Elon Musk’s brain-implant company, Neuralink, has released a new video showing a nine-year-old monkey called “Pager” playing Pong with its brain.
Pager learns to manipulate a computer through his brain activity in this three-minute video. Initially, the monkey interacts with the computer through a joystick in order to obtain a “tasty banana smoothie served via a straw.” Pager has two Neuralink modules implanted in his brain, according to the narrator.
The gadgets, which Musk refers to as a “Fitbit for your skull,” were unveiled in August 2020 at a press conference.
The narrator states that Pager’s Neuralink devices in his brain are reading his brain activity, which is then decoded by a computer while he plays the games.
Pager continues to play the game even though the team disconnects the joystick — and the brain-implant helps him to play “MindPong,” as Neuralink has called it.
In a tweet on Thursday, Musk reported that the company’s first product would allow “someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs.”
In a press release, the company said, “MindPong is an initial demonstration of the N1 Link’s potential capabilities.”
“Our first aim is to give people with paralysis their digital independence back,” according to a press release on Neuralink’s website.
“To connect more easily through text, to pursue their interest on the web, to express their imagination via photography and art, and, yes, to play video games.”
Since its inception in 2016, Neuralink has been relatively quiet. In the last two years, the company has held two press conferences, one of which was led by Musk and detailed the company’s progress.
The Neuralink device was introduced in 2019, and steady progress appeared to be made the following year, when the pig implants were unveiled.
Video Source: Neuralink Youtube
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