Footage shows Elon Musk’s first brain chip patient playing chess just by ‘thinking’

Elon Musk has shared a nine minute livestream of someone using his Neuralink brain chip to play chess on a computer.

This comes just a couple of months after Neuralink announced they'd successfully implanted a brain chip into a human for the first time.

Musk said the first feature of the brain chip being trialled was 'telepathy', with the idea that the Neuralink patient could control a device just by thinking.

It appears as though those tests are going well as in a livestream posted to X, formerly Twitter, a man named Noland Arbaugh used his mind to control a computer cursor and play chess.

Arbaugh, 29, is a quadriplegic who was paralysed from the neck down after a diving accident and had a Neuralink chip implanted into his body in January.

X/@Neuralink

In the livestream he was able to play chess with just his mind, saying he'd played the game since his accident by using his mouth but it didn't compare to using his brain power.

As the footage showed he was able to move pieces around on a game of chess on his computer.

He also said he'd been able to put in an eight hour stint of the grand strategy game Civilization VI, which fans of that franchise will know is a light session.

Noland proudly declared that he'd played the game for hours and said 'y'all gave me the ability to do that again' after be believed he'd never get the chance to play it following his accident.

The only impediment he was finding to his Civilization sessions was having to wait for the Neuralink implant to charge after using it for hours.

X/@Neuralink

It seems as though after using it for eight hours straight the brain chip needs a bit of time to be recharged.

"It's been awesome, it's been so cool and I'm kicking ass too," he said of getting to give the brain chip a go.

He also said he had 'no cognitive impairments' from the surgery as the Neuralink engineer on the livestream admitted Noland had beaten him almost every time they'd played chess.

While this all sounds like the future is now, Arbaugh did say they'd 'run into some issues' that are currently being looked into, but overall he seemed pretty chuffed about being able to do something which was 'basically like using the force on a cursor'.

Neuralink had been given the green light for human trials last year.

Topics: Technology, Elon Musk, Health

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

@MrJoeHarker