California: Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup, has live-streamed its first patient implanted with a chip playing online chess using his mind.
Noland Arbaugh was the first person to receive a brain implant from Neuralink. He was paralysed below the shoulder after a diving accident. Arbaugh displayed technology’s capability by playing video games and chess using his thoughts. Musk’s firm first hosted a nine-minute video revealing the patient playing video games.
The self-proclaimed fan of the X-Men Charles Xavier, is grateful for Neuralink’s technology, which revived his passion for gaming. In the video shown on social media X, Arbaugh stated that, “The surgery was super easy. I literally was released from the hospital a day later. I have no cognitive impairments.”
The patient showed the abilities of Neuralink technology by moving a cursor around a laptop screen, pausing an on-screen music player, and playing online chess. The 29-year-old patient said that the implant helped him relish marathon gaming sessions, including playing ‘Civilization VI’ for eight hours, which was previously impossible due to paralysis.
“I had basically given up playing that game. Neuralink gave me the ability to do that again and played for eight hours straight,” referring to Civilization VI, Arbaugh said.
The Neuralink patient learned to spontaneously regulate the motions of the cursor by imagining. His initial focus was on separating effortful movements from imaginary ones. Later, he compared it to ‘Force Manipulation’ in Star Wars.
Neuralink was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at the end of 2023. The company began recruiting patients for its first-in-human clinical trial. However, they shared few details about the scope and nature of the trial. Even so, the study wasn’t made public.
Despite being the first patient to use Neuralink, Noland Arbaugh remains optimistic about the future of the technology. Arbaugh remarked that, “It’s not perfect, I would say that we have run into some issues. I don’t want people to think that this is the end of the journey. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but it has already changed my life.”
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