In the highly anticipated follow-up to their 2020 act "pig with a computer chip in its brain," Elon Musk's brain interface startup Neuralink has reportedly taught a monkey how to play Pong with its brain. Musk revealed the news in an interview on the audio app Clubhouse at the end of January, saying:
In simplistic terms, I'd say it's sort of like a FitBit in your skull with tiny wires that go to your brain … We already got a monkey with a wireless implant in their skull, and the tiny wires, who can play video games using his mind. And he's amazing, so it's not like an unhappy monkey, and you can't even see where the neural implant was put in except for that he's got like a slight like dark mohawk. He's not uncomfortable and he doesn't look weird. … One of the things we're trying to figure out is like, can we have the monkeys play mind pong with each other?
Monkey Mind-Pong: from the people who brought you Tesla!
The practical application of this would be to ultimately aid people suffering from traumatic brain injuries. Musk assures listeners the USDA inspected the cyborg monkey video game facility to make sure it was up to code with the Animal Welfare Act, and that the inspector said, "it was like the nicest monkey facilities she's ever seen in her entire career."
I'll believe it when the cyborg video game monkeys finally revolt.
Elon Musk's Team Wired a Monkey to Play Video Games With Its Mind [Courtney Lindner / Popular Mechanics]
Elon Musk Says He Wired Up a Monkey's Brain to Play Video Games [Reed Stevenson and River Davis / Bloomberg]
