Neuralink patient stuns chess community with “incredible” clip
Stephen Shankland/CNETNearualink revealed in a stream on March 20 that the first patient implanted with its chip can play chess with his mind.
The patient, Noland Arbaugh, is paralyzed from the shoulders down and received the implant from the Elon Musk startup in January 2024. Musk claimed Arbaugh could use a mouse cursor last month, however, this is the first video evidence released to the public.
In the video, Arbaugh says he is controlling the cursor with his brain and making moves on a virtual chess board.
“Basically, it was like using the force on a cursor,” he said at 2:45 minutes into the video while moving his knight on the board.
The clip of him playing chess has spread throughout the chess community as top players and personalities marvel at the technology.
Neuralink showcases technology via chess
“Incredible. Now add stockfish and become the greatest chess player of all time,” chess streamer Alexandra Botez said on social media.
Other chess masters like John Bartholomew also chimed in to joke about the clip.
“Intrusive queen blunder thoughts intensify,” Bartholomew said.
Chess.com confirmed that Arbaugh won the match he played on stream. The patient said the chip is not perfect and still has some bugs every once in a while. However, that hasn’t stopped him from continuing to game with his mind as he reportedly played hours of his favorite game, Civilization VI, once it got up and running.
Arbaugh said that before the surgery he had given up on playing the strategy game.
Arbaugh goes by DirtyBird23 on Chess.com, so those in the community should be able to check his progress and possibly even run into him playing using only his will and brain.