Neuralink 'Participant 1' says his life has changed

I'll let other blind people go first, but I'm definitely some one that would love, love, love to be able to see. Driving, knowing body language, playing any and every video game out there, shoot yeah!

Why would you not go first? If you are blind it cannot be worse (well it can, but there are always risks).

My wife went through semi-expetimental therapy (at that time) for her MS. It was tough but ultimately a net benefit.

It all depends on what is at stake - I would consider Ozempic for some weight loss but prefer, for now, go for no sugar and moderate portions. This is not life changing for me so I indeed prefer people who will benefit way more from it to go first.

what therapy did your wife go through?

That's funny because Ozempic can blind you.

It’s associated, not causal, and likely explained by diabetes as a 3rd variable. (Diabetes can blind you and glp-1 drugs are treatments for diabetes.)

Super uncertain, and, if the effect exists, it's tiny --- huge numbers of people have been taking these drugs for many years. Meanwhile, we know with certainty that T2D can blind you, and we know mechanistically why that happens. If you're at T2D risk, NAION would be a really dumb reason to avoid GLP-1s.

It's a brain chip. How do you feel about being blind and paralyzed? Or comatose? Or dead? How about never-ending pain or constant bright flashes? What if they go bankrupt, and something happens to the implant?

Brain surgery isn't exactly an industry where "move fast and break things" is an acceptable approach - especially when you are the patient. Considering Neuralink's historical record, going first sounds like a horrible idea to me.

> If you are blind it cannot be worse

Holy moly.

The blindness is linked to rapidly changing A1C in diabetics and is a small increase in overall risk.

If you're just using it for weight loss and aren't diabetic, you have no increase in risk.

This is also why your weight loss should be monitored by a doctor.

From a game theory perspective it's very rare for it to make sense to be the first to try new medical interventions.

Counterpoint: the main motivation for installing brain chips is to be able to do those things to subordinates.

Also seizures, personality changes and myriad forms of cognitive impairment.

The 20 years of US adventures in Iraq & Afghanistan led to many traumatic brain injury cases analyzed by modern medicine, and the chronic symptoms are worse than one might think.

It's important that no one can accidentally sideload misinformation.

No different than checking an ID at the airport, really.

Mate thats not game theory its common sense.

I think it was obvious they meant the condition of blindness cant't be worse.

From what I've read, if you are blind from birth, but visual signals were suddenly restored, your brain wouldn't know how to process them. Blind from birth = blind forever. I'm not certain though.

No, that's obviously not obvious, since the person you responded to thought otherwise.

I think the brain would adapt. It may take a while but the brain is very flexible and adaptable.

> Considering Neuralink's historical record

What historical record? This article is about their first human participant.

> I'll let other desperate people go first

FTFY.

They had a rocky path to that first human patient, and even the first human participant has had a rocky journey with it, with many electrodes failing soon after implanted.

Calling them desperate seems rude. Why judge the participants? Not everyone has access to other SOTA solutions and if this is the next best thing for them, why not.

I guess I don't have a similar thought process as someone who thinks going no sugar is the right way to achieve weight loss.

The reason you might think twice about going first is for that exact reason, there are risks. Plenty of blind people would prefer to stay as they are than be left worse off to a greater degree after undergoing the implant.

According to research impaired structural brain development due to visual deprivation from birth is not fully reversible and limits functional recovery. So even if eye sight is fully restored, cortical function will not be able to fully take advantage of that.

Experiments and studies have shown that this might be due to the fact that the visual cortex will take over a similar role in blind people as it does for people with intact eye sight. The brain uses different sensory inputs in that case and the visual brain structure is not restored after eye sight recovery.

This is still an ongoing field of research of course, but so far congenital blindless seems to be incurable, regardless of whether the sensory apparatus could be restored or replaced. Note that this only means seeing like a non-blind person. Some limited visual perception is still possible, just not "normal" sight.

"Blind" has way more of a wide definition than we usually appreciate.

I volunteer at a food pantry. There is one old lady who is sometimes rude in the line, shoving through saying "move it, I'm blind!!" She sometimes informs me that produce I hand her has black spots and she doesn't want it.

I believe she may actually be legally blind.

Do you have some links handy? I'd be very much interested in the description of experience from people that have gained sight after congenital blindness.

Black spots often have a different feeling on produce.

