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. --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/ Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack? Here’s 40% off for the first year: https://tinyurl.com/bigtechnology Questions? Feedback? Write to: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  This is Nolan Arba. That's him controlling a computer with nothing but his mind. And yes, he kicked my butt going head to head in a video game. Arba is the first Neuralink patient. Meaning Elon Musk's brain-computer interface company inserted a device into his motor cortex that's allowed him to finally, freely operate a computer for the first time since getting paralyzed eight years ago. Nolan and I spoke about it all in a special edition of Big Technology Podcast, Face to Face, in his Yuma, Arizona kitchen. Here's our conversation. Nolan, welcome to the show. This episode is brought to you by Genesis.

• 0:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  What does it actually take to put Agentic AI to work across an entire enterprise? I recently spoke with Genesis chairman and CEO Tony Bates about why orchestration is emerging as a competitive advantage in customer experience and what companies need to get right in the AI era. Then, I sat down with Adam Mitchell, head of Enterprise Business Solutions at Voya Financial, to go inside a large-scale Agentic CX transformation, including the business decisions, trade-offs, and lessons along the way. You can watch both conversations now on my YouTube channel today. It's never been more challenging to get frontier compute. How do you know where to look, who to trust, or how much to pay?

• 1:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  Akash is an open cloud that provides easy access, flexibility, and peace of mind. That's how companies like Razer were able to cut their inference cost by 15 times. Visit akash.network/alex for a free consultation. That's akash.network/alex for a free consultation.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Thanks, man. Thanks for having me.

• 1:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thanks for having me here at your home. I'm so grateful to be here and so excited to speak with you.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Anytime. Everyone's welcome.

• 1:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay. So, you're the first Neuralink patient. Just to introduce what that means, you have a device on the back of your head that has about 60 threads that have been implanted into your brain, and you can control computers with your mind. Via the signals coming through that device. Is that the gist of it?

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the implant is on the top of my head. Um, in the implant in the motor cortex, uh, the left side of my brain. Um, so it's kind of like right on top, just off center to the left. Um, there are sixty-four threads with sixteen electrodes on each thread, uh, totaling a thousand twenty-four electrodes in all. And they are implanted in the part of my motor cortex specifically correlated to right-hand movement. Because I did what's called an FMRI, a functional MRI. That showed my right-hand movement is the strongest, um, signal that was received. With like all of my body parts, so they implanted it in that side of my brain. And, um, with those electrodes, they pick up neuron spikes, neuron signals.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  And through an app on a computer right now called the Link app, it translates to, um, cursor control.

• 3:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  So that mouse moving around your computer?

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's not about, it's not the eyes, it's not fingers, it's legitimately you think it in one place and it goes?

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Amazing.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  It's, it's pretty cool.

• 3:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. So for our audience, we're gonna get into that in a bit. But I first want to get a chance for everybody to learn about you and to know you.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 3:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  So let's just talk about the way that you ended up in this position, your injury.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. So when I was twenty-two years old, uh, it was right after my senior year at Texas A&M. I was working at a summer camp in the Pocono Mountains called Island Lake Camp. It was our first day off and a group of us went to a man-made lake in Binghamton, New York. Um, I think the lake is called Binghamton Lake. There is a beach that was built that goes into the water. Um, and for all of you who are wondering, it's a sectioned off, like cordoned off part of the water that's been there for probably decades. Uh, so there's nothing in the water. People always say like, oh, maybe there was a piece of a dock in the water in the lake or there was something floating around. It's not the case. Um, I didn't dive in, uh, and hit my head on the bottom of the lake or anything. I-

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Just ran into the water with a couple of guys. We all ran in together. We saw some girls in the water that were our friends who weren't really getting themselves wet. Um, they had like glasses on and their hair was dry, so we thought it would be hilarious to run in and pick them up and dunk them in the water. Um, three of us ran in together and I got hit in the side of the head at some point. Um, as we were getting into the water and um, right on the left side of my head. It dislocated my C four, C five, popped out of place and back into place. To vertebrae. Yes, um, almost instantaneously and uh, I woke up face down in the water. And then what happened?

