- On Lex Fridman’s podcast, Elon Musk revealed that a second patient has successfully received the Neuralink brain chip implant.
- We don’t know much about the recipient so far ,except the fact they got paralyzed in a diving accident.
- According to Musk, everything with the second implant is going very well.
Months after its first successful brain chip implantation, Elon Musk-owned Neuralink is onto its second trial patient who was paralyzed in a diving accident.
The news was first shared by Musk himself on Lex Fridman’s podcast. The implantation has been successful and it’s working quite well at the moment.
“I don’t want to jinx it but it seems to have gone extremely well with the second implant. There’s a lot of signal, a lot of electrodes. It’s working very well.” – Elon Musk
About the Chip
The Neuralink brain chip is a revolutionary device that allows physically disabled people to control devices with the help of their thoughts alone.
- The current version consists of 1,024 electrodes distributed across 64 threads that are thinner than human hair.
- Revealing his future plans, Musk said that he really hopes that the brain chip reaches a speed of 100 bits per second in the coming years.
- 5 years from now, it can probably run at megabit, which will be faster than any human can communicate via typing or speaking.
He also believes that this implant can greatly simplify the communication between AI and humans. These machines operate at terabits per second whereas humans only communicate at a few bits per second. There’s clearly a huge lag that Neuralink’s brain chips can help bridge.
The First Trial Patient – Noland Arbaugh
You can’t talk about Neuralink’s brain chips without talking about its first trial patient. Noland Arbaugh is a 29-year-old US citizen who experienced a severe spinal injury after a diving accident that led to quadriplegia.
He received the implant in January 2024 and for a while, everything seemed to be working great. He had learned to control a mouse just with his thoughts and was seen playing chess online.
“[The Link] 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.” – Noland Arbaugh
However, this went away after the chip started malfunctioning. Almost 85% of the threads connecting his brain to the device started retracting, severely hampering the system’s abilities.
The company did send an over-the-air software update to his implants with ‘more rapid and sustained improvement in BPS’. Neuralink assured that this little blip had no threat to Arbaugh’s safety and that everything was back to normal.
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Krishi Chowdhary Journalist 
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