Beyond The Hype: How Neuralink Advances The Transhumanist Agenda And Harms Innocent Anim

As Elon Musk announces human trials for the Neuralink brain implant, the company has come under scrutiny for claims of animal abuse, as well as advancing the Transhumanist agenda.

On November 30, Elon Musk’s Neuralink company unveiled the specifics of how their brain implant will work and revealed they expect to begin human trials within the next six months.

“We have been working hard to get ready for our first human. We want to be extremely careful and certain it will work well before putting a device in a human,” Musk stated. “We think probably in about 6 months we should have our first neuralink in a human.”

The nearly 3 hour promotional event exclusively focused on the vision of Musk and his team, and the claimed benefits of such a technology. However, when we look beyond the hype and read between the lines, a picture of animal abuse and a Transhumanist dystopia emerges.

Show and Tell

When opening the Neuralink “Show and Tell” event, Musk outlined the long-term vision of his company:

“The overarching goal of neuralink is ultimately to create a whole brain interface, a generalized input, output device, that in the long term, literally could interact with every aspect of your brain, and in the short term can interface with any given section of your brain, and solve a tremendous number of things that cause debilitating issues for people.”

Musk believes this will lead to “solving many brain injury, spine injury issues along the way”. He claimed one of the first applications of the Neuralink will be to restore vision to the blind. He stated that Neuralink will be able to help someone who has never had sight be able to see for the first time. Musk also mentioned the goal of restoring mobility for individuals who are unable to operate their own muscles and “enable them to operate their phone faster than someone with working hands”.

“Even better than that would be to bridge the connection, take the signals from the motor cortex, let’s say somebody has a broken neck, bridging those signals to Neuralink devices located in the spinal cord. We are confident there are no physical limitations to enabling full body functionality,” Musk noted in his presentation.

Musk also highlighted how his team has been working with six monkeys to develop tools for humans to communicate using only their mind. Musk referred to a video of a monkey moving a cursor around on a computer screen with their mind as “telepathic typing”. The Neuralink team claims the device inserted into the skull of the monkey allows them to follow highlighted keys on screen to spell out words. They believe this could allow someone who cannot use their limbs to communicate “telepathically” with their phone or computer.

Musk said his team has “miniaturized the neural implant to a point where it matches the thickness of the skull that is removed”. He compared the brain implant to “replacing a piece of skull with a smart watch”.

When discussing the importance of “upgradeability” of the devices, Musk stated that it’s important to be able to easily upgrade the Neuralink devices because “you wouldn’t want an iPhone 1 stuck in your head if an iPhone 14 is available”. He also promised that an individual would be able to remove the device and replace it if it “stops working for any reason” or if they simply desire an “upgrade” to the latest version.

Musk went on to describe how his team tests the implanting of a Neuralink by emulating a brain with a rubber replica. This fake brain is “threaded” with 64 tiny threads connected to the Neuralink device. The threading takes place in “about 15 minutes” with a robot very rapidly poking at the brain to insert the tiny threads.

After concluding his presentation Musk introduced Neuralink team member DJ to show how the Neuralink will be threaded into a human brain. DJ said the aim of Neuralink is to make the devices “safer and more useful” so they can gain access to different brain regions “so that we can expand the functionalities of our technology”.

DJ went on to describe the “N1 Implant”, which is the size of a quarter and “has over 1000 channels that are capable of recording and stimulating” the brain. The N1 is connected to 64 tiny threads which allow it to be “fully implantable and wireless”. DJ noted the device can even be charged with a wireless battery.

A later demonstration with one of the monkeys showed how a “charging coil” can be placed in a specific location and the person or animal with the Neuralink implant simply walks within proximity of the coil for it to charge. Personally, I can’t help but think of the machines from the Matrix and their effort to turn humans into batteries.

The Neuralink team also built the R1 Robot to surgically implant the N1 device and insert the threads into a moving, living brain. At Show and Tell the team did a live demonstration of the R1 robot inserting these threads into a simulated brain at a rapid pace.

Needless Suffering of Animals

Within days of Musk’s Show and Tell event, Reuters reported that Neuralink is under federal investigation for “potential animal-welfare violations amid internal staff complaints that its animal testing is being rushed, causing needless suffering and deaths”. The report is based on a review of documents and conversations with “sources familiar with the investigation and company operations”.

According to Reuters:

The federal probe, which has not been previously reported, was opened in recent months by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General at the request of a federal prosecutor, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. The probe, one of the sources said, focuses on violations of the Animal Welfare Act, which governs how researchers treat and test some animals.

Reuters claims to have reviewed “dozens of Neuralink documents”, including audio recordings, emails, and presentations, as well as interviewed more than 20 current and former employees of the company. The employees claim that “pressure from CEO Musk to accelerate development has resulted in botched experiments”, including an increase in the number of animals being killed during the tests.

Elon Musk and the Neuralink team did not respond to Reuters for comment, nor did they respond to repeated attempts by The Last American Vagabond for comment.

The disturbing accusations of unnecessary animal suffering and deaths of monkeys was first reported by independent journalist Maryam Henein in February. Henein reported:

“A total of 15 macaque monkeys out of 23 have died at U.C. Davis in a Neuralink-funded project titled “Development of a Large-Scale Brain-Machine Interface in Rhesus Macaques.” By now “the others may be dead too,” says Ryan Merkley, the director of research advocacy for the Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine (PCRM).”

