MAY 5, Noland Arbaugh (29) – the first patient of Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup — Neuralink conducted a livestream on his X account in order to showcase the capabilities of his new implant.
During his livestream, he showed his viewers how he moves his mouse cursor with just a thought and how he was able to play video games with the implant, with Snake.io being one of the games he played. The popular battle royale snake game helps Arbaugh gauge the capacity and functionality of his implants — “…it’s something I do because it lets me… It kind of gives me an idea of how good the model is. If I can do certain things, if I can make sharp turns, if I can avoid people in this game – then I know that my cursor controls is actually pretty good…”
Arbaugh demonstrated how his Neuralink implant – Eve, can be connected to his computer devices through an application specifically designed to be a Brain-Computer Interface called The Link. This app lets him calibrate the implant to gain control of his computer’s mouse and keyboard with just a thought.
The implant also lets him do all of his day to day work even after the accident that paralyzed him from below the shoulder down. Neuralink hopes to provide other alternatives for quadriplegic patients to control their technologies with just a thought that could also help them do their everyday tasks without any assistance.