Elon Musk's Neuralink 'shows monkey playing Pong with mind'

BBC - Neuralink, Elon Musk's computer to brain interface firm, has released a video it claims shows a monkey playing the video game Pong with its mind.

Its brain signals were sent wirelessly via an implanted device.

The hope is that the interface could eventually allow people with neurological conditions to control phones or computers remotely.

One expert said the fact no wires were used represented "significant progress", but more data was needed.

The macaque monkey, named Pager, was first taught to play the video game with a joystick, and was rewarded with a fruit smoothie.

During this process, the Neuralink device recorded the information about which neurons were firing to control which movements.

Then the joystick was disconnected, leaving the monkey to control gameplay with its mind only.

In a blog post the researchers wrote: "Our mission is to build a safe and effective clinical BMI (Brain Machine Interface) system that is wireless and fully implantable.

"Our first goal is to give people with paralysis their digital freedom back, to communicate more easily via text, follow their curiosity on the web, to express their creativity through photography and art, and, yes, to....READ MORE

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