Elon Musk's brain chip implanted continues to show breakthroughs: now (Sunday) the patient who is paralyzed in his whole body managed to tweet on the X network with the power of thought alone, a week after he demonstrated how he plays chess online – also with the power of thought.
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Nold Erbo , the first brain chip implanted, made history again when he tweeted on the X network, formerly Twitter, "only through thinking". Erbo, 29, who is paralyzed from the shoulders down after a diving accident, became the first person in the world to send a tweet just by having a thought captured by the cybernetic chip.
Twitter banned me because they thought I was a bot, @X and @elonmusk reinstated me because I am.
— Noland Arbaugh (@ModdedQuad) March 22, 2024
On the way to the tweet, an amusing curiosity happened: Arbo said that the tweet platform was initially convinced that it was a bot, and therefore blocked the tweet. When the Neurlink company realized that it was their transplant, the tweet was uploaded again. As mentioned at the end of the week, the transplanted man demonstrated how he plays chess – with the power of thought alone.
— Neuralink (@neuralink) March 20, 2024
As you may remember last year, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Neuralink for the first trial to test the implant on humans. The company stated that they intend to eventually allow the paralyzed to use a computer or cell phone using only the power of thought. The company's chip includes electronic components hermetically sealed inside a device the size of a large coin. From this chip implanted inside the brain, several dozens of extremely thin wires protrude directly into the brain tissue. Signals from the chip are sent via Bluetooth to a brain-computer interface that will allow a person, for example, to control a cursor on the screen or even move a robotic limb implanted in his body.
The Neuralink chip is inserted into the body using a surgical robot specially designed to implant the implant and the 64 flexible and thinnest connected wires on which 1,024 electrodes record neural activity. The robot has five built-in camera systems and uses optical technology for non-invasive imaging of brain tissue. The robot uses a thin needle as a human hair that inserts the wires into place in the brain.
"The surgery was easy," Arbo first said in a video broadcast on Musk's X social media platform, "I was released from the hospital a day later, and I have no cognitive deficits. It's not perfect, we ran into some problems. I don't want people to think this is the end of the journey, there's more A lot of work to do, but the transplant changed my life."
In the past, Musk explained that in his vision a paralyzed person could become almost independent when he controls his environment, communicates and even activates means, can move and even move paralyzed limbs – all this with the power of thought alone. The chip, Musk hoped, could even help restore sight to the blind. Similarly, translating neural signals into external movement should help patients with severe neurodegenerative diseases like ALS communicate with the environment by moving a cursor and typing with their brains.