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Monkey Plays Pong With Mind Using Neuralink Chip Technology

Monkey plays a video game through a brain chip implant.

Shawn Craymen

If Elon Musk takes Neuralink public, I'm loading my entire net worth into it.

Six weeks ago, this nine year old macaque had two Neuralink devices put on each side of his brain. On late Thursday, we had this video surface:

The nine-year old monkey, casually playing pong with his mind, learned how to use a joystick to move a cursor to targets on a screen in exchange for a banana smoothie delivered through the straw. I wonder how my Fortnite skills would fare if I were in the experiment and they served me Heineken through a straw.

The narrator in the video goes on to explain the company's link devices recorded the monkey's neuron activity while he interacted with the computer. This was possible due to more than 2,000 tiny wires implanted in the regions of his motor cortex that coordinate hand and arm movements. This data was then fed into a "decoder algorithm" to predict the monkeys intended hand movements in real time.

Once the decoder had been calibrated, Neuralink said the monkey was able to move the cursor where he wanted it to go, instead of relying on the joystick.

These are incredible times people. Think about the possibilities of the future:

  • Baby with no limbs? Neuralink.
  • Paraplegic after suffering a horrible accident? Neuralink.
  • Summoning your Tesla from the parking lot as you carry heavy groceries? Neuralink.
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