Elon Musk is one step closer to his goal of implanting brain chips in humans. The Space X/Tesla figurehead has had a successful run embedding his Neuralink in an animal subject, a monkey who is now able to use the device to play video games with his mind.
A nine-year-old male macaque named Pager is seen in a new video that shows the monkey first playing Pong with a joystick as scientists measure his brain activity, then playing with the Neuralink, using an unplugged joystick. Later, Pager moves on to playing without a joystick, using only his mind to play his favourite video game.
"He's learned to interact with a computer for a tasty banana smoothie delivered through a straw," the video narrator explains. "Our goal is to enable a person with paralysis to use a computer or phone with their brain activity alone."
The Neuralink has yet to move on to human trials, though Lil Uzi Vert, Kreayshawn and Musk's partner/X Æ A-12's mom Grimes have all expressed interest in being subjects for the experimental surgery.
See the clip below.
A nine-year-old male macaque named Pager is seen in a new video that shows the monkey first playing Pong with a joystick as scientists measure his brain activity, then playing with the Neuralink, using an unplugged joystick. Later, Pager moves on to playing without a joystick, using only his mind to play his favourite video game.
"He's learned to interact with a computer for a tasty banana smoothie delivered through a straw," the video narrator explains. "Our goal is to enable a person with paralysis to use a computer or phone with their brain activity alone."
The Neuralink has yet to move on to human trials, though Lil Uzi Vert, Kreayshawn and Musk's partner/X Æ A-12's mom Grimes have all expressed interest in being subjects for the experimental surgery.
See the clip below.