In what could help paralysed people to use their mind to operate a smartphone in the near future, Elon Musk-run brain-machine interface company Neuralink on Friday posted a YouTube video where a monkey can be seen playing a video game by navigating an on-screen cursor using his mind.
Pager, a nine-year-old macaque monkey, had a Neuralink chip implanted about six weeks before the video was shot.
The monkey was first trained to play the Pong video game with a joystick for a banana reward.
The Neuralink device recorded information about which neurons were firing as the money played the video game.
Later, the joystick was removed, and the monkey was still able to play the game using only his mind.
"A monkey is literally playing a video game telepathically using a brain chip," Must said in a tweet on Friday.
"First @Neuralink product will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs," he added.
Musk further added: "Later versions will be able to shunt signals from Neuralinks in the brain to Neuralinks in body motor/sensory neuron clusters, thus enabling, for example, paraplegics to walk again".
In February this year, the Tesla CEO revealed that a monkey has been wired up to play video games with its mind.
Musk said that Neuralink put a computer chip into the monkey's skull and used "tiny wires" to connect it to its brain.
Musk, who also spoke about space travel, colonies on Mars, crypto, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Covid-19 vaccines, said Neuralink is trying to figure out if it can use its chips to get monkeys to play "mind Pong" with each other.
"That would be pretty cool," said Musk, who is CEO of Neuralink, in addition to SpaceX and Tesla.
Headquartered in San Francisco, Neuralink's team of around 100 people is trying to develop an implementable computer-brain interface.
The aim of Neuralink is to increase the rate at which information can flow from the human brain to a machine.
In 2020, the company publicly shared a wireless version of the Link that was able to stream 1,024 channels of action potentials (also called "spikes") wirelessly and in real time.
"We demonstrated its functionality by recording somatosensory (touch) signals in pigs exploring their environment. The electrodes were placed in a part of the brain involved in processing signals from the pig's exquisitely sensitive snout. As it snuffled about, the responses of the neurons to sensory cues could be readily observed," the company explained.
--IANS
na/dpb
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Dear Reader,
Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.
We, however, have a request.
As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.
Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.
Digital Editor
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU