Earlier this year, Elon Musk announced that the first human patient had received a dose of Neuralink. brain implant As part of the company's first clinical trial. Now, the company has released a simple public demo of how its Brain Computer Interface (BCI) works.
The company did live streaming for a short period of time demo I spoke with a 29-year-old man named Nolan Arbor on X. He says a diving accident eight years ago left him paralyzed from the neck down. In the video, Arbaugh says that after receiving the implant (the surgery was „very easy“), he learned how to distinguish between „imagined and attempted movements“ in order to learn to control the cursor on the screen. He explains that he had to.
“A lot of what we started doing was trying to move,” Arbaugh said. „For example, I tried to move my right hand left, right, forward, and back. I think from there it became intuitive to start imagining the cursor moving.“
In the clip, which also features Neuralink engineers, Arbaugh demonstrates BCI by moving a cursor across a laptop screen and pausing an on-screen music player. He said the implant allowed him to play chess. Civilization VI. He said he previously used other aids such as a mouth stick, but the Neuralink implant has enabled him to play online as well as have long gaming sessions. He said the implant can be used for about eight hours before needing to be charged (though it's unclear how charging works).
Arbaugh became the first human patient to receive the implant in January after Neuralink began recruiting patients last year. The company has previously tested BCIs on animals, including chimpanzees, and some of its animal testing practices are subject to regulations. federal investigation.
In the video, Arbaugh said that despite some initial hiccups, the experience with brain implants has been positive so far. „It's not perfect. I'd say we ran into some problems,“ he said. „I don't want people to think this is the end of the journey. There's a lot of work to do, but my life has already changed.“