Resolves to YES if Neuralink implants a chip into a human brain before Jan 1, 2025. I will rely on official statements or demos, or highly credible media reports. It is NOT necessary that the patient survives, or that the device even functions properly. The resolution is based solely on whether the device is implanted and connected to any living human brain.
In the case that this is ambiguous, such as rumors that the project is underway, but without publicly accessible proof, I will use my judgement to resolve. I will not bet.
Dec 1, 10:05am: Will Neuralink implant a chip in a human brain by the end of 2024? → Will a Neuralink device be implanted in a human brain by the end of 2024?
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@MartinModrak https://www.reuters.com/technology/neuralink-implants-brain-chip-first-human-musk-says-2024-01-29/
Isn't the statement from the founder official? Different resolution criteria than the other market. There is a third market which has resolved this as YES already.
@GazDownright I think you need to stretch the definition of "official statement" quite a lot to include tweets on personal accounts. Note also that Musk's tweet (at least the one that was widely circulated) didn't even mention whether the implant went into brain. It very likely did and very likely Musk didn't lie, but he has a very checkered history of tweet veracity, so I think some caution is warranted until an official statement is made by the company.
Betting NO, just because Elmo lies so much (following https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/elon-musk-lies)
@MartinModrak I highly doubt he lied about this. (But not so highly as to say it's >99% that this really happened, so I'm betting NO accordingly. Thank you!)
@chrisjbillington There's also a lot of potential gray zone, e.g. they could have implanted a device into arm/butt/... so the tweet would be true, but market won't resolve.
@MartinModrak "initial results show promising neuron spike detection" doesn't sound like an arm or a butt to me.
And even if it did, this is not a context where I expect anything other than a straightforward face value interpretation to be the correct one. If it was anyone other than Musk people would just take it at face value, and they should in this case too - it's not correct to always treat Musk's tweets with that kind of scepticism. He's not arguing with anyone or talking about politics or estimating timelines or anything else we know he's bad at.
@chrisjbillington I agree it is most likely Elon is not lying, but I think nobody should be comfortable just taking Elon's tweets as fact (and the market is not about tweets). Just to take the most egregious example, he's been fined for manipulating markets by misleading tweets, of course I trust his tweets less than tweets from somebody who has a better track record. I don't follow the case closely to know if there's potential financial gain for Elmo in lying about this, but it is not obvious there isn't.
Also, there are neurons in both arms and butts.
Also, there are neurons in both arms and butts
Not many though, extremely unlikely they're talking about neurons outside the brain.
I get the history, I just don't think the Musk cynicism is universally applicable is all. I don't think all tweets are suspect because some are, and I think this one is sufficiently far from controversy or stock price manipulation for there to be basically any concern at all.
@shankypanky https://x.com/anilkseth/status/1752472065792233694?s=46 Here’s some thoughtful considerations about neuralink and this “telepathy” concept, by one of the biggest neuroscientists of our time. I recommend listening to the short podcast he links at the end too.
@DanMan314 their site doesn't seem to refer to it as a chip so I have a feeling the description is using the wrong term https://neuralink.com/
@DanMan314 I'm all for not leaping to conclusions, but I don't think this statement is ambiguous enough to give me pause. As for Musk scepticism generally, the appropriate level of Musk scepticiam is context-dependent. I don't think this is a context where we should expect bald-faced lies to be on the cards given a clinical trial was expected.
@chrisjbillington the statement does seem pretty unambiguous so the more I think about it the more I don't see the wiggle room here (and I agree that it's unlikely to be a "bald-faced lie") but the general point is that a brief tweet might omit context that would cause this market not to resolve yet, and I don't think Musk is above that.
And yea I'm not trying to argue it needs to meet some narrow definition of "chip", just that this could hypothetically strain the market description in some way that's hard to articulate. I suspect we'll know more in like 30 minutes or less.
What if they're just testing the implantation procedure with a placeholder?
FWIW my intuition says it wouldn't make much sense to undertake the risk of a surgical procedure just as a test of the implantation process, might as well put a chip in if you're going to do surgery.
a brief tweet might omit context that would cause this market not to resolve yet,
Maybe. If this were my market, I'd resolve though. No pressure to the creator, I have plenty of mana and don't need the payout, but as a matter of whether I'd take the risk of misresolution, I'd stake whatever fraction of my creator reputation it would involve on treating this tweet as straightforward fact.
fwiw I think we need to take into accout that they were cleared for trials and solicited patients with quadriplegia or ALS (the latter of which is highly time sensitive). I obviously am holding yes and requested a yes resolution, but I agree with Chris and think it's highly unlikely they would go through the trouble - particularly after a stretch of primate trials - of performing neurosurgery for a placeholder.
here's the release when they were cleared for clinical trials by the FDA (I recognise this doesn't state exactly what the process will be):
@shankypanky
I don't know if placeholder surgery would even be allowed. Brain surgery itself is well known, it need not be studied to implement something, doing useless research that endangers a patient's life generally not approved.