Elon Musk’s Neuralink Pushes Back Against Monkey Torture Allegations

Neuralink has leaped into harm management to defend its remedy of take a look at monkeys that animal rights teams declare had been subjected to torture and horrific situations.

On Tuesday, Elon Musk’s mind-melding brain-computer interface enterprise issued a prolonged statement pushing again in opposition to latest criticism from animal rights teams claiming the corporate’s experiments on monkeys led to “extreme suffering,” and greater than a dozen deaths.

“Recent articles have raised questions around Neuralink’s use of research animals at the University of California, Davis Primate Center,” Neuralink mentioned. “It is important to note that these accusations come from people who oppose any use of animals in research.”

The firm went on to defend its practices, claiming animal testing was ethically required for all novel medical gadgets previous to human trials. Though human Neuralink trials probably gained’t happen for a while, latest hiring reports counsel the corporate is certainly transferring in that course. Neuralink says it has but to obtain a single quotation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture over its remedy of animals.

“At Neuralink, we are absolutely committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible.”

Neuralink’s assertion comes lower than one week after an animal rights group known as Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine publicized a criticism filed with the US Department of Agriculture. That criticism, which at instances learn like a dystopian sci-fi model of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, supplies horrifying, grotesque particulars of monkeys allegedly implanted with Neuralink gadgets at a University of California, Davis web site between 2017 and 2020.

As the New York Post notes, among the monkeys geared up with the machine allegedly skilled excessive vomiting and exhaustion whereas others, overcome by stress, allegedly mutilated themselves (Neuralink now claims these misplaced fingers might have resulted from “conflicts with other monkeys.”) Another monkey reportedly developed a pores and skin an infection after having Neuralink’s machine drilled into its head. In all three of these circumstances, the monkeys had been allegedly euthanized.

“The documents reveal that monkeys had their brains mutilated in shoddy experiments and were left to suffer and die,” PCRM Research Coordinators Beckham mentioned in an interview with Futurism. “It’s no mystery why Elon Musk and the university want to keep photos and videos of this horrific abuse hidden from the public.”

Neuralink spoke on to the dying monkey accusations in its assertion, claiming it had first carried out its surgical procedures on cadavers earlier than transferring on to “terminal procedures” the place stay take a look at topics are euthanized following surgical procedure. According to Neuralink, these monkeys are deemed match for surgical procedure by a veterinarian however might have had pre-conditions that would impression their high quality of life. The firm refuted the 15 demise determine, claiming as a substitute a complete of eight monkeys had been euthanized on the UC Davis take a look at web site, with 4 of these deaths probably originating from infections related to the Neuralink machine. Neuralink went on to offload among the blame to UC Davis.

“While the facilities and care at UC Davis did and continue to meet federally mandated standards, we absolutely wanted to improve upon these standards as we transitioned animals to our in-house facilities,” the corporate mentioned.

Neuralink was based in 2016 with the near-term aim of creating an implantable microchip that would use electrodes to theoretically deal with quite a lot of neurological ailments, together with paralysis. Though centered totally on medical purposes, for now, Musk has made lofty claims about Neuralink’s future potential, even going so far as to argue the machine might improve human intelligence and act as a bulwark in opposition to synthetic intelligence overlords. Think singularity, however with bloodier scalps.

Neuralink gained its fair proportion of web fame final yr when it launched a video allegedly demonstrating how ipits machine had taught a monkey to play a Pong-like online game utilizing solely its thoughts. The video admittedly appears to be like spectacular till you notice scientists have used brain-controlled chips to show monkeys recreation for over twenty years.

“Brain-control of computer cursors by monkeys is not new,” University of Newcastle professor Andrew Jackson told Insider on the time.

Neuralink isn’t the one one betting huge on brain-computer interfaces. Small corporations are experimenting with a number of variations of the tech in each medical and consumer contexts. Acumen Research expects the worldwide brain-computer interface market as an entire might attain a hefty valuation of $3.48 billion by 2027.

Still, there’s an enormous distinction between these tamer, extra incremental positive factors as medical gadgets, and Musk’s extra sci-fi-tinged, transhumanist rhetoric. That feasibility hole has some consultants, like University of Pennsylvania Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy Anna Wexler skeptical.

“What concerns me in the near term are the potentially false claims,” Wexler mentioned in an interview with Observer final yr. “Neuralink’s employees are scientists and engineers working on developing what appears to be a legitimate device for medical purposes. Yet, the company’s co-founder is fond of making grandiose and bombastic claims about the potential for that same technology to cure all diseases and allow humans to merge with AI.”

Engaging in doubtlessly lethal and merciless animal analysis to develop life-altering medical gadgets for people who want it’s one factor, however those self same ways begin wanting considerably extra sadistic in the event that they’re carried out within the service of a vaporware product constructed on false guarantees and podcast promotions.