A paralyzed man says he can now play first-person shooters like “Battlefield 6” using a Neuralink brain implant.
“I can now aim with my thoughts,” wrote Rob Greiner, who is paralyzed from the shoulders down, in a post on X this Tuesday with video of his gameplay.
Using a combination of a mouth-operated controller designed for quadriplegics called the QuadStick and Neuralink’s implant, which is a brain computer interface, Greiner is able move his character in the world, look freely around, aim at enemies with his weapon of choice, and open fire.
“It’s gonna take a ton of practice, like a ton because I’m only as accurate as I am with my cursor control on my laptop,” Greiner wrote. “But you gotta hand it to Neuralink.”
A bevy of companies are racing to perfect BCI technology, which can provide life-changing benefits to people suffering from paralysis. Neuralink, founded by Elon Musk, is considered one of the leaders in the space. Its spectacular medical potential, however, also casts an uneasy shadow with concerns of how it could intrude on what experts call our “brain privacy.”
Nonetheless, it’s hard to argue against how it’s already transforming lives. In one of the videos, Greiner explains how he’s able to now play video games.
“Normally this would be the only thing I could control if I wanted to play video games with the QuadStick,” he said, moving his crosshair while in a game of “Battlefield 6,” adding that “you can’t aim and walk at the same time” while only using that device.
“But with Neuralink they’ve now made it so with my thoughts I can aim with thinking,” he said, while controlling his character movement with the QuadStick.
He asks the viewer to think about his gaming setup as having an imaginary mouse, controlled by his thoughts, while his mouth is what controls the keyboard.
Neuralink has surgically implanted its BCIs in twelve human test subjects so far, after beginning human trials last year. The implant is placed in the skull and is powered by a small battery which is charged wirelessly.
Greiner was left paralyzed after a car accident in 2022. After years on Neuralink’s waitlist, he underwent surgery to receive his chip in June.
He isn’t the only Neuralink patient to start racking up headshots using the company’s tech. Last year, another patient — only identified as Alex — demonstrated they were able to play the shooter “Counter-Strike 2.” Alex’s setup also involved using a QuadStick.
“I can [think about where to] look and it goes where I want it to. It’s insane,” Alex said in a company blog post.
Gaming is clearly in demand on the platform. Neuralink’s first patient, Noland Arbaugh, even said that using Neuralink’s BCI to game was like having “an aimbot in my head.”
More on brain implants: MIT Invents Injectable Brain Chips
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