Elon Musk's Brain Implant Startup Neuralink Shows First Human Patient Controlling Computer With His Mind to Play Chess

By Jace Dela Cruz

Mar 21 2024, 05:07 AM EDT

Elon Musk's brain implant company, Neuralink, revealed its first human patient, Noland Arbaugh, a 29-year-old quadriplegic, during a livestream on Wednesday.

First Human Patient of Elon Musk's Brain Implant Company, Neuralink

According to Business Insider, Noland Arbaugh, who became a quadriplegic following a serious diving accident eight years ago, shared his experience during the nine-minute livestream on X.

Arbaugh, who received the brain chip implant in January, said the surgery was "super easy, and while the brain chip was not flawless, he noted it had already improved his life.

Speaking next to Neuralink engineer Bliss Chapman, Arbaugh noted: "It's not perfect. I would say we have run into some issues... There's a lot of work to be done, but it has already changed my life."

First Human Patient of Elon Musk's Brain Implant Company, Neuralink, Can Play Online Games

According to Arbaugh, the brain chip implant has already allowed him to play video games like "Civilization VI" for hours without relying on his family members for assistance.

The patient, who was sitting on a specialized chair in front of a laptop during the livestream, appeared to be playing an online chess game while his hands were on the chair's armrests.

Arbaugh was paralyzed below the shoulders because parts of his spinal cord had been dislocated due to the accident. He said that he only needed to imagine the computer cursor moving to move the cursor.

"I love playing chess, and so this is one of the things that you all have enabled me to do... Something that I wasn't able to do much the last few years, especially not like this," he noted.

"I had to use a mouse stick and stuff, but now it's all being done with my brain... Basically, it was like using the force on a cursor," he added.

So far, Arbaugh noted that the "biggest restriction" was charging the implanted device again after playing video games "for eight hours."

This latest development has put Neuralink on track to develop a technology that allows individuals to control computers using their minds. Neuralink aims to create a device that could be implanted in humans to monitor brain activity.

This microchip, about the size of a one-pound coin, will be inserted into a patient's skull and placed into the brain. The company received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance in May for its first human trial.

Late last year, it recruited patients with quadriplegia due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) for the trial. The trial aims to assess the safety of Neuralink's implant to enable individuals with paralysis to control and operate external devices such as computers using their minds.

The company has already conducted extensive tests on animals, particularly on monkeys, who reportedly have been able to play computer games using their minds alone in those tests.

Neuralink gets financial support for its endeavors, but it also faces criticism over its animal testing practices, which have raised alarms with some animal rights groups, like the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Last year, Reuters reported about internal complaints by Neuralink employees on rushed animal experiments that allegedly caused needless suffering and deaths.