Video shows Elon Musk’s 1st human Neuralink brain chip patient playing chess ‘by thinking’ as ‘telepathy’ controls game
FOOTAGE from Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chip has been revealed, showing off a man’s new “telepathic” abilities.
Musk’s Neuralink tech aims to enable someone to control their phone or another device with their mind, according to the CEO.
Musk reposted a Neuralink video from the first of his human testers demonstrating the tech on Wednesday.
“Livestream of @Neuralink demonstrating ‘Telepathy’ – controlling a computer and playing video games just by thinking,” his caption read.
In the video, the tester, 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh narrates his experience playing an electronic chess game on a large screen.
Arbaugh became paraplegic following a “freak diving accident,” that dislocated two of his vertebrae causing him to be paralyzed from the neck down, he explained in the video.
The company has previously said that the Neuralink mission is to restore autonomy to individuals who have “unmet medical needs,” with a vision to “unlock human potential” in the future.
Having received FDA clearance for its first human clinical trials in May 2023, Arbaugh is the first of six individuals approved to test the chip after hundreds of animal tests.
In the video, he shows off his chess skills without ever touching the computer it is being hosted on.
“See that cursor on the screen? That’s all me… it’s all brainpower,” he said while an accompanying Neuralink engineer panned to the computerized chess game.
Arbaugh then jumped into how he began learning to use the brain chip.
“So we started out by trying a few different things,” he began.
“We basically went from what we’d call ‘imagined movement’, versus ‘attempted movement’, and we started out with attempting to move.”
“This entailed thinking about moving his computer cursor left and right, and from there, it just became intuitive for me,” finished the tester in explanation.
Arbaugh has been paralyzed since 2016 when he was injured while working at a children’s summer camp, having “absolutely no feeling” from the shoulders down ever since.
“This is one of the things that y’all have enabled me to do… I wasn’t really able to do much the last few years,” he said of Neuralink.
The tester went on to explain the feeling he had when he had first gotten results while attempting to move the computer mouse telepathically.
“It would just move to where I wanted it to, it was such a wild experience… it’s crazy, it’s crazy,’ he recalled.
“I’m so freaking lucky to be a part of this, every day it feels like we’re learning new stuff.”
Although the only one experiencing it first hand, Arbaugh is not the only one amazed by the technology’s success so far.
CONTROVERSY AS FIRST HUMAN SUBJECT ANNOUNCED
While Arbaugh is all smiles now, having more accessibility to tasks and recreation than he did prior to Neuralink, news of the chip being impacted in its first human subject was met with division.
In late January, Musk posted an announcement that Arbaugh’s procedure had been completed, bringing about mixed reactions from the public.
Many people had reservations on the technology moving to human subjects.
“The negative potential of this makes me very uneasy,” one person wrote in a reply on Musk’s X post.
“I’m terrified by the thought of it,” said another.
Someone else replied, “Elon can turn off this fear with a chip in your brain.”
“Matrix time,” another said, referencing the iconic dystopian movie.
“The first cyborg has been born,” a fifth said.
Others, meanwhile, were astounded by the advancement and shared their excitement about seeing the results.
“Well done Neuralink and Elon!! This might very well turn out to be an important moment in history,” wrote one user.
“This is awesome news, we’re expanding on the two final frontiers. Space and the mind, can’t wait for the next company talk. So excited!” another said.
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