Watch: Neuralink’s first patient controls computer and plays chess with just his thoughts

Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup Neuralink showed its first patient on Thursday the ability to play online chess and video games with just thoughts using a Neuralink device. A video widely circulated on the Internet also showed patients being implanted with microchips.

In the video, the patient introduced himself as 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh, who was paralyzed from the shoulders down after a diving accident.

He can be seen playing chess on his laptop and moving the cursor using a Neuralink device.

“If you all can see the cursor moving across the screen, that’s me,” he said during the live broadcast while moving digital chess pieces.

“That’s cool, isn’t it?” he added.

The video also shows Abo describing the process of using a brain-computer interface.

“I would try to move my right hand, left, right, forward, backward, and from there I think it became very intuitive for me to start visualizing the cursor movement,” he said.

Abo also said that he felt lucky to be able to participate in the Neuralink research.

“I can’t even describe how cool it is to be able to do this,” he said.

What is NEURALINK?

Neuralink was founded by Musk in 2016 as a brain chip startup. This is a coin-sized device that is surgically implanted into the skull. Its ultra-thin wires enter the brain and form a brain-computer interface (BCI).

The disk will record brain activity and send it to devices such as smartphones via a common Bluetooth connection.

In February this year, Musk, the founder of the startup, said that the first human patient implanted with a Neuralink brain chip appeared to have fully recovered and was able to control a computer mouse with his thoughts.

“Progress is going well and the patient appears to have fully recovered with no adverse effects that we are aware of,” Musk said.

“Patients can move the mouse on the screen just by thinking,” Musk said at the social media platform X’s Spaces event.

Musk also said that Neuralink is now trying to get patients to click as many mouse buttons as possible.