Category: Laptops

• Elon Musk’s brain chip company Neuralink has begun implanting its devices in humans.
• Neuralink’s initial goals are to treat neurological conditions like paralysis and blindness.
• But Musk has expressed a deeper ambition to use the implants to merge humans with AI.

Elon Musk’s secretive and futuristic brain-chip company, Neuralink, has begun implanting its devices in human skulls — and like many of Musk’s ventures, the new technology has been met with both fanfare and skepticism.

The US Food and Drug Administration granted Neuralink approval in 2023 to begin testing the implant in humans. The company inserted a chip into its first human patient in January of 2024, and Musk said the early results showed “promising neuron spike detection.”

Musk, who also runs companies like Tesla and SpaceX, named the first product Telepathy, and announced that the product will enable humans to control a phone or computer “just by thinking.”

What does Neuralink’s brain chip do?

Musk and Neuralink have publicly flaunted a variety of goals for the implanted devices, some of which are intended for the near future, while others are long-term ambitions.

Neuralink’s current priority is to treat patients with neurological conditions, such as paralysis and blindness. Initially, in the first human trial, Neuralink’s goal is to help patients with paralyzed limbs control devices like a computer mouse or keyboard with only their thoughts. 

Musk has reported some success on this front, saying in February 2024 that Neuralink’s first human patient was able to move a mouse cursor around the screen. Musk said the next near-term goal is for patients to hold a button down with their minds.

In the future, Neuralink aims to restore full mobility to paralyzed patients and sight to blind or visually impaired patients.

“Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer. That is the goal,” Musk said in January of 2024. 

But Musk’s ambitions don’t stop with simply treating medical conditions — much like his space-exploration company SpaceX, Musk’s ambitions for Neuralink are to break technological frontiers.

Musk has said he wants Neuralink to ultimately help humans achieve “symbiosis” with artificial intelligence so that they don’t get “left behind” as AI evolves over time.

“In the long term, Neuralink hopes to play a role in AI risk civilizational risk reduction by improving human to AI (and human to human) bandwidth by several orders of magnitude,” Musk said on X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2023.

Musk has also referred to the device as a “Fitbit in your skull,” and floated ideas like using the devices to allow people to save and replay memories.

“The future is going to be weird,” Musk told a crowd in 2020.

Who can get the Neuralink?

Neuralink began recruiting prospective patients in late 2023, shortly after receiving FDA clearance for a human trial. Immediately, thousands of people expressed interest in Neuralink’s brain implant surgery.

But Neuralink’s application comes with an eligibility screener — not just anyone can sign up. Patients must be legal adults, they must hold US citizenship or permanent resident status, and they must have one of the following conditions: “Quadriplegia, paraplegia, visual impairment or blindness, aphasia or the inability to speak, hearing impairment or deafness, and/or major limb amputation (affecting above or below the elbow and/or above or below the knee).”

Neuralink has said it’s specifically searching for individuals with quadriplegia, at least 22 years old, and who have a “consistent and reliable caregiver.” The company has also ruled out anyone with active implanted devices like pacemakers, anyone with ongoing conditions that require MRIs, and people with a history of seizures.

Applicants selected to participate in Neuralink trials will have to participate in a roughly 18-month-long primary study, involving nine at-home and in-person visits, and two weekly hour-long research sessions. The trials also involve long-term follow-up visits over a period of five years.

How ethical is Neuralink?

Like several of Musk’s companies, Neuralink has come under ethical scrutiny — both for its existing research practices and potential moral quandaries that could unfold in the future as the technology advances.

Critics have frequently assailed Neuralink’s missed projections for human trials. Musk had initially promised in 2019 that human trials would begin the following year, but it wasn’t until 2024 that the first patient received the brain chip.

Neuralink’s animal testing practices have also made headlines in recent years. In 2022, an animal-rights group obtained more than 700 pages of public records indicating that monkeys used in Neuralink research underwent “extreme suffering as a result of inadequate animal care and highly invasive experimental head implants during the experiments.”

Neuralink rejected allegations that monkeys were mistreated and said in a statement that the company is “committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible.” Musk later said the test monkeys live in “monkey paradise.”

