WATCH: Elon Musk’s Neuralink Demonstrates Paralysed Man Playing Chess Using Thoughts
Arbaugh said he loved playing chess and was unable to play much in the last couple of years, but the Neuralink team enabled him to do so with his thoughts.
Elon Musk-owned Neuralink Corporation livestreamed the first-ever use of Neuralink demonstration on Noland Arbaugh, who is paralysed below his shoulders. The quadriplegic man was seen enjoying online chess and other video games with the Neuralink brain implant.
Elon Musk along with his Neuralink team has founded the brain technology interface. Using the implant, patients with traumatic injuries can operate gadgets and computers with the power of their thoughts.
Musk had mentioned earlier that his team would work with patients who had severe injuries and physical limitations for this implant.
Elon Musk took to X to share the live stream. The post read, "Livestream of @Neuralink demonstrating "Telepathy" – controlling a computer and playing video games just by thinking."
An engineer at Neuralink visited 29-year-old Nolan Arbaugh where the latter mentioned that a couple of years ago he had met with an accident and was paralysed from below his shoulders.
Arbaugh said he loved playing chess and was unable to play much in the last couple of years, but the Neuralink team enabled him to do so with his thoughts. "It's pretty cool," said Arbaugh, who can now move the cursor on the chess board.
The Neuralink team and Arbaugh started with a few different things from imagined movement to attempted movement to test the implant. He would stare at the screen where he wanted the cursor and it would move to that spot, which Arbaugh has called a wild experience.
"Every day, it's like learning new stuff and I can't even describe how cool it is to be able to do this," said Arbaugh in the video.
He had given up on playing games until Neuralink came in with the implant and he ended up playing for over eight hours on the first day. He uses these implants to learn different languages on his computer.
The US Food and Drug Administration approved Neuralink after its clinical trials on humans in May 2023, following a series of implant trials on various animals. Several groups such as the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine had heavily criticised Neuralink for its surgical work in animals, particularly primates.
According to a Bloomberg report, the device contains more than 1,000 electrodes, far more than other implants. It targets individual neurons, while many other devices in development target signals from groups of neurons. If it works, this should enable a higher degree of precision.
The device needs to be charged frequently and can be done wirelessly.
Kip Allan Ludwig, co-director of the Wisconsin Institute for Translational Neuroengineering mentioned, “I’m happy for the individual that he’s been able to interface with a computer in a way he wasn’t able to before the implant.”
