Elon Musk-backed ‘Neuralink’ shows how monkey plays Pong with mind

In what could help paralysed people to use their mind to operate a smartphone in the near future, Elon Musk-run brain-machine interface company Neuralink on Friday posted a YouTube video where a monkey can be seen playing a video game by navigating an on-screen cursor using his mind.

Pager, a nine-year-old macaque monkey, had a Neuralink chip implanted about six weeks before the video was shot.

The monkey was first trained to play the Pong video game with a joystick for a banana reward.

The Neuralink device recorded information about which neurons were firing as the money played the video game.