Elon Musk: First Brain-chip Patient Plays Chess

Elon Musk shared video footage of the first person using a brain chip developed by his company Neuralink to control a computer mouse and play video games just by thinking.

The patient, 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh, who is paraplegic, was seen in a video shared with “X” using only his mind to play a game of chess.

Arbaugh was involved in a freak diving accident 8 years ago, which left him paralyzed from the shoulders down, according to the Daily Mail.

His successful use of this technology represents an amazing development and reinforces experts' beliefs that it could revolutionize care for the disabled.

Arbaugh looked happy throughout the clip, as it showed the mouse moving from side to side across the online chessboard.

“Progress is good and the patient appears to have made a full recovery, with neurological effects that we are aware of,” Musk wrote in a tweet on X.

Neuralink technology uses a robot to surgically implant a brain-computer interface into an area of the brain that controls the intention to move.

The system consists of a computer chip connected to small elastic threads that are sewn into the brain by a robot that resembles a sewing machine.

Musk said the installation procedure, which connects thread-like electrodes to specific areas of the brain, takes only 30 minutes, does not require general anesthesia, and patients will be able to go home the same day.

Arbaugh suffered the debilitating injury while working at a children's camp in Texas in 2016, and said he had "absolutely no feeling" beneath his shoulders.