I have family like this. They can see enough 'shape' to play something like Tetris extremely well but anything that relies on colors is usually a no. When we were young they had color but that went away first. My understanding is that as they get older the resolution of the shapes gets lower and lower, so they have to make things bigger and be as close as possible.

It was beyond the point of glasses being able to do anything useful for them just as they finished college.

Depending on the task[1], it takes 1 week[2] to 1 year[3].

1. https://news.mit.edu/2011/vision-problem-0411

2. Shape recognition

3. Face recognition

Case studies suggest otherwise, at least for most people.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/05/10/to-see-and-not...

That's a good point. I'm fairly certain that lady has said that to me before touching the food. I think some legally blind people are good with shapes and big contrasts. She may also be relying on smell and not expressing it.

If they have any sight at all, their ability to cope with that limited sight would also be greatly increased; that is, if their resolution is significantly lower, their relative contrast may be much higher, even if what the object is is much less clear, without context.

How would you go for weight loss then? This is calories in - calories out.

And as for which state one wants to be in, this is a matter of personal choice. I know that I will commit suicide right after I get a diagnosis of, say, Alzheimer's (after cleaning up my stuff). If I went blind and had a reasonable chance to get back to sight, then I would also go for it, weighing the risks.

It all boils down to what someone perceives as "better"

How do you feel about not having THE sense that defines your whole life? This is a matter of personal choice and weighing risks vs your life as it is.

Nobody is forcing anybody to have the chip - my question was about the reasons behind not taking it for someone who is blind, as a matter of curiosity. It is obvious that everyone will react differently.

As I mentioned, my wife went for that and it was quite a ride initially. You do not want to be on the witnessing side of such treatments but I respect her choice despite the risks.

Yes, this is what I meant.

The very early form of TYSABRI

Vision is not the sense that defines the whole life of a blind person.

Of course, this is why I gave the counterexample of the case where it would be.

If you are young enough, yes. But after a while, the neuroplasticity is simply not enough. Seeing is a complex enough process, if you miss learning it in your childhood, the train is gone. This is a very common error people make, announcing implant technologies to grown blind people as if the cure was just around the corner. It isn't. You will never adapt to a point where the vision you just gained is actually useful. Imagine trying to learn to read print, at 30, with a pixelated implant? It is a naiv pixie dream of sighted people.

One cannot measure calories out (other than deducing it from calories in and weight change), which is a complex function of diet, metabolism, and a host of other factors.

As for the rest--your other posts implicitly assume that everyone else shares your choices and priorities--and if not then they aren't relevant. (BTW, there is strong evidence showing neither you nor anyone else knows what they would do after receiving such diagnoses.)

Of course your statement is false? Strange.

The rhetoric in this thread is generally laden with patronisation. I know that phenomenon as a person with a disability. Left leaning people are quick to speak for me and try to patronize on my situation. It is, frankly, plain virtue signaling. I could do without that, thank you very much.

> One cannot measure calories out (other than deducing it from calories in and weight change), which is a complex function of diet, metabolism, and a host of other factors.

Sure, but when you eat sugar in several forms and overeat generally, you statistically get fatter. This works the other way round too. There are myriads of specific cases on the sides of the bell curve but the solution for the everyday Joe is to eat less, more healthily. Practicing sports helps too, but not so much (it is important for other health reasons)

> As for the rest--your other posts implicitly assume that everyone else shares your choices and priorities--and if not then they aren't relevant.

Wow, where do you get that from? The main point of asking questions here is not to be a troll and wait for internet fights but to get interesting insights from others. You may want to slow down with the pitchforks and such statements.

> (BTW, there is strong evidence showing neither you nor anyone else knows what they would do after receiving such diagnoses.)

Or not. You also have people who prepare for that in advance, with a clear decision path. I have, and have no doubts taht I will go for that having evidenced suffering in other people. Not everyone contacts a company such as Dignitas to make sure things are organized. Not everyone discusses with the funeral house details about their death at 45, not everyone has a "what to do when I die" booklet with key information (financial and how to de-smart the house :)). Not everyone gave a deeper thought about designing a kill-switch device that would poison them in case they are incapacitated.

Not everyone is like you so I would not be that fast in making such radical statements.

> Sure, but when you eat sugar in several forms and overeat generally, you statistically get fatter. This works the other way round too.

I wrote about calories OUT.

In respect for dang I won't comment or engage further.

