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The first Neuralink implant in a human malfunctioned after several threads recording neural activity retracted from the brain, the Elon Musk-owned startup revealed Wednesday.

The threads retracted in the weeks following the surgery in late January that placed the Neuralink hardware in 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh’s brain, the company said in a blog post.

This reduced the number of effective electrodes and the ability of Arbaugh, a quadriplegic, to control a computer cursor with his brain.

“In response to this change, we modified the recording algorithm to be more sensitive to neural population signals, improved the techniques to translate these signals into cursor movements, and enhanced the user interface,” Neuralink said in the blog post.

The company said the adjustments resulted in a “rapid and sustained improvement” in bits-per-second, a measure of speed and accuracy of cursor control, surpassing Arbaugh’s initial performance.

While the problem doesn’t appear to pose a risk to Arbaugh’s safety, Neuralink reportedly floated the idea of removing his implant, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The company has also told the Food and Drug Administration that it believes it has a solution for the issue that occurred with Arbaugh’s implant, the Journal reported.

The implant was placed just more than 100 days ago. In the blog post, the company touted Arbaugh’s ability to play online computer games, browse the internet, livestream and use other applications “all by controlling a cursor with his mind.”

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[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 21 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Yeah I feel like it’s an attempt to resolve the Deaf stance that deafness isn’t a disability. The general stance of the Deaf community is closer to that of the queer community than that of say the paraplegic community. It sees deafness as a disability constructed by a society unwilling to communicate visually and to teach signed languages to all people able to use them.

Mind you we’re the contentious portion of the disabled world. The Deaf are as bad as lesbians I tell ya.

But on point, “differently abled” feels like it washes away the struggle. I am disabled. I’m disabled by a society that taught my great grandparents, my grandparents, and my parents not to teach their hard of hearing children sign language because otherwise we won’t use English. I’m disabled by a society that doesn’t include visual signals in emergency sounds even when it’s easy to do. I’m disabled by a society where people, including cops, will speak to the back of my head and not even consider that I didn’t respond because I didn’t hear. And I’m disabled by the assumption my life has to be worse for having less sound as though I’m not extremely literate and completely capable of using a signed language. I’m not “differently abled” I’m completely able in most ways everyone else is, and people who can’t learn to communicate visually are just as disabled as people who can’t learn to communicate audibly.

[-] iopq@lemmy.world 22 points 6 months ago

That's like saying blind people are not disabled, it's just society that insists on visual stimuli

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

The deaf argument is that there’s no need for assistance of assistive tools. An all deaf town would experience no undue hardships unlike an all blind town.

I’m personally on the fence about it, but trust me when I write that we’ve seen whatever your gut instinct on this is before. Your gut take is just a hearing person speaking against Deaf theory written by Deaf people and the people far more involved in it are probably not going to see it because the Deaf don’t deal with the hearing as much as other disabled groups do, for obvious reasons.

[-] DeprecatedCompatV2@programming.dev 8 points 6 months ago

How do people who have gained hearing feel about it? It seems like hearing would be important for a number of things besides communication, but maybe modern life doesn't require much?

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

There’s a variety of opinions. Born deaf often don’t like it. The later deafened you are the more you tend to want hearing back.

It’s not even about the communication per se, it’s also about the physical act of hearing which can be uncomfortable

[-] DeprecatedCompatV2@programming.dev 2 points 6 months ago

That's interesting. So if your brain isn't developed to cope with hearing, it's overwhelming similar to someone with autism?

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

Yeah, you can build it up, but it’s unpleasant and slow and idk if it can get all the way.

Basically (from what I remember/understand) your body loves “use it or lose it” on anything resource intensive, and nothing uses resources like brain. So if you aren’t getting sound you let other stuff butt in on that area and you never build up auditory processing. Add in the fact that CIs don’t work the same as biological cochleas (seriously there’s videos with sound replicating various CIs) and you basically have to relearn how to hear.

Another connection is actually autistic people with issues with verbal communication often don’t have those issues with sign language. It’s processed differently but not in a way that makes it super hard to learn, it’s honestly easier to pick up than most languages.

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this post was submitted on 10 May 2024
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