Thursday, April 8, 2021

Elon Musk-backed 'Neuralink' shows how monkey plays Pong with mind

 Elon Musk-run brain-machine interface company Neuralink on Friday posted a YouTube video where a monkey can be seen playing a video game by navigating an on-screen cursor using his mind


In what could help paralyzed people to use their mind to operate a smartphone in the near future, Elon Musk-run brain-machine interface company Neuralink on Friday posted a YouTube video where a monkey can be seen playing a video game by navigating an on-screen cursor using his mind.

Pager, a nine-year-old macaque monkey, had a Neuralink chip implanted about six weeks before the video was shot.

The monkey was first trained to play the Pong video game with a joystick for a banana reward.

The Neuralink device recorded information about which neurons were firing as the money played the video game.

Later, the joystick was removed, and the monkey was still able to play the game using only his mind.

"A monkey is literally playing a video game telepathically using a brain chip," Must said in a tweet on Friday.

"First @Neuralink product will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs," he added.

Musk further added: "Later versions will be able to shunt signals from Neuralinks in the brain to Neuralinks in body motor/sensory neuron clusters, thus enabling, for example, paraplegics to walk again".

In February this year, the Tesla CEO revealed that a monkey has been wired up to play video games with its mind.

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