A Paralyzed Man Plays Chess With His Mind, Using Neuralink's Brain Implant

In a livestream, Noland Arbaugh, 29, who lost the use of his limbs in a diving accident, moved a cursor around a chessboard by thinking about moving his hand. He said he'd also played a video game for eight hours straight.

Neuralink showed its first patient today, in a nine-minute livestream. Noland Arbaugh, who is 29 and paralyzed below the shoulders after a diving accident eight years ago, sat in a wheelchair with a laptop in front of him and played chess. The cursor moved where he wanted it. There was nothing in his hands. "It's like using the Force," he said, and laughed.

Arbaugh received the implant in January. Its threads sit in the part of his brain that controls movement, and it picks up the signals he would once have sent to his hand. Software translates those into cursor movements. He said learning to use it was a matter of trying to move his hand, then discovering he could just intend the cursor to move. He said he had stayed up until 6 a.m. playing the video game Civilization, and that the only reason he stopped was that the implant needed charging.

He was also frank about the limits. "It's not perfect," he said. "We have run into some issues." He did not say what they were. Neuralink has published no data, and the patients other companies have implanted have done similar things — a cursor, a keyboard, a robot arm — for years, in peer-reviewed studies. What is new is a wireless implant, a surgical robot to place it, and a company with the resources to move fast.

It is also new that a paralyzed man is on a livestream saying his life has changed. Whatever else is true, that was true today.