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Valve CEO Gabe Newell’s Neuralink competitor is expecting its first brain chip this year
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
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So, to all the people freaking out and saying this is as bad as Musk and Neuralink:
https://starfishneuroscience.com/blog/ultra-low-power-miniature-electrophysiological-electronics/?header-bg=card-bg0
There is here zero mention of things like 'being able to take a phone call' or 'bluetooth your brain directly into a keyboard or mouse or other people's brains' as Musk was saying.
This seems very much intended to be aimed at legitimate medical conditions.
They didn't steal the PhD work of an actual pioneer in the development of medical brain implants via poaching a number of grad students who worked with him (which is what happened with Neuralink, btw), they are instead partnering with basically a nonprofit cooperative of the world's foremost experts on nanoelectronics development, who have an established track record of developing various medical devices.
...
If news comes out about GabeN electrocuting monkeys and pigs to either death, or insanity/brain damage so extreme it causes them to kill themselves to escape the pain (again, this literally happened at Neuralink), then I will absolutely do a 180 heel pivot and condemn the fuck out of that.
Just to be clear here, a BCI is probably the very last thing I would ever be an early adopter of as some kind of commercial, general use product. Seems absolutely insane given the rampant cybersecurity problems just basically everywhere all the time, not to mention I just don't like the idea of an actual chip in my actual brain, permanent holes in my skull.
Valve and GabeN are not some paragons of virtue, they basically invented (and still widely use and encourage) half of the monetization and dark pattern bullshit that is now everywhere in the entire games industry.
... But to me at least, this seems nowhere near as openly, comically, real world supervillain levels of evil as Elon and Neuralink.