Science Neuralink Chip In Brain Helps Paraplegic Person Play Chess - Initial results show promising neuron spike detection.

https://www.chess.com/news/view/paraplegic-plays-chess-helped-by-neuralink-chip-in-brain

A paralyzed man is able to play chess with the help of a chip produced by Neuralink and implanted into his brain. A video posted on Wednesday evening on the social media platform X showing the remarkable achievement has been viewed over 70 million times.

In January of this year, the 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh became the first-ever person to receive a chip implant from Neuralink, Elon Musk's startup that is developing technology for people with paralysis to be able to communicate with computers.

In Wednesday's nine-minute livestream on Musk's platform X, Arbaugh explained that he got fully paralyzed below his shoulders, losing all feeling in his body, arms and legs, following a diving accident eight years ago where he dislocated his C4 and C5 spinal vertebrae.

Sitting behind a laptop wirelessly connected to the Neuralink chip, Arbaugh shows that he is capable of "telepathically" moving the cursor on his computer screen, which is showing a Chess.com chessboard. He is playing a game on our server by pure brain control, and is also able to control music.

https://twitter.com/neuralink/status/1770563939413496146

(9 minute video of the person describing his experience)

In the video, Arbaugh says using the Neuralink implant feels like using "the Force" from the Star Wars franchise. Just by staring somewhere on the screen, he can place the cursor wherever he wants. He also revealed that the chip allowed him to play the video game Civilization VI for eight hours straight.

On January 29 of this year, Neuralink's billionaire founder Elon Musk revealed on his platform X that the first human had received a chip implant on the day prior and was recovering well, adding: "Initial results show promising neuron spike detection." Musk called his first Neuralink product Telepathy, first used by, as is now revealed, Arbaugh.

In September last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had given the company clearance to carry out the first trial of its implant on humans. Before, Neuralink tested their devices on monkeys, pigs and other animals, which led to criticism from groups such as the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

As The Wall Street Journal pointed out, moving a computer cursor isn't a big technical leap for brain-computer interfaces: "An older brain chip first implanted in a human in 2004 also helped a paralyzed person move a cursor with only their thoughts."

That older chip, however, needed to be attached to a device on the outside of the brain to transmit data which required wires sticking out through the skin. Neuralink's wireless connection between the chip and the laptop seems to be particularly special.

"It's not perfect," Arbaugh admitted at the end of the video. "I would say that we have run into some issues. I don't want people to think that it is the end of the journey, there's still a lot of work to be done, but it has already changed my life."

 

[Maude Snew]

Any time something involving neuralink comes up, everyone does the same thing they've been doing for the past two hundred years: assuming that technology is a century ahead of where it actually is.

This chip can do little more than receive certain inputs and send them to a computer. It's got all the terrifying capabilities of a computer mouse. We've only just recently figured out how to make a prosthetic limb that can send basic signals to the brain through already-existing pathways. We're another lifetime or two away from a chip that can force you to click fire hydrants before you can order a McRib.

So what you're saying is you could achieve the same chess mastery through a wireless butt plug that helps you cheat in grandmaster games?

 

[Megaton Punch]

So what you're saying is you could achieve the same chess mastery through a wireless butt plug that helps you cheat in grandmaster games?

No amount of rectal tomfoolery could make me good at chess.

 

[pikachudidnothingwrong]

Awesome and a pretty warm/heartening story. We are getting there.

This is the future. Just wait until elective stuff or 'nerve gear' like tech gets going. This is a bit of a step in the direction of both GitS and SAO in terms of tech.

 

[Dick Mason]

He also revealed that the chip allowed him to play the video game Civilization VI for eight hours straight.

Priorities, right

That's got to feel fantastic. Very heartwarming stuff.

No amount of rectal tomfoolery could make me good at chess.

Are you sure? Have many amounts have you tried?

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

Don't fall for their Pharmakia. We could have solved paralysis decades ago, we could have helped superman to walk again, but nooo, stem cell man bad.

