At Musk’s brain-chip startup, animal-testing panel is rife with conflicts

https://www.reuters.com/technology/musks-brain-chip-startup-animal-testing-panel-is-rife-with-potential-conflicts-2023-05-04/

by wootland • 3 years ago

140 68 3 years ago

reuters.com

awb• 3 years ago

Nineteen of the board’s 22 members were Neuralink employees as of late 2022, according to a company document reviewed by Reuters. The oversight board’s chair was the Neuralink executive who led the company’s animal-care program, and at least 11 other members were employees directly involved with animal care or research.

Employees controlling the board sounds highly unusual for most companies, but for maybe not for a moonshot company? Didn’t Zuckerberg negotiate total control of the FB board?

And aren’t most boards incentives linked to company performance?

I’m definitely concerned about the ethics for animal testing, but I’d never trust a company or board to regulate itself. That’s what the government and the law is for. If there are concerns the government should step in.

elil17• 3 years ago

Isn’t it an ethics board, not a corporate board? So very different from FB?

meepmorp2• 3 years ago

institutional animal care and use committees

That's what they're talking about, not corporate governance. If you do animal experimentation, you have an independent board that reviews the protocols, etc., to ensure things are done ethically. Similar to an IRB with human experiments.

The heavy weighting towards employees isn't a sign that it was selected for its independence from the company.

hackernewds2• 3 years ago

So how did the board if independent, end up electing company representatives?

jjk166• 3 years ago

In response to an inquiry from Reuters, the USDA said it had found no conflicts of interest on Neuralink’s board when the department inspected its animal-research operations during 10 inspections since 2020. The company has passed all inspections with no citations, according to public records and a person with knowledge of the examinations.

I'm not going to get too worked up by a private company doing something that has received no complaints from the federal agency in charge of overseeing it. If you think the USDA's regulations are too lax, that's something that we the people can potentially change.

JacobThreeThree• 3 years ago

From what I can tell by looking at the IACUC membership lists for various institutions, it's completely normal to have almost all members of these committees come from the same institution.

For example, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, there are only two non-affiliated members out of an IACUC member list of 21 people.

https://animalcare.illinois.edu/about/institutional-animal-c...

In my opinion, this Reuters article is another manifestation of the anti-Musk media bias that preys on the ignorance of your average person who won't know that this IACUC structure is entirely par for the course.

meowkit• 3 years ago

This article and others are most certainly just baseless hit pieces. They have shown up before, and seem to be extreme animal activists leveraging anti-Musk sentiment.

A neurosurgeon at Neurallink was just on Huberman Lab. He discussed, in detail: why they do the kind of animal testing they do, the humane parts, inhumane practices, the internal culture.

I’ll take his word for it to be honest.

runarberg• 3 years ago

Mistreating animals is a multi-million dollar industry. People in power have been known to cater to those who can spend the most on lobbying efforts. Even if your representative doesn’t get influenced by lobby groups, there is a whole ideology disproportionately popular among the ruling class around lax government involvement. Representation in congress sits at one representative per 4-5 hundred thousand constituents, one of the lowest representation in the world. If your representative is holds opposite ideology from yours or if the majority in congress has the opposite ideology from you and your representative, you have little chance of changing an institution which is independent from congress. If you and your representative and majority of congress hold the same ideology, but the majority of senate or the president don’t, you have little chance of being heard.

No. It is childishly optimistic to thing we the people can change anything about this. Our best shot is complaining on social media and write articles in news magazines, but even that has limited results.

moate• 3 years ago

(Mostly) Worked for Sinclair…

dmbche3• 3 years ago

"The USDA employs 122 inspectors to inspect 11,785 facilities, ranging from zoos and breeders to labs, according to a Congressional Research Service report last July."

What? Jesus that's so absurd

gpm3• 3 years ago

100 facilities per inspector doesn't seem absurd? That's roughly 2 days of inspection per year per facility.

dmbche3• 3 years ago

Well it's not like a building inspection - how many animals are in each building? You have to assess them to see their welfare - on top of checking that the enclosures and practices are up to code.

Some practices might not get done in those days - and might not be reviewed. Imagine no animals has to be put down during these two days, there will be no actual review of that procedure - and so on.

In slaighterhouses in Canada, we have federal inspectors during all work hours but activists still film abuse happening.

boringg• 3 years ago

100 per year add travel time. Easy metrics to hit. Fyi im being sarcastic- thats a bananas amount add in travel time + paperwork + pretravel prep. Maybe every 3 years, maaaybe.

anonymouskimmer• 3 years ago

Labs, at least, are often clustered in geographic areas. Zoos are often near large metro areas with other places to inspect.

Breeders and remote zoo-like facilities are probably the most difficult to get to.

At Musk’s brain-chip startup, animal-testing panel is rife with conflicts

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