Neuralink's nine-minute livestream showed the first person with a Neuralink brain chip moving a cursor on a laptop screen with his thoughts. He was able to play chess and turn off music on his computer despite being paralyzed.

The patient, identified as Noland Arbaugh, 29, was paralyzed and had lost feeling in his limbs after an accident about eight years ago. He previously used a stick to perform certain tasks. The video did not show any equipment or wires.

“It’s all done with my brain. If you can see the cursor moving around the screen, that’s me. It’s pretty cool, right?” he shared. A Neuralink employee was next to him to assist.

With the video, Neuralink becomes one of at least three companies to have published evidence of the effectiveness of brain-chip implants. Two others, Blackrock Neurotech and Synchron, are years ahead of Neuralink. Each has a different approach, while other startups are also rushing into the field.

About two months ago, Musk announced that Neuralink had successfully implanted a brain chip in a human. The field of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) has been studied by doctors and neuroscientists for more than a decade. The first device was implanted in 2004.

Neuralink has received a lot of attention in part because its CEO is Musk, the controversial billionaire of the tech world. Very little information about Neurolink has been released to the public, except for brief statements on Musk's X account. In May 2023, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Neuralink for human clinical trials.

In Neuralink's livestream, Arbaugh talked about the process of training the device after doctors implanted the chip in January. He would first think about moving his hand and eventually moving a computer cursor. It became more intuitive as Arbaugh started imagining the cursor moving.

“It seems like every day we learn something new,” he shared.

(According to NBC News)