate is heartbreaking. I'm personally terrified of monkeys in general but don't wish to see harm done to them. If they had done the same tests on humans this debacle would be on every news site and channel with 15 people dying out of 23 likely pinging the radar of a dozen or so law enforcement agencies.

 

[Damocles]

I'd personally love to be a cyborg. However, as much as I'd like that world to be "Deus Ex" like, I have a strong feeling that it would more likely be similar to "Repo" where the cost will be so high that the companies involved will be legally allowed to harvest the organs you financed from them.

It's never really appealed to me; but that's probably because I'm something of a massive technophobe.

I've always liked simplicity, and still prefer an old NOKIA brick phone, to the jack-of-all-trades iPhones that are more or less compulsory to own nowadays.

That mortality rate is heartbreaking. I'm personally terrified of monkeys in general but don't wish to see harm done to them. If they had done the same tests on humans this debacle would be on every news site and channel with 15 people dying out of 23 likely pinging the radar of a dozen or so law enforcement agencies.

15 out of 23 deaths of a sentient creature like a monkey (in this case) is a travesty in ethical terms, but also from a pragmatic standpoint, spells the end for Neuralink.

"Pretty much every single monkey that had had implants put in their head suffered from pretty debilitating health effects," said the PCRM's research advocacy director Jeremy Beckham. "They were, frankly, maiming and killing the animals."

So even if you could play down a 65% mortality rate from having a Neuralink chip implanted into a primate brain 93% similar to our own (good luck with that), it sounds like very close to 100% of the monkeys experienced extreme suffering as a result of their "enhancements". And there's not a group of people alive more qualified than those of us on this forum, to understand that there are fates far worse than death.

Anyway, this just confirms for me something I was already quite sure of; that implanting a chip inside of the brain is only going to create more problems than it solves.

It also confirms that if Elon Musk were as philanthropical as people believed him to be, he would be investing small sums of his vast wealth into research that might actually help people (like us), instead of ego-driven vanity projects that appeal to his fantasy of a trans-human cybernetic world, in which he is the cyborg King.

 

[ThomasF]

Considering the concerns of funding for most research projects that are talked about on here, Hough Ear Institute, Otonomy, and Frequency Therapeutics to name a few, the money wasted on such a venture going to more humane pursuits is difficult to not think about. The poor animals not being maimed and the money and time not being wasted on accomplishing so little.

I won't say that these other projects would be finished now had the funding been sent to them instead. There's really no way to tell what the outcomes would have been. Funding tends to be a barrier for moving through trials of efficacy in the FDA so these ventures would have at least more opportunities to judge the value of their research.

 

[Q-value]

Elon Musk is a spokesperson with no experience in engineering. All code that he wrote for Zip2 was rewritten. When Compaq bought Zip2 for $305 million they (Compaq) made 0. Elon Musk got 22 million from which he invested 10 million in X.com. X.com merged with Confinity Inc. Confinity had the idea that became PayPal. Elon was fired before the company was named PayPal. Then Elon made a fortune by selling PayPal stock. He used PayPal money to take credit for other people's work at Tesla and now Neuralink. He also plagiarized Hyperloop (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain).

The purpose of Neuralink was always to allow people to communicate with artificial limbs, not nonsense that Elon says.

Common Sense skeptic video on Neuralink:





The only thing he can do for tinnitus is to give it to endangered turtles.

 

[Gb3]

Elon Musk is a spokesperson with no experience in engineering. All code that he wrote for Zip2 was rewritten. When Compaq bought Zip2 for $305 million they (Compaq) made 0. Elon Musk got 22 million from which he invested 10 million in X.com. X.com merged with Confinity Inc. Confinity had the idea that became PayPal. Elon was fired before the company was named PayPal. Then Elon made a fortune by selling PayPal stock. He used PayPal money to take credit for other people's work at Tesla and now Neuralink. He also plagiarized Hyperloop (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain).

The purpose of Neuralink was always to allow people to communicate with artificial limbs, not nonsense that Elon says.

The only thing he can do for tinnitus is to give it to endangered turtles.

See, look at this person who made an account just to come on and attach Musk. Politically driven for sure. Just like Joe Rogan.

 

[Diesel]

Elon Musk is a spokesperson with no experience in engineering. All code that he wrote for Zip2 was rewritten. When Compaq bought Zip2 for $305 million they (Compaq) made 0. Elon Musk got 22 million from which he invested 10 million in X.com. X.com merged with Confinity Inc. Confinity had the idea that became PayPal. Elon was fired before the company was named PayPal. Then Elon made a fortune by selling PayPal stock. He used PayPal money to take credit for other people's work at Tesla and now Neuralink. He also plagiarized Hyperloop (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain).

