By: Nick Gambino
Back in January, Elon Musk announced that the first patient successfully underwent surgery to implant a Neuralink chip in his brain. A couple weeks later, we learned the patient was able to move a mouse cursor simply by thinking about it. Now we have video of this amazing tech breakthrough.
A Neuralink engineer live streamed with the patient, 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh who’s a quadriplegic, to show us the progress they’ve made. After suffering a “freak diving accident” eight years ago, Noland has been unable to feel sensation or use anything below his shoulders.
— Neuralink (@neuralink) March 20, 2024
In the video, paralyzed Noland plays a game of chess on a laptop. The mouse cursor moves about, clicking his pieces into place, seemingly on their own as nobody is using their hands or fingers on the laptop. You can see Noland focus intently on the screen. He’s apparently thinking of where he wants the cursor to go, or imagining it, and it’s moving according to his thoughts. Amazingly, he’s doing this while holding a conversation with the Neurlink engineer.
“It’s all being done with my brain,” Noland explains. “If ya’ll can see the cursor moving around the screen, that’s all me.”
He likens it to being a Jedi and using the Force. From the looks of it, this is a dead-on analogy. This is the first evidence I’ve seen of what we all know as telekinesis, not “telepathy” as Elon Musk stated in an X post.
Noland has also been playing Civilization VI, clocking in an eight-hour gaming session until the implant ran out of charge. It’s not unlike other electronic devices that require a recharge before you can keep using them. That does beg the question whether overuse results in overheating of the device.
The Neuralink implant allows Noland to move the mouse for just about anything you might use a mouse for, not just gaming. He says he’s been reading, learning languages and more. And he’s able to do all of this without his parents or brother helping him. This allows him to once again interact with his computer independently.
There’s still a lot of work ahead of them, but this is the beginning of something truly amazing.
