A man with paralysis challenges the Neuralink monkey to match the Pong mind

Copeland already uses mental commands to play video games, including classic Sega like Sonic the Hedgehog. He admits the question was “tough” whether to challenge Musk’s monkey or not. “I could beat my ass,” he says. “But yeah, I’d play it.”

Copeland gave the challenge in an interview and then today’s section of the national public radio program Science Friday, where he appeared discussing brain interfaces.

Neuralink, a secret company created by Musk in 2016, did not respond to attempts to address the Pong challenge.

Playing at home

Brain interfaces record electrical firing of neurons in the motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls movement. The firing rate of each neuron contains information about the movements a subject makes or imagines. A “decoder” program then returns the signals to commands that can be transmitted to the computer cursor.

Copeland is among the humans with an older style of implant, called the Utah array, and uses it to move robotic arms in experiments at the University of Pittsburgh. Before Copeland completes a task, he begins with a 10-minute training session in which an algorithm can map the firing signals from its neurons to specific movements. After such a session, Copeland says the computer cursor can think left or right, forward or backward. Thinking about closing your hand causes a mouse click.

Starting last March, the Pittsburgh team organized Copeland to implant a brain implant on its own, at home, using a tablet computer. She has used it to surf the net and paint pictures of a cat with a coloring program. Last spring, he used six hours a day. “The pandemic overwhelmed me,” he says.

NATHAN COPELAND

The tablet is not particularly powerful. And it can only be used with batteries. It is not supposed to connect the brain to any device directly connected to the mains, as no one knows what effect the power surge may have. “I’m encouraged to be careful about what software it puts in,” says Jeffrey Weiss, a Pittsburgh researcher who works with Copeland. “I have no other restrictions on breaking things, and I don’t receive any malware. It’s just a Windows machine “.

Copeland’s interface was installed by a neurosurgeon six years ago. It has a total of four silicon implants. Both of the cortex motor allow him to control the robotic arm or computer cursor used in the experiments. The other two, in the somatosensory part of the brain, allow scientists to send signals to the head, which records them as sensations of pressure or biting on the fingers.

The advantage of the monkey

Consistent with intelligence, Neuralink’s primate would have the advantage of a next-generation interface that the company calls a “link”. Although Copeland has to connect the cables to two ports on his skull, the Neuralink implant is the size of a soda bottle stopper and is completely embedded in the skull. It transmits brain recordings wirelessly via Bluetooth.

“It’s a very promising device, but it’s new, and there are a lot of questions about it,” Weiss says. “No one outside Neuralink could see a glance.” The company said it expects to collect human subjects, but the animal being tested by Neuralink will depend on how the pig’s internal implant is maintained. “No one knows if it will last six months or six years,” Weiss says.