The purpose of Neuralink was always to allow people to communicate with artificial limbs, not nonsense that Elon says.

Common Sense skeptic video on Neuralink:

The only thing he can do for tinnitus is to give it to endangered turtles.

Why are we bringing this FUD junk to Tinnitus Talk? It's as-if the members on here don't have enough to deal with. Neuralink may have a LONG LONG way before it does anything useful to humans, let alone treat tinnitus, it's way too early to call it a scam. And frankly, the idea of discrediting Musk at this point in 2022 is just to get a reaction.

 

[UHPTS]

Elon Musk is a spokesperson with no experience in engineering. All code that he wrote for Zip2 was rewritten...

You must be the member of the generation Y. (Note that "the" is read as if the word "generation" started with a vowel.)

 

[Athens]

Why are we bringing this FUD junk to Tinnitus Talk? It's as-if the members on here don't have enough to deal with. Neuralink may have a LONG LONG way before it does anything useful to humans, let alone treat tinnitus, it's way too early to call it a scam. And frankly, the idea of discrediting Musk at this point in 2022 is just to get a reaction.

I agree about Neuralink having a long way to go. I also think that it is too early for any hearing regeneration drugs. The tinnitus drug (OTO-313?) and Susan Shore's device seem viable in the short term.

 

[Joey72]

Joe Rogan is the last person I think of that has any type of agenda. He has a popular podcast that the MSM can't stand because he's smashing them. Rogan has people on from all walks of life, that's why he is popular. Get yourself educated before you spew bullshit.

 

[Gb3]

Joe Rogan is the last person I think of that has any type of agenda. He has a popular podcast that the MSM can't stand because he's smashing them. Rogan has people on from all walks of life, that's why he is popular. Get yourself educated before you spew bullshit.

That's what I meant. I was saying they are trying to do the same thing to Elon.

 

[ThomasF]

Perhaps we have something closer to an Icarus situation. Where bridging the gap between the mind and technology were the wax wings which melted and led to the poor monkeys being horridly maimed as Icarus fell to their death.

One day we will decipher the language of the mind and conquer it. Until then, please leave the monkeys alone. Use chimps, they're straight up evil, much more like people.

 

[Joeseph Stope]

Perhaps we have something closer to an Icarus situation. Where bridging the gap between the mind and technology were the wax wings which melted and led to the poor monkeys being horridly maimed as Icarus fell to their death.

One day we will decipher the language of the mind and conquer it. Until then, please leave the monkeys alone. Use chimps, they're straight up evil, much more like people.

The reason I think they chose Chimpanzees is because they are our closest cousins -- and like much of wildlife they are on the run due to habitat destruction, hunting etc.

 

[ThomasF]

The reason I think they chose Chimpanzees is because they are our closest cousins -- and like much of wildlife they are on the run due to habitat destruction, hunting etc.

The Neuralink study used macaque monkeys.

 

[Paul1980]

8 monkeys killed in the project:

https://neuralink.com/blog/animal-welfare/

2 killed at "planned end dates," 6 on medical advice, with one dying from the use of BioGlue.

The company is saying these animals were dying anyways. Some had missing digits. I think that is up for discussion and investigation, by an authority on the issue.

Gee, I wonder why they had a terrible life and developed illnesses - kept in cages, transported, experimented on.

Is tinnitus, assuming that this product is even going to treat this terrible condition - and there isn't really any solid evidence it will or ever be approved for that - worth this level of experimentation?

If someone on here in the next 30 years drills a hole in their head to fix tinnitus, I will personally give you a medal.

 

[Gb3]

8 monkeys killed in the project:

https://neuralink.com/blog/animal-welfare/

2 killed at "planned end dates," 6 on medical advice, with one dying from the use of BioGlue.

The company is saying these animals were dying anyways. Some had missing digits. I think that is up for discussion and investigation, by an authority on the issue.

Gee, I wonder why they had a terrible life and developed illnesses - kept in cages, transported, experimented on.

Is tinnitus, assuming that this product is even going to treat this terrible condition - and there isn't really any solid evidence it will or ever be approved for that - worth this level of experimentation?

If someone on here in the next 30 years drills a hole in their head to fix tinnitus, I will personally give you a medal.

They aren't just testing it for tinnitus.

They already drill holes for deep brain stimulation.