Neuralink's First Patient Controls Computers With His Mind — With Noland Arbaugh

Noland Arbaugh is a 30 year old quadriplegic who can control computers with nothing but his mind. Earlier this year, he allowed Elon Musk’s Neuralink to drill a hole in his skull, insert more than one thousand electrodes into his motor cortex, and translate his brain signals into cursor movement and clicks. In this week's Big Technology Podcast, Alex Kantrowitz interviews Arbaugh at his Yuma, Arizona home in a conversation that covers his injury, the Neuralink selection process, the surgery, the training, the freedom the device gives Arbaugh, and the big questions like whether he'd ever merge with AI. Tune in for a fascinating conversation about a modern day technological miracle.

Catch the full episode, and others like it, on Big Technology Podcast, available on your podcast app of choice.

Video credit: Eric Sawyer and Omar Velazquez

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
03:40 The Accident That Changed Everything
07:00 Understanding Paralysis
08:01 Getting the Call from Neuralink
15:00 Brain Surgery with "Tiny Dancer"
18:20 The Post-Surgery Prank
24:00 First Time Seeing His Brain Signals
29:00 Teaching His Brain to Control Computers
36:00 How Neuralink Changed His Life
42:00 When Things Went Wrong
50:00 The Future of Brain-Computer Interfaces
54:00 Security and Privacy Concerns
58:12 The Possibility of Collective Consciousness
1:02:00 Faith, Optimism and Recovery
1:07:21 Message to Tech Workers
1:10:00 Outro