Control your thoughts Elon Musk And his team have been working for a long time. The system is called Neuralink and it has already passed first animal tests. A few months ago, the billionaire presented the results of an experiment conducted on a pig. And now a video clip has been introduced in which the macaque plays on a computer using only his mind.
New movie with a monkey playing Pong
The macaque shown in the presentation is called Pager and can control its movements in games with a joystick. The team working on Neuralink convinced him to collaborate with banana juice delivered by a metal straw during the game. Thanks to it, the animal can focus on it Game.
As the company explains, the first step is to calibrate the equipment. Then the monkey plays with a joystick, and the Neuralink implant reads information from thousands of neurons in its brain and transmits it to a computer. On this basis, it is possible to verify the signals in the brain that are responsible for movement in a particular direction.
The next step was to switch game control to Neuralink. The animal still used the joystick, but it was not connected to the computer, in fact the monkey was making movements with its thoughts. The third stage was the game without the use of a joystick. In this way, the macaque was able to play, among other things, the popular game of Pong (a table tennis simulator, one of the first games in history) and did very well.
The reader notes, “There is no magic here.” The only reason Neuralink actually works is because it “records and decodes signals from the brain”.
Neuralink aims to help people with disabilities
Neuralink is currently only being tested on animals and can only transmit simpler signals. However, he will soon be ready in theory to allow a person to control a smartphone or computer through only his thoughts.
According to Elon Musk, in the first release of Neuralink, this technology will be used by people who cannot use a mouse or touch screen. According to the billionaire, they will be able to control the device with their thoughts faster than people who use their thumbs. Moreover, the device is supposed to operate and charge wirelessly, thanks to which the user should look and feel completely normal.
However, Musk’s plans go further. In the future, the billionaire would like Neuralink to pass information from nerve cells to other parts of the human body. This would enable people paralyzed by an injury to walk again, for example. Depending on Mask, this option might appear in a ‘later release’.
“Devoted organizer. Incurable thinker. Explorer. Tv junkie. Travel buff. Troublemaker.”