BrainBridge, a neuroscience and biomedical engineering startup from the US, has claimed that they are developing the world’s first head transplant system. According to their website, it is “a groundbreaking device that will represent a landmark achievement in the fields of neuroscience, human engineering, and artificial intelligence.”
A video showing how BrainBridge will be doing the head transplant with the help of robots was shared on social media, and it has gone viral. The animated video shows two surgical robots operating on two bodies at the same time. From one body, they remove the head and places it on the other body. The animation further shows how the robots would work on the body if this technology becomes a reality.
As per BrainBridge, this system is a “revolutionary concept for head transplant system, employing cutting-edge robotics and artificial intelligence to ensure successful head and face transplantation procedures with improved outcomes and faster recoveries.”
Don’t they mean body transplant?
how nice, ultra billionaires can buy the body of some poor guy by promising to pay their families couple million bucks
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so if he pays the donor’s family money it is still his money!
What is the point of this? Seems like the kinda shit a billionaire would fund, chasing immortality via body swapping or some horseshit.
Face transplantation I can understand, so maybe the reference to head transplantation is wishful thinking. Or macabre future-proofing.
What is the point of this? Seems like the kinda shit a billionaire would fund, chasing immortality via body swapping or some horseshit.
I think you answered your own question - there’s enough rich people prepared to throw money at longevity projects.
Optimistically, it could be used to help match quadriplegics with brain dead donors. And be used to refine microsurgical processes that would help many with various levels of nerve damage. Presuming the donor body is able to be controlled by the head. I think this has been done with monkeys and the result was quadriplegic monkeys.
Pessimistically, it’s as you say, billionaire immortality.
Kind of starts to create a Ship of Theseus paradox with a human subjects and would be interesting to see what kind of psychology comes about when brains change bodies.
Realistically if we can completely sever a spinal cord and reattach it to a donor body we can heal most quadriplegics without replacing the body
This is some sci-fi horror stuff right here.
David Cronenberg is basing his next film on this. Or he should do anyway.
It’s going to be the sequel to Face/Off - Head/Swap.
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Nice of you to offer. How about Wednesday?
I did wonder about Head2Head.
Is this anti-guillotine technology??
It’s the classic Reverse Guillotine.
Yeah absolutely fucking no way I am letting a start up do surgery on any part of me.
Also I think it’s hilarious that the article put the video in the form of a tweet… Which pulls with it the user context explaining that head transplants are not currently possible hahahah.
If I was going to die anyway, I wouldn’t mind trying, even though I’m 99% sure it wouldn’t work. I guess that’s the target patient.
Exclusive first photo of the procedure in action:
I had an arsehole transplant once. The arsehole rejected me.
That’s a bum deal.
My arsehole left me and now I’m full of shit!
Ah, the ol’ head transplant scam is on deck again. Has the AI scam run out of steam already?
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Aren’t typical organ transplants fraught with issues? Like the body rejecting the organ?
How would this work with a head on another body?? I’d imagine it must be more difficult to force the body to accept the new head. I don’t see any mention of this in the article.
Technically, I think it would be a body transplant, not a head transplant, and the transplanted organ would actually reject you since the immune system is part of the body, not the head.
I didn’t call it a head transplant… but yes that’s what I was getting at. I would imagine that this needs something beyond immunosuppresants, not to mention how does the nervous system work? It can’t be as simple as plug in and go.
Complete immune suppression, this isn’t a step towards transplanting brains it’s a step towards brain body separation and the eventual singularity.
Watch Ghost in the shell, you’ll get it.
You would think if we had the ability to repair severed spinal neurons that we’d be doing it.
Last I heard, that part is currently just a bit ‘magic’, but they have some vague ideas. The processes I have heard about rely on an exceptionally sharp knife and a special glue for the spinal cords where anyone involved is either super secretive about what it is or claims it’s something super basic. The transplant idea mostly seems to rely on severing it cleanly though, that is the usual excuse I hear about why it can’t be used for other purposes like repairing spinal cords/etc.
Destroy the immune system and recreate it. I think you can do this will
Back in my day, con men ripped off investors with plausible stories.
Yeah I’m calling bullshit on this.
Wouldn’t you need a willing participant as a donor…?
Willing?
