In 2019, Elon Musk stood in front of a stage to announce the newest product to his Neuralink company and now 2 years later, the tech is working on this rather interesting Monkey.

Neuralink Technology

The system is used for recording the activity of thousands of neurons in the brain. This new tech is the product of Neuralink, with the goal of creating an implantable brain-computer interface (BCI).

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The initial goal with this is to enable people with quadriplegia (paralysis) to control a smartphone or computer with just their thoughts. His vision also consists of giving humans the ability to “merge” with AI. This should essentially give them superhuman intelligence.

Elon Musk Neuralink Monkey Test

Elon Musk on Friday tweeted that “later versions of the Neuralink will be able to shunt signals from Neuralinks in the brain to Neuralinks in body motor/sensory neuron clusters. So theoretically, this technology will enable, for example, paraplegics to walk again.

The device is implanted flush with skull & charges wirelessly, so you look & feel totally normal

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 9, 2021

Sounds insane but with the tests seen when this monkey was playing ping pong with its mind, Elon Musk looks to have struck gold. As seen in the video below, the possibilities are endless.

The video shows the monkey with a brain chip playing video games just by thinking. The male macaque has chips embedded on each side of its brain recording and decoding electrical signals from the brain.

It uses more than 2,000 electrodes implanted in regions of the monkey’s motor cortex that coordinate hand and arm movements. Using the data, they calibrate the decoder by mathematically modelling the relationship between patterns of neural activity. Alongside the different joystick movements, they produce.

It’s quite the evolution in tech and I can’t wait to see what’s next in store.