First Neuralink patient plays chess with brain chip implant in new video

Elon Musk’s cybernetic implant company, Neuralink, livestreamed video Wednesday of its first brain chip patient using his mind to play chess on a computer.

Noland Arbaugh, a 29-year-old paralyzed below the shoulders after a diving accident, demonstrated how he could control the cursor on his laptop with nothing other than his thoughts. 

He used Neuralink’s wireless brain-computer interface (BCI) to play computer chess and discussed his surgery in a video viewed more than 15 million times on X, the social media platform owned by Musk.

“The surgery was super easy,” Arbaugh said. “I literally was released from the hospital a day later. I have no cognitive impairments.”

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Arbaugh received the Neuralink implant in January. At the time, Musk reported test results showed “promising neuron spike detection.” 

Since then, Arbaugh has learned to use his thoughts to control his computer and spent hours playing one of his favorite video games, Civilization VI.

“I had basically given up playing that game,” he said in the video. “You all [Neuralink] gave me the ability to do that again, and I played for eight hours straight.” 

Arbaugh described his experience learning how to control the computer and said it is “not perfect,” adding they “have run into some issues.”

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“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,” he added.

Kip Ludwig, former program director for neural engineering at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, told Reuters the Neuralink video did not show a “breakthrough.” 

“It is still in the very early days post-implantation, and there is a lot of learning on both the Neuralink side and the subject’s side to maximize the amount of information for control that can be achieved,” Ludwig said.

“It’s certainly a good starting point,” Ludwig added, noting that the patient being able to interface with a computer in a way he hadn’t been able to do before was a positive development.

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Musk has voiced relentless optimism about the power of Nerualink’s technology, even suggesting that one day it will help the paralyzed walk again.

“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,” he posted on X in response to the video.

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However, Neuralink faces scrutiny after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found problems with the company’s record keeping and quality controls for animal experiments, Reuters reported last month. The issues were reportedly discovered less than a month after the FDA cleared Neuralink to begin human trials for its brain implant.

Neuralink did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reuters contributed to this report.