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I woke up and I realized I couldn't move. I tried to move and nothing happened, so immediately I realized, okay, well, I'm paralyzed. Um, held my breath, hoping that maybe someone would notice and come like, pick me up, come flip me over, come rescue me in a way and no one did. So I held my breath as long as I could, maybe fifteen seconds. It felt like forever, but it might've been like ten, fifteen seconds. And I couldn't hold my breath any longer, so I decided might as well take a big drink and whatever happens, happens. And then for the next hour, I was sort of in and out. Um. In and out of? Consciousness. Really? Yes, um, I saw some things, uh, most of it was me just unconscious.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Woke up when they pulled me out of the water on the beach, uh, woke up again when an ambulance came and I was talking to a paramedic. Woke up again when they were transferring me to a helicopter and then woke up again in the hospital right before they took me into surgery. With a girl I had brought from Texas A and M, standing over me just bawling. And I was trying to comfort her. I was saying, look, everything's gonna be fine. Look, I'm all right, things like that. I cracked some jokes. I don't remember what I said, trying to get her to laugh and stuff. And I had a nurse standing next to me, kind of telling me what was going on, what they were about to do. And she had called my mom and I was like, don't tell my mom, like, it'll just stress her out. Let me go through surgery and then you guys can tell her what happened. And that was it. And then you woke up?

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was kind of um out of it for a while. They had me on like fentanyl three different ways and like some Ativan and stuff. I like to tell people it was awesome. I never felt better. Uh I saw some crazy stuff. Um woke up uh just like randomly and just hallucinated crazy things in my room. So that was a lot of fun. I felt great. Um but then, you know, the next couple of weeks were uh pretty rough. Lots of pain, lots of nerve pain. Um just getting used to not being able to move. It was uh it was not fun.

• 7:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  So what can you feel and what can't you?

• 7:02Speaker 01

  I since since I'm a C four, C five, anything below my shoulders, uh maybe like a couple inches below my shoulders, I can't feel or a move. So no sensation, no movement. Um I did gain back a little bit of movement and like my arm, my hand, just like a tiny bit. Just to do that, something like that, move like left and right. It's not much, um but that's about it. It's a little bit, little bit of like uh bicep flex, um and that's about it. There's no feeling down there, no movement.

• 7:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Is it numb or just non-existent?

• 7:36Speaker 01

  It just doesn't exist. Um yeah, so um being paralyzed is weird. Um like I can see my body. I can feel myself trying to move. And then I just watch nothing happen. So it's odd. Um it's something you have to get used to. Um it feels like phantom limbs sometimes where I feel if I close my eyes and start, you know, like trying to move my body, it seems like my body's moving and then I open my eyes and nothing's happening. Um yeah, and I have no sensation. So I have to be very careful about like things that happen to my body or what position I'm in for how long, because I can get um pressure sores and things uh very easily.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  And I um can hurt myself very easily. So it's just a matter of uh taking care of my body. Um I think I've managed pretty well with the help of my family.

• 8:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  And now you're controlling computers with your mind. So when did Neuralink come into the picture for you?

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Um, a little over a year ago, my buddy called me up, um, just randomly drunk on a Wednesday at 11 a.m.

• 8:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  As one does.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  As one does. And he was like, hey, you want to get a chip in your brain? I was like, sure, why not? I got nothing going on. Um, so he kind of.

• 8:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  You legitimately agreed to it on that first call?

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Yes, 100%.

• 8:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's amazing.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Like within, within a couple of minutes. Um, and.

• 8:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Your friend is persuasive.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, my buddy.

• 9:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Or you're daring.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So my buddy Greg Bain, um, is like really big into the Elon sphere. He got drunk and was Googling SpaceX one day and the human trials popped up on his computer. And immediately he thought of me. He worked in a spinal cord lab after college. Uh, he's a bio major and, um, I think part of it was because of me and my injury that he worked in that lab. And so he's always thinking about me. He's always been a huge help to me and my family. So he called me up and said, you know, let's do this. And I was like, yeah, sure. Like, why not? He like ran me through what Neuralink was and I was like, that sounds pretty cool.

• 9:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Nolan, I love that your friend calls you and says Elon Musk wants to put a chip in your brain and you said, yep.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, why not? Like, like the dude's done so many amazing things. My thought had always been, he's not going to put this in a human until it's ready. I feel like he's very pro humanity and he's not just gonna be, you know, shooting from the hip with this stuff. And hurting people.

• 10:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Um, left and right, just for progress. I never thought you would do that. So when I heard that human trials had opened up through my buddy Bain, I knew that he was ready. And I had complete faith in the company, um, what they were doing. Uh, it sounded really cool. So he applied, um, with me over the phone. It's kind of an interesting juxtaposition because I couldn't apply on my own before. Like it would have probably taken me an hour to apply online if it worked at all. Um, with that macOS control. Now I could probably do it in, you know, a few minutes, uh, with the Neuralink. It's pretty interesting. So he applied, helped apply, uh, with me over the phone.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Uh, he would like ask questions and I would answer, tell him what to put. They were like, hmm, like what do you want from Neuralink? Like, what do you want to get from this? And I was like an Iron Man suit, um, just kind of like joking around. Just.