I hope that you get that opportunity one day.

don't have full article access but this part near the top makes it not applicable to the situation being discussed (blind from birth)

> since early childhood

It's a lifelong change and whatever the state of the first release is, chances are in 5 years time there'll be a better version and everything is safer.

1 + 1 = 2 is common sense, but it’s also math.

Some part of this is true, but it’s complicated.

I lack stereoscopic vision, due to eye surgery in infancy & wildly different focal lengths in each eye (one is very nearsighted, the other farsighted).

I can still see in 3D because my brain uses tricks like relative object size, shadows, and sometimes I move my head laterally so my farsighted eye gets different angles on an object (“faking” stereoscopic vision with one eye).

Nonetheless, catching a ball thrown straight at me is very difficult— I have to judge the size at which the circle is getting larger, and know the actual size of the ball. It often hits me in the hand and I try to grab it before it bounces away.

And I can never see those stereogram images where it looks like static unless you focus both eyes at some distance. I never see the world with both eyes simultaneously.

I once got glasses that corrected my vision “perfectly” but got major headaches and couldn’t wear them. Objects were in focus in both eyes, but were wildly different sizes!

I went to an ophthalmologist who basically told me they can correct my lenses but in my brain “the wiring is shot”.

I mostly work in front of a computer screen. I now use reading glasses so that when my nearsighted eye gets tired, I can put them on and continue working with my farsighted eye. These glasses have only a minor correction on the nearsighted eye so they don’t give me headaches.

You might be interested in searching up "strong critical periods" in brain development - this phenomenon has been studied for decades and has interesting implications for lots of aspects of brain development: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period

Do you notice any difference in thinking when you are “left eye active” vs “right eye active” in front of the screen or reading ? Asking because I have a much milder version of the situation that you describe (still within the boundaries to make it work without the glasses almost all the time), but I notice a weird “not the same” feeling when I am using not the eye I am used to.

Experimental procedure on volunteer is experimental. More news at 11.

I can imagine some rather catastrophic negative outcomes from novel new brain surgery techniques, even if the blindness were not somehow made worse.

Interesting, I hadn’t thought about that, and I haven’t noticed different thinking. But I switch back and forth all the time. Like writing this I’m using my nearsighted eye, but if I look across the room my vision switches to my farsighted eye (more or less instantly).

The thing other people notice is after I’ve had a long day of screen time and am physically tired (long day, late night), and I’m out with friends, my farsighted eye does all the work and my nearsighted eye gets lazy and wanders. It’s got nothing to do and can take a break! I’ve heard many a good-natured joke about it over the years.

In a way it strengthens it since even if he became blind later one, still:

> It was, rather, the behavior of one mentally blind, or agnosic—able to see but not to decipher what he was seeing.

And while he does get better, it does end up with:

> But then, paradoxically, a release was given, in the form of a second and now final blindness—a blindness he received as a gift.

Cf: https://web.archive.org/web/20240111185639/https://www.newyo... (older version does not trigger the paywall or at least can disable it while it's loading).

For weight loss I go via a calorie deficit, but still consume all macronutrients, I wouldn't cut out sugar as I would feel pretty rubbish. I'd go less on the sweets like chocolate and lollies but I wouldn't completely cut out sugar as its important.

The exact same comment I would write. Waitin for generation two of any of this kind of tech.

Same here - but I can switch my vision for screen tasks to either only near-sighted (by being about 25cm away), or to far-sighted (by being about 70cm away). If I am doing that in the middle of the task, it feels a tiny bit “strange”.

> Sure, but when you eat sugar in several forms and overeat generally, you statistically get fatter. This works the other way round too. There are myriads of specific cases on the sides of the bell curve but the solution for the everyday Joe is to eat less, more healthily. Practicing sports helps too, but not so much (it is important for other health reasons)

Absolutely the issue is overeating, but you don't safely achieve good energy balance or even a calorie deficit by cutting out all forms of sugar.

You could increase your fat intake and still stay the same weight.

It's okay to reduce your sugar intake, or intake of simple sugars but removing sugar altogether isn't the right way to go.

"I" think was obvious

Ah I see what you mean. For me I don't think there is any distance where both near & far eye could each have focus -- it's always too blurry in one or the other. I could see how being able to consciously switch would feel weird!

I'm curious -- if you held a stereogram at the right distance, could you see the 3D image? Or is it also like me, only one eye at a time?

