Cyborg Monkey Implanted With Neuralink Chip by Elon Musk Plays Ping Pong With His Mind!

Startup of Elon Musk's brain-implant Neuralink shares a video showing a monkey making use of its device to play " Ping Pong" with its mind 

(Photo : Simon)

Neuralink's Devices 

Neuralink named the experiment an "initial demonstration of the potential capabilities" of its high-tech brain chips, although it's not clear whether the outcomes will be peer-reviewed by experts or released in an academic journal. 

The macaque which is 9-year-old  called Pager possessed two of Neuralink's devices implanted in his brain for around six weeks before the company made a video that lasted for about three-and-a-half-minute.

According to the clip, Pager mastered to make an interaction with a computer while sipping a banana smoothie through a straw as a prize. As he made use of a joystick to change the position of a cursor to a target on the screen, a devices made a record of the activity from the neurons responsible for the movements of his hand and transmit them to a computer algorithm that decoded them, says Neuralink.

Also Read: Monkeys can Do Math, Study Finds

The Algorithm 

According to the video, after tutoring the algorithm, Pager had the ability to abandon the joystick and play "mind Ping Pong" just by having thoughts about the up or down movement of his hand. Musk - who in February ridiculed Neuralink's monkey experiments - was amazed at the achievement of his company after the video was revealed Thursday.

It was said on Twitter that "a monkey is literally playing a video game telepathically using a brain chip!!" the billionaire tech tycoon."Neuralink aspires to make use of its brain chips eventually to allow paralyzed people make interaction with computers or smartphones with the use of only their brain activity.

Later Version of Neuralink's Chip 

In October, Synchron - a Silicon Valley company said that it achieved such tasks with a device inserted through the blood vessels. Neuralink's chip later versions could connect devices planted in the brain to others somewhere else in the body, "thus allowing, for instance, paraplegics to walk again," Musk stated.

But the test pulled out fire from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which announces monkeys in experiments of neuroscience are usually kept hungry or thirsty to force them into cooperating.

(Photo : Getty Images)

Gertrude 

"Experiments like Neuralink's have been performed so many times before, always at the cost of animals whose lives have been taken away, and nothing has emanated from it," PETA senior vice president Kathy Guillermo revealed in a statement. "Neuralink would make scientific  history if its research deviates from animals and actually helped humans."

Pager is not the only critter Neuralink has used to test its gadgets. The company formerly installed a prototype in a pig called Gertrude to make a demonstration of its ability to pass on neural signals. 

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