• 11:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Like, I didn't think I was gonna get this. I thought that it was. Like the longest of shots because like there was nothing really spectacular about me. I feel like I didn't do anything with um my accident, like I didn't accomplish anything in seven years. It's like there's no way that they would pick someone like me. Um, so I was kind of joking around on my application, not taking it very seriously.

• 11:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Then you got a phone call?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Then I got an email that was like, like a day later, they said, oh, uh, we're inviting you to apply. They sent me a link with, you know, like twenty different time slots. And my first thought was, you know, I know I'm not very memorable. So the least I can do is select the very first time slot on everything they send me. And at least they will remember um me for being the first, um, being the first person to, you know, be interviewed and stuff.

• 11:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  And so what was the interview like?

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Um, the initial one, the very, very first one was basically just a screening, like, hey, what's your name? How old are you? Like date of birth? Um, are you paralyzed? Like, are you, are you actually paralyzed and stuff? Um, just to make sure that I wasn't some like rando, I guess, just like applying like, uh, I'm just a normal guy, actually. I just really want the nerve link. Um, so that was the first interview. The next interview started going into things like my medical history. Um, you know, like more in-depth into my injury and how I lived now, where I lived, things like that. Um, and then it progressively kept becoming more detailed.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Um, had like calls with surgeons, uh, had calls with a psychiatrist to make sure I wasn't a crazy person. Um, and then eventually like consent forms, like, okay, well, if you do the study, this is what you're consenting to and things like that. And that all culminated with. A in-person day of testing at a hospital where they did body scans, brain scans, blood tests, urine tests, a real psych evaluation, a memory evaluation, all sorts of things, eight hours of testing up in Phoenix at Barrow Neurological Institute, which went pretty well.

• 13:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay. And at this point, is it dawning on you that, oh, there's a real chance that I might get brain surgery to implant a digital device in there?

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I kept my expectations extremely level through this whole process. They told me constantly that if anything about my injury, about, you know, my medical history, didn't line up with exactly what they were looking for, their criteria, then they would say, okay, thank you, but we're going to go in a different direction, sort of thing. They were always telling me that, like every interview, like, okay, this is going to be a two-hour interview. If at any point what you say doesn't line up with what we want, then we'll say sorry. I was like, yeah, that's fine. So I kept my expectations extremely level. Everyone around me didn't. My buddy Bain called every day. He's like,

• 14:12Speaker 01

  holy, you know, like, yeah, like, you made it through another one. You got another interview. You got another interview.

• 14:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  It was starting to feel real.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, I think the day I went up and got all the testing in Phoenix was when it all became like very, very real to me.

• 14:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  So they said, okay, you're in. And then gave you some options about when exactly you might be able to do this?

• 14:39Speaker 01

  So after my day of testing, it was still another month before they told me I was even selected as one of the participants. And then another month after that, when they told me I was the first.

• 14:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, because here's the thing, like, I don't know if I'd want to be the early adopter on this, like, let somebody else get it in their brain, see if it works, maybe get the more improved device. So, I mean, you're the only person the world knows about that's gotten this. There have been more people that have gotten it since you, but you're the first. What made you say, okay, you know, let's, let's make this work?

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Couple things, um, it's always cool to be the first at anything. I mean, I think that's like pretty obvious. I think anyone given that opportunity would probably do it. Um, and the next was I knew that I would feel absolutely terrible and I would never forgive myself. If I passed it up and someone else was hurt or injured, um, or had to go through something terrible. Because I decided to pass it up. I knew that I wouldn't ever want to do that. So I decided that if they gave me the opportunity, I would be number one. And

• 15:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  They did.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  And I did, yeah.

• 15:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Cool. So what was surgery like? What did they do to you exactly in surgery?

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great question. Um, who knows what they did? I was asleep.

• 15:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  You're like, alright, full trust in this process.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, uh, put me under like anesthesia. Um, the surgery was supposed to last between like three to six hours. It lasted under two. Everything went so perfectly. Um, you know, like you can look up stuff about like the needles and the cartridge, uh, for the R1 robot.

• 16:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Which is the surgical robot that actually took over from the human surgeon and insert the electrodes into your brain.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Yep. Um, we call it Tiny Dancer. I like the name. Um, but yeah, so the surgeon, uh, made the incision, drilled the hole in my skull. And then let the surgical robot, Tiny Dancer, take over. They had taken brain scans, um, when I had done all of my testing. And they had mapped out where each, uh, thread was gonna go. And they said that when they took off the piece of my skull, they were just hoping and praying that everything looked the same, that everything lined up. And they said it was absolutely perfect, that they didn't have to make any adjustments. That Tiny Dancer went straight to work and they brought like 20 needles.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Um, to replace the needles because they didn't know if it would be able to survive the whole surgery or if it would like break or anything of that sort. Um, one needle did it, so it was incredible. They said that like everything went just about as perfectly as it possibly could have. And they closed me up in like an hour and fifty-four minutes or something.

