It is true, Noland Arbaugh sta bene. She talked about him Elon Musk just over a month ago, when he said that the first man to receive a Neuralink chip in his brain he is “recovering well” and can “control the mouse and move it around a screen using only his mind”.
Musk’s words were confirmed in a video that Neuralink – a company founded in 2016 – published on X. In the eight-minute clip, an engineer from the company presents Arbaugh, 29, pinned from the shoulders down. Shortly afterwards, the screen in front of the two is framed. And it turns out that Arbaugh is playing chess with his mind.
Neuralink, the first patient plays chess by moving the mouse with his mind
“It’s like using force in Star Wars” says the boy, who explains how he just needs to stare at “any point on the screen” to move the cursor where he wants. Elon Musk wrote on the social network X that this video demonstrates “Telepathy”: “control a computer and play video games using your mind”.
But you have to be careful. “Telepathy” is the name that Musk – cunningly – gave to the first Neuralink interface that allows you to act as a bridge between the brain of a human being and a machine. But in reality the alleged ability to transmit thoughts – “telepathy” – has nothing to do with it here. There is nothing paranormal. Nor miraculous.
“Seen from the outside, what the first patient operated on by Neuralink manages to do appears like a monstrous leap forward – he explains Angelo Vescovi, neuroscientist and president of the National Committee for Bioethics -. But in this case the great advancement is actually technical. Musk didn’t invent new technology. He refined the existing ones, brought them inside the skull with an interesting purpose which is to allow those who have electrical activity in their brain, which cannot translate into a movement due to a lesion, to transmit this external activity through radio waves”.
“But the ability to collect impulses in the brain is something we have known for a long time – adds Vescovi – and Wi-Fi transmission through radio waves and the miniaturization of chips are equally well known. So Neuralink did nothing but collect pre-existing technologies and basic research and transform all this into a very complex device that finds another way for the brain’s electrical impulses compared to the one interrupted in the human body. In short, the added value of Neuralink is represented by investments. But the signal is positive: it means that in this sector with the right finances and the right efforts there can be incremental growth”.
Angelo Vescovi is right. Brain-computer interfaces are nothing new. And Neuralink is not the first company to perform such clinical trials in humans. One of these, the Australian Synchronous which he also invested in Bill Gates, has obtained authorization to test similar technology on humans as early as 2021. But no one enjoys the attention of the media and investors like Musk. And no one else is so vocal about how far he wants to go with neuroscience. “We are already cyborgs”the entrepreneur likes to repeat.
Furthermore, as the Wall Street Journal points out, as early as 2004 a paralyzed human being was able to move a cursor on a monitor using only his mind. But this interaction happened through cables protruding from the skin. The fact that Neuralink managed to Connect your brain to a computer wirelessly It represents, from a technical point of view, a notable step forward.
So far, Musk’s company has only succeeded with records. In fact, Elon Musk’s dream started with a monkey. Her name was Pager and in 2021 she became famous because he played the video game Pong using his mind. The primate had learned to move a joystick to hit a ball with a virtual racket. Every time he succeeded, he received a food reward. Then a Neuralink chip was implanted in his brain. And the joystick he used to play has been disconnected. Pager no longer needed: he could only land blows with his mind.
Now Noland Arbaugh, Neuralink’s chosen one among the thousands of people suffering from paralysis who have applied to receive a chip, can play computer games just like Pager the monkey did. The boy claims to have played the video game Civilization VI for eight consecutive hours, taking into account the breaks he had to take for the system to recharge.
“There is still a lot of work to do,” the boy who underwent surgery says in the video released by Neuralink, admitting that Musk’s team had to solve some problems. “But my life has already changed,” he adds.
More than a month after the operation, the Neuralink patient does not risk “chronic inflammation”. “And the risk of chip rejection should also tend to decrease due to the phenomenon of tolerance” said Vescovi. “Other complications at this stage such as the nervous reaction to this chip, however, need to be considered”.
But the risks do not only concern Noland Arbaugh’s health. Neuralink’s advances may threaten the entire society.
“Because one day someone, instead of taking out a signal, could send it in – explains Vescovi -. Theoretically, emotional states or hallucinations could be introduced into the human brain. This interface could even be used to torture a person. This is why bioethics is needed, to push for the safety of technologies such as the one developed by Neuralink”.
In the future, therefore, there will be a need for protect our mind.
“Defending our brain” is the title of a fascinating essay published in Italy recently by Bollati Boringhieri.
Its author, Nita Farahany, has a degree in Genetics and is a professor of Law and Philosophy at Duke University. And she told of a world – not far away – in which neurotechnologies will begin to cross the last frontier of our privacy: the mind. A world in which “our brain can be interrogated to learn about our political beliefs, thoughts become evidence of a crime and our own emotions they are used against us”.
“The ability to restore autonomy to individuals who have lost it requires transparency instead of sensationalism – Professor Farahany told us -. Our social goal should be ethical and aimed at protecting mental privacy and humanity. This requires proceeding with caution, respecting the right of individuals to choose whether and how to access and modify their brains, with a keen awareness of what is at stake for our shared humanity.”
“The first Neuralink implant, like other implantable neurotechnology trials that preceded it, sparks hope – added Farahany -. But as we begin to approach a future filled with enormous potential, one that could transcend human boundaries, our path forward should be thoughtful and include deliberate democratic reflection.”