The FDA rejected Neuralink’s bid initially to launch human trials, citing concerns that the implant would overheat, move around in the brain, or even damage brain tissue. Neuralink apparently resolved those concerns. However, because, in the spring of 2023, the FDA approved Neuralink’s first human trials.

What are the risks of Neuralink?

In addition to typical risks of neurological surgery, scientists have also questioned the unintended consequences that could arise from merging the human brain with computers.

In recent years, even the very concept of a brain chip has come under ethical scrutiny. Neuralink is far from the only company building and testing what’s known as a brain-computer interface — meaning, a device that allows a brain to communicate with a computer — and researchers have found both benefits and downsides for patients who have received BCIs for medical purposes.

Researchers have reported that while many patients undoubtedly benefit from the technology, others have experienced feelings of being unable to recognize themselves or losing their sense of self — a phenomenon known as “estrangement.” 

Bridging the gap between a computer and a human brain also poses ethical quandaries about privacy and security. Experts have speculated that computers could access, decipher, and store brain activity, leaving that data vulnerable to hackers.

Musk has appeared largely unconcerned, however, and has pledged several times to implant a Neuralink device in his own brain.

How successful have Neuralink implantations been?

Though Neuralink’s brain chip has only been implanted in one human, the company has tested it in a number of pigs and monkeys.

In 2020, Neuralink revealed it had implanted a chip in the skull of a pig named Gertrude. The company released footage showing that the chip could record neural activity, and could accurately predict the pig’s limb positions as she walked on a treadmill.

Neuralink released further footage in 2021 showing a monkey playing video games with its mind. Neuroscientists were unimpressed, telling Business Insider that Neuralink is far from the first to do so — scientists have used neural interfaces to allow monkeys to control computer cursors since 2002.

So what does that have to do with your sacred stash of points?

Even though the networks set interchange fees, the card issuers (banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America) get the lion’s share of the revenue. Last year the biggest US banks took home $31 billion of interchange and merchant processing income, according to Bloomberg.

Again, you ask, what does that have to do with my points?

Well, a good chunk of that revenue is spent by banks encouraging you to use their fancy cards. And the best way to do that is via points and rewards. Cards with better rewards and cash-back economics typically charge higher interchange fees.

Which gets us back to Tuesday’s settlement. Merchants have to accept all types of credit cards from Visa and Mastercard under an “honor all cards” rule. But now, they’d be able to charge consumers more depending on the type of card they’re using.

Suddenly, the cash-back you get from your Chase Sapphire Reserve doesn’t seem as enticing when paying a premium on the bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich at your local bodega.

It’s not likely that banks will completely punt on rewards. David Morris, principal analyst, payments at eMarketer, said the card programs are too important to banks to stop engaging those customers.

“They can make allowances of their own in terms of the kinds of rewards, adjusting the rewards accordingly. These are highly profitable programs, so there is some flexibility here for the card companies to be able to make some adjustments along those lines,” he said.

Morris acknowledged that some changes in consumer behavior might occur as a result, “but that would discount the levers that these credit card issuers do have to be able to ensure that they are providing the card value that premium cardholders expect.”

Merchants, especially retailers, don’t seem pleased with the settlement. The National Retail Federation, which represents chains from big box stores to supermarkets, said it “amounts to pennies on the dollar” toward their costs. And the Retail Industry Leaders Association called it “a mere drop in the bucket.”

Both trade groups expressed support on Tuesday for the Credit Card Competition Act before Congress, which would require large banks to offer multiple payment networks for processing transactions through their credit cards.

While many small businesses already charge an extra fee for those paying with a credit card, David Silverman, a senior director at Fitch Ratings, said most major retailers won’t pass the interchange costs directly to consumers.

“These retailers have been absorbing costs across any number of cost functions,” such as labor, he said.

It’s not yet clear what impact the settlement will have. The agreement hasn’t yet been approved, and time will tell how merchants and banks handle the changes.

But the points game can be one of fine margins, and a change to interchange fees could have ripple effects for rewards programs.

Don’t be surprised if it starts taking a lot longer to rack up the points required for your next getaway.

