Neuralink, the start of Elon Musk’s brain implant, posted a video showing a monkey using the device to play “Pong” with his mind.
Neuralink described the experiment as an “initial demonstration of the potential capabilities” of its high-tech brain chips, although it is unclear whether the results will be peer-reviewed by scientists or published in an academic journal.
The nine-year-old macaque named Pager had two of Neuralink’s devices planted in his brain about six weeks before the company made the three-and-a-half-minute video.
Pager learned to interact with a computer while sucking a banana smoothie through a straw as a reward, according to the clip. While using a joystick to move a cursor to a target on the screen, a device recorded activity from the neurons responsible for hand movements and transmitted them to a computer algorithm that decoded them, Neuralink says.
After training the algorithm, Pager was able to drop the joystick and play “mind Pong” just thinking about his hand moving up or down, according to the video.
Musk, who mocked Neuralink’s monkey experiments in February, marveled at his company’s achievement after posting the video on Thursday.
“A monkey literally plays a video game telepathically with a brain chip !!” the tycoon of billionaire technology he said on Twitter.
Neuralink hopes to eventually use its brain chips to allow paralyzed people to interact with computers or smartphones using only their brain activity. A Silicon Valley company called Synchron said in October that it performed these tasks with a device implanted through the blood vessels.
Later versions of the Neuralink chip could link the devices planted in the brain with other parts of the body, “allowing, for example, paraplegics to walk again,” Musk said.
“The device is implanted flush with the skull and charged wirelessly, so it looks and feels completely normal.” he tweeted.
The pager is not the only animal Neuralink has used to test its devices. The company previously installed a prototype on a pig named Gertrude to demonstrate its ability to transmit neural signals.