And you are wrong, as noted. If you mean "it was obvious to me", that's a different matter ... but it's also irrelevant.

This is fascinating! Did they ever discuss/consider taking incremental steps with the glasses from your current state to what perfect should be? I could make hypothesises for multiple outcomes here but don't actually understand any of the fundamental systems to know which outcome is most likely.

You're in this subthread:

> Why would you not go first?

But then it's also obvious that this is an irrelevant argument because other things very much can get worse. It's not like becoming blind would be the primary concern of a non-blind person getting a brain implant.

What I did for myself was not exactly scientific.

I realized I overeat, mostly because I stay at the table longer with family and friends (hey, I am French! :)) and I eat too much before I realize that I am full. Or even realize I am full but what the heck, this nicely looking petit four is inviting.

So I decided to follow the JEFH approach (Just Eat Fucking Half). I did not change a lot in what I eat but mistly how much. I do not drink any sodas (we are trained in France since kindergarden to only drink water at meals) and getting rid of the sweet parts was not that of an effort. I removed most of the unhealthy stuff, though I was not eating much of that anyway (all kind of sausage and hams we have here, and heavily processed food).

I also do some sport, but not to lose weight.

I lost 16 kg effortlessly, and now need more effort to lose 15 more - this is going to be significantly more difficult. The main blockage is my lazyness and lack of self-control (and possibly some ilness I have but that would be too easy to put everything on that).

I have everything to succeed: a healthy eating country, money for any kind of food I need, a very high quality enterprise restaurant where I eat healthy food (and cheap), a place where I can easily practice sports.

So yes, I do not follow a strictly scientific method, but rather some common sense and reasonable self restrain. Ah, I also have a wife that I am afraid of and who watches with a stern eye what I am eating.

It makes me wonder if you had been given lenses that started at small corrections, and you switched them out for greater corrections could allow your brain to adjust. Like the Invisalign of glasses. People are often able to adjust to diminishing eyesight, adapting and finding ways to make use of what is left, so it seems that if your vision got slightly better every two weeks, your brain could adapt and adjust. Hell, people are able to adjust to wearing mirror glasses that flip everything upside down, so eventually your brain would probably adjust and correct for the size difference.

My brain defines my whole life. Risking damaging the thing that defines everything I love, hate, have interest in, or remember is a pretty high bar. Blind people live pretty rich, full, independent lives, even if they have to forgo many things the sighted enjoy. I don't know if I would say the same for the severely brain damaged.

>> As for the rest--your other posts implicitly assume that everyone else shares your choices and priorities--and if not then they aren't relevant.

>Wow, where do you get that from?

I mean, right off the bat, you started with "If you are blind it cannot be worse" which is a pretty big assumption that being blind is so horrible and makes your life so worthless, that risking your life to reverse it seems like the obvious choice.

The upside down glasses is a good example. As I understand it, after you get used to wearing them and then take them off, you see everything upside down with your regular eyes, and it takes a while to get back to normal. Doesn’t sound fun.

But in my case I don’t think even that would work. Elaborating further on the ophthalmologist’s words (and as another poster here noted), the neuroplasticity required to develop stereoscopic vision is just not there past some age. No amount of lens trickery will join the left-right circuits in the cortex.

@crote wrote

> How do you feel about being blind and paralyzed?

To what I replied

> How do you feel about not having THE sense that defines your whole life?

→ this meant "how would you fel if you lost THE sense that defines your life, such as loding your sight when you are an artist" (for example). The idea is that what is a disaster depends on people (this is what I meant in This is a matter of personal choice and weighing risks vs your life as it is.).

In other words - losing a sense can be so devastating that you can risk much more for the (large, tiny, incalculable?) risjk of losing even more. Everyone is free to decide.

Hope this is more clear now

Yes, I was not clear here (I clarified in another comment) - I meant if you are blind, you cannot get "blinder".

There are other risks of course, which I addressed in the comments (basically, it is for an individual to decide whether they want to accept risks, also in the case where the risks are not quantifiable)

It isn't always pragmatic to account for the 5% of people who misinterpret what is being said or who aren't able to contextualize because they are stupid. We've all misinterpreted obvious things before. It isn't that big of a deal.

I had to do a little bit of “cross-eyeing” and then I can see something that does look like 3D. That said, my eyes are a little weird this way - back in childhood I trained to move them separately as well - a great party trick to freak out the people ! :-))