The new system would charge visitors more during peak times, such as sunny summer weekends that draw higher attendance, than it would for rainy weekdays in the offseason, Merlin CEO Scott O’Neil told CNBC in an interview Monday.

“At least for our business, surge pricing is not the name, it’s dynamic pricing,” O’Neil said. “And that actually, ironically, does two things: It actually protects the guest experience.

O’Neil said in the interview that dynamic pricing will help the parks, which have a limited capacity, deal with fluctuating demand in a way that cuts down on overcrowding and long wait times.

“You don’t want to go to Legoland Florida or Legoland New York or Legoland California or Madame Tussauds right down the street here and wait hours in line,” he said.

“You take the prices up, it keeps the numbers down to a reasonable number,” he said. On days without as much foot traffic, the park could then lower the price of admission and attract those looking for a bargain.

O’Neil declined to provide specifics on the pricing swings under the model, but suggested that guests attending on off-peak days could potentially see a 10% discount, or even “a bit more.”

A company spokesperson told BI that they didn’t have specifics to share yet on whether there would be a price limit for any price hikes under the new model.

“For those of us who are a little more budget-conscious, a little more value-based, what an opportunity to have more people be able to experience it on the shoulder times,” he said, referring to discounted prices.

Price fluctuations are not new for Merlin properties, which already reduce entry fees during off-peak periods. But the dynamic pricing model is a step further, incorporating more data to better drive demand and adjust things more quickly, the company told BI.

“This change brings us in line with competitors and the broader holiday industry that have similar pricing structures, which benefit guests who choose to book off-peak,” a Merlin spokesperson told BI.

When pressed by CNBC on how families who are only able to visit during peak times, such as spring break or summer vacation, would deal with potentially higher prices, O’Neil said that the flexible entry fees were “more important than anything.”

Surge pricing has gotten more popular in recent years, thanks in part to the popularity of ride-share apps like Uber. While industries like hotels and airlines have used it for decades, other businesses like restaurants and movie theaters are increasingly following suit.

Earlier this year, Wendy’s faced swift backlash after announcing that it would experiment with dynamic pricing with its menus, though the fast food company later walked this back and clarified that it did not plan to raise prices in response to high demand (the company said it would, however, lower prices to drum up interest during slower periods).

Given its strong Democratic tilt, Biden is basically assured of winning Cook County — which includes Chicago and many of its suburbs — by an overwhelming margin this November. In the 2020 election, Biden won more than 1.7 million votes in Cook County compared to roughly 558,000 votes for Trump.

Last week, Biden was on the ballot for a noncompetitive race where his nomination as the party’s standard-bearer wasn’t in question. (So far, Biden has won roughly 427,000 votes in Cook County.)

Still, in swing-state cities like Atlanta, Detroit, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Phoenix, the vote margins that come out of these Democratic strongholds will be critical for Biden.

And the low primary turnout in Chicago could be an indicator of looming issues that the Biden campaign will have to address in other cities to emerge victorious in November, according to top Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

“Illinois is a state that has apparatus and really has deep roots in the community. I think they just weren’t turned on for this election, but it’s a warning sign to other places,” she told The Chicago Sun-Times’ Tina Sfondeles.

“It’s a warning sign for Detroit, where it will matter,” she continued. “It’s a warning sign for Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.”

Lake also stressed the role that cities have played in generating the sort of turnout that Democrats generally need to overcome the GOP’s rural edge in states like Georgia and Pennsylvania.

“These cities need to be engines of turnout,” she said.

But despite efforts to moderate the content away, the sellers remain remarkably easy to spot.

Undark Magazine, an award-winning independent science and culture publication, this week reported on a surging market on Facebook for distinctive bowmouth guitarfish horns, sold as jewelry and other accessories, contributing to the demise of the critically endangered fish.

In 2022, Vice News reported it took less than 24 hours to arrange the sale of an endangered tiger.

Though Meta, Facebook’s parent company, was a founding member of the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online in 2018, it might be even easier now to find these illegal offerings than years ago, Business Insider found.

20 minutes to monkeys

It took BI less than two minutes to identify Facebook accounts selling the bowmouth guitarfish horns. Within 20 minutes of browsing various groups on Facebook, BI identified endangered squirrel monkeys for sale, as well as various exotic birds, caracal cats, and several species of turtles, in addition to more traditional pets and livestock, including puppies, guinea pigs, and chickens.

