The late physicist and best selling science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke famously said “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
The saying is obviously true; think of how a person from 16th century England would see a television, let alone a cell phone. They would immediately think it was witchcraft.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s “Neuralink” technology is probably the best example of magic-seeming technology to date. The technology is a computer chip implanted into the brain in the hopes of giving paralyzed people the ability to move and interact with the world again. It is still in the experimental stages, but the progress being made is shocking.
The company has recently released information about the second volunteer in the experimental study, Alex, who is paralyzed by a spinal cord injury. Until now, Alex has had to rely on the last version of the latest technology to interact with the world. He has used a joystick he operates with his mouth, along with other oral devices, to play computer games, for example.
But with Neuralink, he’s able to do something that for all the world looks like telepathy—the alleged supernatural ability to move or affect objects in the world with the mind alone.
After getting the chip implanted, the Neuralink company said it took Alex only one day to master how to control a computer cursor with his mind alone. Now the former auto mechanic said he’s having a blast playing video games with his mind. He said “just running around” the virtual game world was much more fun because he could now “look around” within the game without having to use his mouth-operated joystick.
He said all he has to do is think about where “to look” within the game, and it responds. “It’s insane,” he said.
It’s not just games that Neuralink has helped Alex with, though. On the second day after his surgery he was reportedly able to use computerized design software with his mind alone. He has already designed a customized mount for the device’s charger, which he was able to make using a 3D printer.
