(Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Elon Musk’s Neuralink suggests that a human patient might have successfully used the company’s brain chip to remotely control a robot.
A short video clip posted Thursday shows a robot arm holding a marker to carefully write the word “Convoy” on a whiteboard. Convoy is the name of the Neuralink study focused on using the company’s N1 brain chip to control an assistive robotic arm.
The 30-second clip doesn’t reveal much else, including who’s controlling the machine. But Neuralink’s X post with the video also includes the heart, robot arm, and pen emoji.
Some people picked up on what Neuralink appears to be saying. “I don't think most people understand what’s happening here: Neuralink’s patient is controlling a robotic arm with his mind,” wrote one user on X. “Not a joystick, not a muscle sensor, just his thoughts.”
In response, Neuralink owner Elon Musk replied: “True.”
First announced in November, the Convoy study aims to restore autonomy for people with disabilities, particularly quadriplegics who have lost limb control. This came after Neuralink’s first human patient, Noland Arbaugh, successfully used the technology to control the mouse cursor on his laptop after the N1 chip was surgically implanted in his brain.
The result enabled Arbaugh — a quadriplegic— to play Mario Kart and Civilization VI and live stream on his PC when before he had to settle for mouth-operated controllers to play video games. The brain chip pulls this off by reading his brain signals, and translating them into Bluetooth-based remote commands to control a wireless device.
The company is now working to meld its brain implant tech with robotics, potentially opening the door for people with disabilities to control exoskeletons and robotic limbs with their thoughts. So far, Neuralink has implanted the N1 chip into at least three human patients with the goal of expanding it to more test subjects, including in Canada.