On Thursday, Elon Musk announced that his company Neuralink has successfully implanted a brain chip in the first human participant of their 'PRIME' study. The participant, Noland Arbaugh, received the implant over 100 days ago at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. According to Musk, this marks 100 successful days of the implant being in place.
“Successful 100 days with the first human implant of Neuralink,” the tech billionaire posted on X social media platform.
Neuralink said in a separate blog post that the aim of the ‘PRIME’ study is to demonstrate that the brain chip is safe and useful in daily life.
“We will monitor its technical performance remotely and quantify any benefit it provides by timing the duration of independent use and assessing how it affects study participants’ quality of life,” the company informed.
Prior to having the brain chip, Arbaugh’s primary digital interface was a mouth-held tablet stylus (mouth stick) that had to be put in place by a caregiver.
With prolonged use it can lead to discomfort, muscle fatigue, and pressure sores; it also prevents normal speech.
After surgery, Arbaugh used the Neuralink implant to control his laptop from various positions, including while lying down in bed.
“He plays online computer games with friends (Chess, Civilization VI), browses the internet, live streams, and uses other applications on his MacBook, all by controlling a cursor with his mind,” the company said.
He even used the brain chip to play Mario Kart on a Nintendo Switch console.
“It has helped me reconnect with the world, my friends, and my family. It's given me the ability to do things on my own again without needing my family at all hours of the day and night,” said Arbaugh.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk's social media platform, previously known as Twitter, has recently introduced a new feature called 'Stories' which is powered by Grok AI technology. This feature allows users to access brief summaries of the most popular posts on the platform.
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