Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain implant startup, released a video showing a monkey using his device to play with his mind “Pong.”
Neuralink called the experiment a “first demonstration of the potential capabilities” of its high-tech brain chips – although it’s unclear whether the results will be reviewed by scientists or published in an academic journal.
The 9-year-old macaque named Pager had two of Neuralink’s devices implanted in his brain about six weeks before the company recorded the three and a half minute video.
Pager learned to use a computer while sucking a banana smoothie through a straw as a reward, the clip said. While he used a joystick to move a cursor to a target on the screen, a device recorded activity from the neurons responsible for his hand movements and streamed it to a computer algorithm that decoded them, Neuralink says.
After training the algorithm, Pager was able to let go of the joystick and play ‘mind Pong’ just thinking about his hand moving up or down, according to the video.
Musk – who teased Neuralink’s monkey experiments in February – marveled at his company’s performance after the video was released Thursday.
“A monkey literally plays a video game telepathically using a brain chip !!” the billionaire tech tycoon said on Twitter
Neuralink eventually hopes to use its brain chips to allow paralyzed people to communicate with computers or smartphones that only use their brain activity. A Silicon Valley company called Synchron said in October that it accomplished such tasks with a device implanted through the blood vessels.
Later versions of the Neuralink chip could link devices planted in the brain to other devices elsewhere in the body, “allowing, for example, paraplegics to walk again,” Musk claimed.
“The device is implanted flush with the skull and charges wirelessly so that you look and feel completely normal”, he tweeted
Pager isn’t the only beast Neuralink has used to test its gadgets. The company previously installed a prototype in a pig named Gertrude to demonstrate its ability to transmit neural signals.