Henein’s reporting was based on statements made by the PCRM. In a letter to Robert Gibbens, Director of  Animal Welfare Operations at the USDA, the PCRM writes:

“The records reviewed by the Physicians Committee indicate that many, if not all, of the monkeys experienced extreme suffering as a result of inadequate animal care and the highly invasive experimental head implants during the experiments, which were performed in pursuit of developing what Neuralink and Elon Musk have publicly described as a “brain-machine interface.” These highly invasive implants and their associated hardware, which are inserted in the brain after drilling holes in the animals’ skulls, have produced recurring infections in the animals, significantly compromising their health, as well as the integrity of the research.

The PCRM also filed a lawsuit against the University of California – Davis where the testing is being conducted.

Meanwhile, at Show and Tell, Musk noted that two of the monkeys have had the latest version of Neuralink in their heads for over a year and a half. “This is a very good sign that it lasts for a long time with no observed ill effects,” Musk stated. No mention was made of the abuse of the animals or the claims by the PCRM.

The World Economic Forum and Transhumanism

While Musk has portrayed the Neuralink as a way for the blind to see and handicapped to walk, he has also made statements which provide a deeper insight into his pursuit of merging man with machine. This concept of extending human life with machines or implanting digital devices into human beings is a part of the overarching philosophy of Transhumanism, which is promoted by Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and others in the Silicon Valley-Intelligence community nexus.

To create a “whole brain interface” Musk said the Neuralink device will need to read the signals from the brain. He also claimed” you want to be able to write the signals... you want to ultimately do that for the entire brain, and also extend that to the rest of your nervous system”.

The implications of being able to write signals to the brain are worrisome enough when considered beyond the context of helping the blind see or the handicapped walk. Who would decide what signals were “written” and sent to the brain? What impacts would this have on the nervous system with long-term use? These and other questions were not addressed by Musk and his team.

However, Musk revealed his true goal in promoting Neuralink.

“My main motivation: what do we do about AI? What do we do about artificial general intelligence, if we have digital super intelligence, that’s just much smarter than any human, how do we mitigate that risk at a species level?,” Musk asked the audience at Show and Tell.

He went on to state that humanity’s best case scenario is that AI is “very benevolent” and humanity is able to “go along for the ride”.

“The biggest limitation in going along for the ride, and aligning AI, is the bandwidth, how quickly you can interact with the computer,” Musk said. “We are already cyborgs in a way in that your phone and computer are already extensions of yourself.”

The controversial technocrat said that humanity is limited by “how quick our thumbs can type or our voice can speak”, a problem which he said can be remedied by bridging the gap between humanity and AI. “This is the fundamental limitation that I think we need to address to mitigate the long term risk of AI, and also to go along for the ride,” he concluded.

Musk has made similar statements warning about the implications of the rise of AI as far back as 2014. He has also previously made similar calls for humanity merging with AI. At the 2017 World Government Summit Musk stated“I do think there is a path to having some sort of merger of biological intelligence and machine intelligence.” Musk has said he believes this would solve the problem of losing control over AIs. During the same talk he also called for a Universal Basic Income to solve the problem of AI taking jobs from humans.

Musk is not alone in this call for UBI and merging with machines to mitigate the risk of a potentially dangerous AI. Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum, has also made numerous statements and organized panels discussing the need for a UBI and the ways in which man and machine will become one, as part of what he calls “The Fourth Industrial Revolution”. The WEF describes it as follows:

“The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.”

The 4IR is Schwab’s pet project and the name of his 2016 book where he calls for a world with ubiquitous digital surveillance, driverless vehicles, smart cities, social credit scores, augmented reality, and, most importantly, the loss of individual liberty and privacy.

The World Economic Forum has also published articles discussing the move towards wearable devices and implantable devices as part of augmented reality.

In an interview conducted in January 2016 to the Swiss channel RTS, Schwab explains that he believes human beings will receive a chip in their brain in order to merge with the digital world within ten years.

“At first we will implant them in our clothes. An then we could imagine that we will implant them in our brains or in our skin. And in the end, maybe, there will be direct communication between our brain and the digital world. What we see is a kind of fusion of the physical, digital and biological world.”

Of course, this discussion is fairly commonplace among the WEF alumni, including Dr. Yuval Noah Harari. At the 2020 annual gathering of the WEF, Harari claimed, “We are no longer mysterious souls; we are now hackable animals”. In fact, earlier this year Sociable reported that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched the Neural Evidence Aggregation Tool (NEAT) program, which focuses on “aggregating preconscious brain signals to determine what someone believes to be true.”

Will Humanity Accept Brain Chips?

All of the pieces appear to be in place for humanity to walk blindly into the Fourth Industrial Revolution and The Great Reset. Between the WEF, Klaus Schwab, Yuval Harari, and Elon Musk — the path is being laid out before us. However, the question remains, will humanity accept brain chips in the name of health, entertainment, and convenience?

According to an admittedly small 2022 poll, Americans overwhelmingly prefer to remain human, with the highest support for merging with AI coming from 18 to 25 year olds. When asked whether Musk’s brain implants are the next level of human evolution/life improving or will bring humanity under totalitarian control, 77% of those polled said it “will be used to usher in a never-before-seen level of totalitarian control”.

When those polled were asked specifically about Klaus Schwab’s vision of merging humans with AI, 67% said they prefer to remain human and “not merge with AI”.

Perhaps there is hope after all.

SOURCE: https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/neuralink-hype/