This inhumane shit though? Plugging wires into the human body? Sure mate, that's A-OK because this isn't a cure, just a life-long bill to pay. And if you don't pay it? Whoopsie Daisy, we flicked a switch and you can't walk again.

Think they won't do it? Memba when people said your smart car would be turned off for not paying your bill? They were right.

Reject this satanic shit.

 

[Bland Crumbs]

Priorities, right

Poor guy. Civ VI is garbage.

 

[Megaton Punch]

Are you sure? Have many amounts have you tried?

Well there was this one guy at the airport who said he could make me a chess master if I followed him to his dojo. Long story short, it didn't work. I'm not even sure that was an accredited chess dojo. From what I understand they usually have fewer used needles strewn about.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Neuralink and all brain-computer interfaces (like Josep Jornet, Ian Akyildiz, etc. are working on) are pure evil and will lead to nothing good. Today it's helping a paraplegic man play chess, tomorrow it's turning you into a paraplegic because you didn't have the appropriate social credit score to play chess since you said faggot last night on Xitter.

 

[Dick Mason]

Well there was this one guy at the airport who said he could make me a chess master if I followed him to his dojo. Long story short, it didn't work. I'm not even sure that was an accredited chess dojo. From what I understand they usually have fewer used needles strewn about.

Cocks in, right hand. Cocks out, left hand. Cocks in, cocks out. Cocks in through anus, out the mouth. Cocks in, cocks out. Don't forget to sneed, very important.

Today it's helping a paraplegic man play chess

I helped a dodecapalegic play chess once. He beat me handily. That's the last time I'm nice to anyone.

 

[Megaton Punch]

Cocks in, right hand. Cocks out, left hand. Cocks in, cocks out. Cocks in through anus, out the mouth. Cocks in, cocks out. Don't forget to sneed, very important.

...Frank-sensei? Is that you? If so, can you explain what the prostate has to do with castling again? It didn't make sense the first time.

 

[The-Mad-Asshatter]

Don't fall for their Pharmakia. We could have solved paralysis decades ago, we could have helped superman to walk again, but nooo, stem cell man bad.

This inhumane shit though? Plugging wires into the human body? Sure mate, that's A-OK because this isn't a cure, just a life-long bill to pay. And if you don't pay it? Whoopsie Daisy, we flicked a switch and you can't walk again.

Think they won't do it? Memba when people said your smart car would be turned off for not paying your bill? They were right.

Reject this satanic shit.

Agreed. And people A-OK this stuff until it becomes mandatory to have it stuck in their own heads. This stuff has the huge potential to be misused, abused and forced on others by unscrupulous people, and the types that push this don't live in the real world, they live in la-la land where their wealth protects them from ugly consequences.

Plus it is potentially satanic. People like Musk are desperate to escape their humanity and to find their 'salvation' in AI and digitalization, they aren't interested in the actual world but place their hope for some technological and digital 'heaven' that they are desperate to reach. It's 'self' at it's most central, where man is God and nothing else matters but his own eternal wish fulfillment and pleasure.

 

[Clem Fandango]

Pretty much, yes. Communication only goes one way, and it's quite primitive. Still really nice if you're quadriplegic, but completely useless if you still have use of your arms. I guess you could eat a two hander sandwich while browsing the internet. That'd be something.

Sir, you and I have quite, quite different definitions of "useless".

 

[Oilspill Battery]

Awesome and a pretty warm/heartening story. We are getting there.

This is the future. Just wait until elective stuff or 'nerve gear' like tech gets going. This is a bit of a step in the direction of both GitS and SAO in terms of tech.

What is gits and sao? I hate when people use obscure acronyms that not even google can decypher.

