Elon Musk gives update on Neuralink’s wired-up monkey, who plays video games

One of Elon Musk’s bold initiatives, “Neuralink” is a brain-machine interface company, which creates an interface between a brain and a computer chip. Started back in 2016 and firstly revealed in March 2017, Neuralink was funded entirely by Musk’s own pocket. In past years, the company has given a bunch of updates about its ongoing projects (like a live demo of its technology on three pigs, which Musk named Gertrude.)

But currently, Elon Musk has stated that the result for a project in which a chip was successfully implanted in a monkey allowing it to control a computer with its brain, has come “very positive.” However, the exact nature of this control wasn’t entirely clear just yet.

As reported by Bloomberg, Elon Musk has given a couple of added details about this test by Neuralink, while speaking to Clubhouse (a private social app). There he told several thousand listeners that the company has a happy monkey who enjoys playing video games with the help of Neuralink’s chip in its skull:

“We have a monkey with a wireless implant in their skull with tiny wires who can play video games with his mind. You can’t see where the implant is and he’s a happy monkey. We have the nicest monkey facilities in the world. We want them to play mind-Pong with each other.”

When the company first highlighted this project, many people raised a concern that implanting a chip in a monkey’s skull wouldn’t be a notoriously difficult procedure, but might not look cosmetically pleasing either (which billionaire answered to Joe Rogan on his podcast). And today he further added to that, saying:

“There are primitive versions of this device with wires sticking out of your head, but it’s like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires that go into your brain.”

Further Musk indicated that videos of his plugged-in monkeys will be released in about a month (to clear up the confusion). For now, the exact nature and details about the controllability of the chip are unclear.