Some of the groups had more than 10,000 members.

Representatives for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, pointed BI to the platform’s internal policy regarding Land, Animals, and Animal Products, which indicates that listings on the platform may not promote the buying or selling of animals, animal products, or land in ecological conservation areas.

Pages identified by BI as violating the policy were removed, a spokesperson for Meta confirmed after a review of the content.

Meta representatives did not respond to questions from BI regarding how posts that violate this policy are moderated or whether groups and posts in languages other than English have the same moderation practices.

How social media drives exotic species sales

Crawford Allan, the senior director of wildlife at World Wildlife Fund-US, told BI that since the pandemic, social media platforms have seen an explosion in exotic pet species sales online, with the illegal traders ranging from ill-informed sellers to organized crime groups. 

“It’s difficult for online companies to keep up with the enormous volume of pet listings and the cunning methods criminals are using to avoid automated filters on social media,” Allan said, adding that the biggest challenge is keeping ahead of the crime groups as they adapt.

World Wildlife Fund has for years provided companies in its anti-trafficking coalition, like Meta, data to help identify new keyword search terms that illegal sellers are using, as well as images of illicit products and suspicious listings they detect so they can be removed. The 47 major tech companies in the coalition pledged to use WWF’s insights to remove 80% of wildlife trafficking content from their platforms by 2020.

However, research published that year by the Alliance to Counter Crime Online found that despite conservationists’ assistance, Facebook had “failed to keep its promise.”

“In just two mouse clicks, our researchers could locate substantial wildlife trafficking content,” researchers behind the ACCO study wrote. “Mimicking the search process an average Facebook user might employ when looking to buy illegal wildlife products, such as ivory or exotic pets, we found that traffickers are easily and openly operating on the platform.”

The economic ripples of extinction

In addition to the climate crisis, wildlife trafficking is a substantial contributor to the rate at which we are losing species worldwide, according to the global nonprofit environmental organization Rare Conservation, which points to critically endangered creatures like the black rhino, African elephant, and Amur leopard as species that are near extinction due to their popularity in the wildlife trade.

An ACCO expert in ape trafficking reported more than half of the world’s trade of apes occurs on social media, with young primates fetching upwards of $20,000 for sellers. The group found that roughly 75% of the illegal online trade of cheetahs occurs on Meta’s platform Instagram.

“Illegal wildlife trade is the second most significant threat to endangered species after habitat loss,” Allan of WWF told BI, adding that social media platforms are now the dominant market for the illegal trade of endangered wildlife. “Thousands of species are exploited, with many populations being pushed to the brink of extinction to meet global demand.”

It isn’t just the animals that suffer when they’re trafficked to the brink of extinction — it hurts agriculture, destabilizes the markets around the industry, and risks global food security by demolishing ecosystems, according to reporting by the United Nations.

One study published in Global Environmental Change estimated the economic benefits we enjoy from our environment range from $125-145 trillion a year globally. Jill Atkins, chair in financial management at Sheffield University Management School at the University of Sheffield, told finance news outlet Investec that while the impact caused by extinction is hard to calculate, the loss of a single key species could cost a significant portion of that $125-145 trillion — or wipe it out entirely.

“Facilitated by transnational organized crime networks, with links to drug, human, and weapon trafficking, illegal wildlife trade threatens not only wildlife populations,” Allan told BI. “But our global security, human health, the livelihoods of local communities, and legitimate business operations.”

Correction: March 23, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated the number of tech organizations that have signed WWF’s anti-animal trafficking pledge. There are 47, not 30.

• A French warship intercepted at least three Houthi ballistic missiles on Thursday.
• Intense footage shows the moment a surface-to-air missile launched and hit one of the threats.
• It marks the latest engagement between Western navies and the Houthis.

Newly released footage from a French frigate operating in the southern Red Sea shows the warship shooting down a Houthi ballistic missile on Thursday. 

The frigate, which is deployed to the region as part of the European Union security mission Operation Aspides, destroyed three ballistic missiles during the incident, marking one of the latest engagements between Western navies and the Iran-backed Houthis. 

