Neuralink just released a vid on Wednesday showing off the first-ever person to get their brain implant, and the guy’s playing chess on a computer just by thinking about the moves!
Noland Arbaugh, 29, got the world watching after a diving mishap left him without movement from his shoulders down like eight years back. He’s now playing games like “Civilization” and picking up Japanese and French by just moving a cursor on a screen using his mind.
“It’s mind-blowing, no pun intended. Super cool,” Arbaugh said, making a quip about having telepathic powers all thanks to Elon Musk’s brainchild, Neuralink.
Back in January, Musk’s brain tech firm fitted their first chip into a human brain, and the Tesla and SpaceX big boss hailed it as a big win.
Arbaugh shared that he was out of the hospital just one day post the brain chip’s fitting, with no issues messing with his thinking or anything.
“A ton more work to go, but it’s already flipped my world upside down,” he mentioned.
“I don’t want folks thinking this is all there is to it.”
He described starting out by focusing on moving the cursor, and after a while, the implant system got the hang of his wishes.
“The whole reason I signed up was to be part of something that’s gonna rock the world,” he said.
Arbaugh’s even planning a Halloween getup as the X-Men’s Professor Charles Xavier, the comic book hero who’s got a wheelchair but also insane mind powers.
“Gonna go as Professor X,” he laughed.
“Pretty apt, right? It’s like I’ve got telekinesis or something.”
In the same video, posted to X and Reddit, a Neuralink engineer threw out promises of future updates on how Arbaugh’s doing.
“Knew they were testing on humans, but seeing the actual human with the tech is next-level,” one Reddit user typed.
“Kinda cool, kinda terrifying, all at once.”
This Neuralink wizardry uses a tiny device, basically the size of a coin stack, that gets surgically put into the brain.
Musk’s company, which he helped get off the ground in 2016, wants to create a straight-up conversation line between our brains and computers.
They’re aiming to give humans an extra edge, fix up brain conditions like ALS or Parkinson’s, and maybe, just maybe, make humans and AI best buds someday.
Musk’s not the only one in this brain-machine convo game, but he’s sure making some bold moves.
