Neuralink helps man play chess with his mind

The way people control devices has been evolving over the years. It started with operating electronics by pushing buttons, but now people only need screens for the phones.

Neuralink may have developed its latest iteration by letting people control devices with their minds.

READ: Brain implants may restore speech

The official Neuralink X page recently posted a livestream of a quadriplegic using his Neuralink brain implant to play chess with his mind. “It’s crazy, it really is,” he says.

What do we know about the Neuralink demo?

Al Jazeera reported on the Neuralink X post from March 20, 2024. The Elon Musk company introduced 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh as the first human patient to have its patented brain implant.

He became paralyzed from the shoulders down in a diving accident. Fortunately, Arbaugh says the chip had become “intuitive” after practicing imagining moving the cursor on the screen.

READ: Musk’s Neuralink shows first brain-chip patient playing online chess

“Basically, it was like using ‘the Force’ on the cursor, and I could get it to move wherever I wanted,” Arbaugh stated, referring to the superpowers used in the Star Wars films.

“Just stare somewhere on the screen, and it would move where I wanted it to, which was such a wild experience the first time it happened,” he added.

The quadriplegic said the surgery for installing the device had been “super easy,” and he had been released from the hospital a day later. 

“I can’t even describe how cool it is to be able to do this,” he said in the clip. Still, Arbaugh acknowledged the technology’s flaws, saying it was “not perfect” and Neuralink chip “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,” Arbaugh said.

CEO Elon Musk also made a bold comment on his company’s demonstration: 

“Long-term, it is possible to shunt the signals from the brain motor cortex past the damaged part of the spine to enable people to walk again and use their arms normally.”