In the video, shared to social media by the French military, sailors can be seen working on the bridge. A surface-to-air missile is then fired from a launcher. A short time later, it intercepts a target in the air. 

France is one of several countries working alongside the US Navy to protect international shipping lanes from the Houthis, who have spent months relentlessly firing drones and missiles at vessels sailing off the coast of Yemen.  

Gen. Michael Kurilla, commander of US Central Command, or CENTCOM, told lawmakers on Thursday that French forces destroyed two Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles earlier in the day, likely referencing this incident, which at the time had yet to be confirmed by Paris. 

The Houthis started firing anti-ship ballistic missiles at the end of 2023, marking the first time that such weapons have been used in combat. The rebels have since fired these missiles regularly, recently using them to sink their first vessel and stage their first fatal attack — both occurred within the past few weeks.

French Navy photo

Beyond anti-ship ballistic missiles, the Houthis have also launched anti-ship cruise missiles, one-way attack drones, and unmanned surface vehicles, or USVs, which are essentially drone boats packed with explosives.

While the Houthis have not managed to hit US or coalition warships, engagements between the two sides are happening on a near-daily basis.

Alongside the French action on Thursday, for example, German and American forces each destroyed a Houthi drone boat, Kurilla said during testimony to the House Armed Services Committee.  

French Navy photo

US forces also routinely conduct preemptive strikes in Yemen, destroying Houthi missiles and drones before the rebels have a chance to launch them into the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden.

Meanwhile, the EU’s Operation Aspides — which has now been active for more than a month — said on Wednesday that a French helicopter shot down a Houthi drone that posed a threat to commercial ships.

“A denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future President with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents,” Trump’s team wrote.

Trump and his lawyers have repeatedly pushed that their claimed immunity shield protects the former president from criminal charges related to his conduct on and before the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Justices previously agreed to hear Trump’s case, pushing back special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of the former president.

Trump’s team has claimed immunity so sweeping that it has stunned some observers.

One notable example is when D. John Sauer, one of Trump’s lawyers, refused to deny that a president could hypothetically avoid criminal prosecution for ordering Navy SEALs to assassinate a political rival. Sauer argued that the president would have to be impeached for ordering the killing first, but left the door open if Congress were to decline to bring charges against the president.

Numerous legal experts have rejected the immunity argument, pointing out that accepting such a claim would increase the power of the presidency to almost imperial standards.

Sauer, who is also listed on the Supreme Court brief, and Trump’s team have argued that the former president can’t face criminal charges related to January 6 because the US Senate did not convict him of inciting the riot during an impeachment trial.

It is worth pointing out that some Republican senators refused to convict Trump because they felt that Congress does not have the power to impeach presidents who have left office. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said at the time that the chamber’s failure to convict Trump did not mean the former president was getting off scot-free.

“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office as an ordinary citizen,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “He didn’t get away with anything yet.”

Elsewhere in the Supreme Court brief, Trump’s lawyers point to examples of recent presidents whose political rivals or critics suggested they could face criminal charges. The former president’s team points to President Bill Clinton’s controversial pardon of Marc Rich, President George W. Bush’s claim that Iraq held “weapons of mass destruction,” and President Barack Obama’s drone policy that led to the death of American citizens.

Interestingly, Trump’s team also points to conservative commentators who have argued that President Joe Biden should face charges for his immigration policy. Left unmentioned is that Trump himself has suggested that he would have Biden indicted.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case on April 25.

• An AI-generated image of a rat with a towering phallic appendage went semi-viral last month.
• The nonsense diagram appeared in a now-retracted scientific paper, published in a Frontiers journal.
• This rat is a symptom of a crisis of fakes in the career-driven business of research publishing.

This rat has an enormous “dck,” and it’s a symptom of a bigger problem.

You don’t need to be a scientist to know that rats don’t have bulbous, sky-high penises, or that words like “testtomcels,” “retat,” and “dissilced,” are total gibberish.

And yet, the bogus diagram below appeared in a paper published last month by the scientific journal Frontiers in Cell Development and Biology.

