Neuralink, the brain-chip venture spearheaded by Elon Musk, shared a video of a paralyzed patient moving a computer cursor with just his thoughts Wednesday.
The nine-minute live stream on X showed Noland Arbaugh navigating a chess game online using his thoughts. Arbaugh, 29, was the first person to receive Neuralink’s brain implant. He shared his experience with the implant during the livestream. “I think it just became intuitive for me to start imagining the cursor moving,” he said. “Basically it was like using the force on the cursor, and I get it to move whenever I wanted to. Just stare somewhere in the screen and it would move where I wanted to, which was such a wild experience.”
He also shared one of the first thing he did after he could fully control the device. “One of the first times y’all gave me complete control over this, I actually stayed up until like, 6 a.m. playing Civilization VI. It was worth it,” he continued.
— Neuralink (@neuralink) March 20, 2024
Despite enjoying the device so far, Arbaugh admitted that there’s much more improvement to be done with the implant. “It’s not perfect. I would say that we have run into some issues,” Arbaugh said. “I don’t want people to think that it is — like, this is the end of the journey. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but it has already changed my life.” (RELATED: Elon Musk’s Brain Chip Company Is Officially Recruiting Humans For Testing)
The implant chip, aimed at letting people with severe paralysis control devices with their minds, was introduced by Musk as “Telepathy” on his social media site X.
“Enables control of your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking. Initial users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs. Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer,” the billionaire tech mogul wrote on X. “That is the goal.”