- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.zip
TL;DR: Disability tech company working on eye implants goes bankrupt and shuts down without telling any of their patients or having any continued support or maintenance for the implants. As a result, many of their patients are now without vision again. Their $500k eye implants can't be removed without risking their health, but also can cause adverse effects if left in, and also prevent patients from getting MRIs for brain tumors and such.
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Neural implants—devices that interact with the human nervous system, either on its periphery or in the brain—are part of a rapidly growing category of medicine that’s sometimes called electroceuticals. Some technologies are well established, like deep-brain stimulators that reduce tremors in people with Parkinson’s disease. But recent advances in neuroscience and digital technology have sparked a gold rush in brain tech, with the outsized investments epitomized by Elon Musk’s buzzy brain-implant company, Neuralink. Some companies talk of reversing depression, treating Alzheimer’s disease, restoring mobility, or even dangle the promise of superhuman cognition.
Not all these companies will succeed, and Los Angeles–based Second Sight provides a cautionary tale for bold entrepreneurs interested in brain tech. What happens when cutting-edge implants fail, or simply fade away like yesterday’s flip phones and Betamax? Even worse, what if the companies behind them go bust?
After Second Sight discontinued its retinal implant in 2019 and nearly went out of business in 2020, a public offering in June 2021 raised US $57.5 million at $5 per share. The company promised to focus on its ongoing clinical trial of a brain implant, called Orion, that also provides artificial vision. But its stock price plunged to around $1.50, and in February 2022, just before this article was published, the company announced a proposed merger with an early-stage biopharmaceutical company called Nano Precision Medical (NPM).
Jesus fucking Christ. capitalism is so unbelievably gross. imagine having reached a point as a species where we can do things like cure blindness and having it immediately devolve into bullshit like "startup companies" and "stock prices".
An alien species would be like "so you give the breakthrough procedures and medicine to the people for free, right? Right?"
tell me about it. like, the whole idea of a "technology gold rush" is so gross. the goal immediately becomes "making money with the tech" instead of "making things with the tech".
It's a good historical comparison too, because a lot of the money in the gold rush was actually in selling stuff to people who came in to look for the gold, most of whom left broke. Scamming naive "entrepreneurs" in a new industry with little oversight has always been very profitable.
yep. even I fell for it recently, in a manner of speaking. doing some stock trading and racked up quite the bill in commissions. didn't notice/mind at first because I was doing well, but when my trades started going south, I became more aware that my commissions bill only kept growing.
I don't even know what that means, so no doubt I would have been an easy mark. I keep my money in Iraqi dinars and vintage kalashnikovs.
Move Fast and Break things, but it's inside of your skull :agony-shivering:
It doesn't exactly "cure" blindness. It could be that they had no way to improve it any further.
in a sane world, the government produced the tech in the first place and treated people for free.
in a somewhat less sane world, the government should at least forcibly appropriate the tech without compensation and require the company to ensure continuity of care before winding down operations.
But if we just cured people for free, where would their incentive to not suffer a congenital condition leading to blindness be?
There was a heartbreaking story in the New Yorker a while back about some people in Australia who got neural implants that would warn them when they were about to have a seizure, which allowed them to lead more fulfilling lives (because they could prepare for their seizures). The company that provided technical support for the implants went under and the recipients had to be told that they would now be back to having severe seizures without warning.
Shit's fucked up.
This is what cyberpunk really is and it's fucking bleak. There are ways to save these people, but it's just not profitable.
Anyway, let's talk about Neuralink.
Sorry they can't be perceived because the company providing your perception subscription went bankrupt
This is literally the plot of the Phase I clinical trial short from V/H/S 2.
Fuck, this is just awful. Is there anything that can be done about this sort of thing? Would reverse-engineering it work?