Guo et al., 2024; Frontiers in Cell Developmental Biology

To its credit, the journal quickly retracted the paper. But its AI-generated images had already gone viral in online science communities. They even got their own page on Know Your Meme.

Guo et al., 2024; Frontiers in Cell Developmental Biology

But this rat’s towering phallus is just one symptom of a crisis of fake science.

“If it’s the first time you’ve seen a really weird paper get published, I can see why it would capture your attention,” Ivan Oransky, a co-cofounder of the watchdog journalism site Retraction Watch, told Business Insider. But for him, he said, “it’s all sort of mind-numbingly routine at this point.”

How bad science and weird AI get through the ‘Swiss cheese’ of peer review

Peter Finch/Stone/Getty Images

Frontiers is an influential, open-access publisher with a peer-review process. So how did this paper make it to publication?

When a publisher like Frontiers accepts a scientist’s manuscript, the paper passes through the critical eyes of a series of peer reviewers who are experts in the subject matter, as well as editors who assess the peer review. Usually, study authors must make changes based on the reviewers’ feedback before publication.

Think of the peer review process like a stack of Swiss cheese. Each step has holes in it that bad science could squeeze through, but the overlapping steps tend to cover each other’s holes, making it difficult to squeeze all the way through the whole process.

Still, bad science does make it through sometimes, and over the years more holes have opened up. Scientists can now buy made-up papers from paper mills.

There’s even precedent for AI slop in science publishing. In 2014, publishers Springer and IEEE retracted more than 120 articles that were gibberish generated by computers. The publishing giant Springer Nature retracted 44 gibberish papers in 2021.

Then there are more traditional forms of scientific fraud — bribing journal editors, falsifying data, or manipulating real images or data.

These bad practices can have real consequences. Early trials that found ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine to be promising COVID-19 treatments were later retracted for signs of fraud, but the word was already out and a wave of ill-informed self-treatment ensued, Vox reported. Even beyond COVID, fabricated studies can end up in databases used for drug research, The Guardian reported.

The mysterious case of the ‘retat’ ‘dck’

In the case of the rat with “testtomcels,” Frontiers says that one of the peer reviewers raised concerns about the images and requested that the paper authors revise them.

“The article slipped through the author compliance checks that normally ensures every reviewer comment is addressed,” Fred Fenter, chief executive editor of Frontiers, said in an additional statement emailed to Business Insider, calling it a “human error.”

He said that Frontiers has added “new checks to catch this form of misconduct,” revised its AI policy to be clear about what’s not allowed, and is developing “AI to detect AI-generated content and images.”

“Those bad faith actors using AI improperly in science will get better and better and so we will have to get better and better too. This is analogous to cybersecurity constantly improving to block new tricks of hackers,” Fenter said.

In January, Frontiers announced plans to lay off 30% of its staff, cutting 600 jobs.

“Quality is our highest priority, and the recent restructuring does not affect the peer review process and/or author compliance checks,” Fenter said.

The retracted paper’s corresponding author, Dingjun Hao, did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.

Why some scientists publish bad papers

Journals are businesses, and scientists have careers. Both are under intense pressure to publish often.

Most hiring and tenure committees, Oransky says, evaluate researchers based on how many papers they’ve published, whether they’ve been published in prestige journals, and how much other scientists cite their work.

“People are desperate to publish and will do anything they have to do in order to publish and keep their jobs or get promoted,” Oransky said. “That’s the real problem here.”

Last year, research journals retracted over 10,000 scientific papers, more than ever before, according to a report in the journal Nature.

Retractions aren’t all bad. In fact, they’re necessary for the times when peer review fails to catch data errors or irresponsible practices.

But the record retraction rate comes alongside a rise in sham papers that some scientists hastily fabricate or generate with the help of AI.

“It’s salacious,” Oransky said of the rat and its “dck.” But, he continued, “there’s sort of nothing new under the sun.”

To Oransky, the solution is obvious. Science institutions across the planet should evaluate scientists based on the quality, not the breadth, of their work. His suggested evaluation metric? Show three good papers.

“What we need to do is stop using publications and citations as the metric of everything,” he said. “All of that’s game-able. Three good papers is not game-able.”