 

[Absurdist Laughter]

Because the alternative is hard physical stuff like wires or chips in or on a brain. I don’t know if you’ve ever touched or held a brain, but they’re like a blancmange or cream cheese sort of consistency. It’s like stirring jelly with a sword. We have to somehow read the output of a cell and maybe signal back to it and they’re tiny tiny signals. So either we have some way or reading and transmitting that doesn’t touch the brain at all (which right now needs serious kit) or we get right next to the brain. Imagine shaking a sieve holding a jelly. That’s what happens. It has to be some kind of soft or organic ‘thing’ that physically touches the brain. At some point it’ll have to talk to a hard computer of course but that can be done on the skull. It’s just sticking wires in brains is dumb.

I have held brains before, won't power level as to whose or what's, but yes they are soft and gelatinous. They aren't sticking swords into brains, they are sticking microscopically thin wires into you:





Similar technology has already been used to assist a paraplegic walk. A Swiss company of which Elon help fund has created a spine brain link using a digital bridge to retrain the brain how to walk.

Brain implants help paralyzed man to walk again​

((BBC))

There is also a chance, if we go the biological route, that we can accidentally create a literal mind virus/disease/allergy with the use of biological material integrated with foreign tissue. Having something inorganic, read not carbon based, is incompatible with our bodies it is why we have facial piercings. If it were organic based, we'd have the same problems that post-op trannies encounter.

I respect your opinion and too wish there was a less intrusive way to achieve this sort of link. We aren't there yet and we have technology in front of us that has been shown to work so far. It is an infant technology and I'm excited to see where this takes us.

 

[Dick Mason]

Similar technology has already been used to assist a paraplegic walk. A Swiss company of which Elon help fund has created a spine brain link using a digital bridge to retrain the brain how to walk.

Now that humans have mostly stopped watching broadcast TV, of course they're going to give rats 3000+ channels. Disney wins again.

 

[pikachudidnothingwrong]

What is gits and sao? I hate when people use obscure acronyms that not even google can decypher.

GitS = Ghost in the Shell (example of its tech, [2])
SAO = Sword Art Online (example of nerve gear tech)

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

So either we have some way or reading and transmitting that doesn’t touch the brain at all (which right now needs serious kit)

I do think this'll be the ultimate end track of this technology, but while write activity is theoretically already possible at neuron precision, read is completely outside of what we can manage with the technology I'm aware of.

It’s just sticking wires in brains is dumb.

I agree, but the earliest designs of steam powered ships were also pretty fucking dumb. The fact we know there's probably a better way doesn't mean we can't learn a lot pursuing this path, that could easily accelerate the pace of the better technologies - Just having hardware precise scans of deeper tissue activity in areas like the motor cortex can be super useful for calibrating any sort of external sensing equipment, as we now have a better idea of what "correct" looks like.

Its one of the reasons i'm iffy about these kinds of experiments. As by necessity they involve recruiting desperate people as guinea pigs. They do the same thing with experimental cancer treatments and such.

Its always an interesting dilemma, but from my perspective at least, I think its naive to try and protect people from their own hopes and dreams, and that's what signing up for a lot of these experimental procedures amounts to. Outside of the impact to research and development, telling someone who's feeling trapped in a wheelchair that their life isn't their own to gamble with on an experimental implant because people not in their situation feel icky about the ethics feels like pandering to me. Especially when in the same breath, we have places with state sponsored suicide, free drug dens, etc. All those people are allowed to fuck themselves up and die for their own interests, but because we feel guilty about this one persons circumstances, we won't let them have that same autonomy.

 

[Otterly]

The fact we know there's probably a better way doesn't mean we can't learn a lot pursuing this path, that could easily accelerate the pace of the better technologies

There are patients living with implanted hardware that’s useless, because the company that made it went out of business. I know it’s going to be huge in the future, we are all going to end up as augmented semi humans (the horror) but these early stages are brutal, and I’m not entirely sure the people on the receiving end are getting much benefit.
As long as they know that, then crack on, I guess. I still think the tech will need to fuse biology and hardware in a way we aren’t every looking at yet (DARPA conspiracy stuff aside)