Elon Musk: Monkey playing Pong with Neuralink | Note: Full Send podcast

August 14, 2022

One thing I always laugh with my brother about is how I would think I was playing Double Dragon with him and his friends but my controller wasn’t even plugged in.

Anyway, this explanation about how they got a monkey to play Pong with its brain is fascinating in how straightforward it seems: record signals coming from the brain to figure out how to map paddle movements to brain signals, unplug the controller but let the monkey continue to use it, then send the monkey’s signals to the game instead of the controller directions.

A little switcheroo and you’ve got Planet of the Apes beta.

(Obligatory link: Tim Urban’s fantastic blog post aka book on Neuralink.)

Listen to the whole Full Send interview. While I’m not quite as old as Elon, I grew a few more gray hairs hearing this exchange:

Elon: I grew up playing very primitive video games. Because I’m 51 so that’s no spring chicken.

Steiny’s response:

So like Super Smash?