• 17:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, so we should talk a little bit about what this device that they implanted in your brain actually is.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  So they take a piece of your skull out, if I've read it correctly.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Take a piece of your skull out, insert the device, and well, insert the threads. So the robot puts these sixty-four threads into your motor cortex. And each of them has a set of electrodes on it. So you have a thousand plus electrodes that are sensors that read the firing neurons in your brain.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  And then they effectively plug it up with the device. So and then put the skin back over.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  And I think the amazing thing about this is that the, everything we do in our body is electric. So the electricity that's running through your brain, which is the signals that your brain is sending to do things, that's picked up by the device.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Yes, each of the sixteen electrodes on the sixty-four threads

• 18:19Speaker 01

  is placed near neurons in my brain. They tried to get the electrodes near a certain depth in my brain, which is where all of the movements occur really. So they put the electrodes up and down the thread just to make sure that at least one or a couple of the electrodes were close to the depth that they needed it to be. And they were picking up neurons firing in my brain that control motor movement specifically to my right hand. All those signals are picked up in some way. And it's sent back to the app, to the link app. And you can do some pretty cool things with them.

• 19:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  So you wake up from surgery and the first thing you do is play a prank on your mother.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is everyone's favorite part of the story, I think. It's one of my favorite parts.

• 19:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Can Mia, do you want to come in here for this? Alright, we're gonna bring in No One's Mom.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Hey everyone, this is my mom Mia. Um, she's been my mom for thirty years.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  Hi Alex.

• 19:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hi everybody.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Hi everybody.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Um, she's great, she's the only reason that I've been able to make it this far.

• 19:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, we've, I've, the, the, I've heard so much about your mom on some of the shows that you've done.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  And I think that it's time for listeners and viewers to mute.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, she's great.

• 19:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  She also said she wants to prank you back.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, she, she'll have to try real hard. Um, I'm not as gullible or, I'm not as gullible or naive as she is.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  He doesn't have to be, it's gonna be so good.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Okay, we'll see.

• 19:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exactly.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  But, um, yeah, so, uh, she, she does everything with me, goes everywhere with me, she's my like full-time caregiver. Basically full-time nurse. Um, and so, you know, she's also a little like gullible. And so my, my buddy Bain and I, he was staying, uh, with us for like, you know, a couple of weeks before my surgery to help out. And we were just joking around, like, man, it would be so funny to do something out of surgery. Like, come out of, uh, come out of surgery and wake up from anesthesia and like, just play a little prank on people.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  So, uh, we decided, Bain, Bain didn't think I would do it, he was like, there's no way you'd do that. Um, I woke up from surgery and everyone's standing around me and my mom looked at me, she was like, hey honey, like, how are you doing? I just looked at her and I was like, who are you? And she, she freaked out, like, tears started flowing.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  I didn't freak out, what I did was, I was kind of a quiet, like, freaking out, cause I was, I just started, like, tears welled up in my eyes and I didn't really know what to do, my first thought was, I first looked at, um, his stepdad David and I was like, and then I thought, wanted to call a doctor, like, um, excuse me, someone needs to get in here, like, he does not know who I am. And what's going on, what did you guys do, that's kind of the reaction, and that's what I did. And then, after I'm looking around, looking for help, I look at him and his face, and he was like...

• 21:31Speaker 02

  Just kidding.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Right here, like, she'll smirk, smirk like, mom.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  It was that face that I know.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  And then I saw the smile, I was like, I just had this look. And then he goes, I'm just kidding. I'm like, wait, you know who I am? And he was like, yes.

• 21:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  So no, what did Neuralink do to my son?

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  You're like, that is my son.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  I, I saw, it took, it took like three seconds and I saw like the panic in her eyes.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  I was like, I can't, I can't let this go on much longer. Like it was a mean prank to begin with, but I could have kept it going for a while and like watched the freak out unfold. But I was like, ah, that's too mean.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  I would have probably done some not very nice things to her. And it's probably why he didn't want to go too far.

• 22:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  It went exactly to the place it should have.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Yes, I think so as well.

• 22:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  And look, I just wanted to bring this story in because I think people should know how amazing this family is.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know, it's one story, but I think it gives you a sense.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  Well, it's our competitiveness. I'm super competitive. And I think my kids have always through the years wanted to get me somehow. You know, I play right back. So for parents out there, you know, listening. Yeah, it wasn't very nice at the time, but it is really funny because he knew how to just bring calm to me and be like, mom, I'm okay.

• 22:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Everything's good.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  This is who I am.

• 22:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  And you know, hindsight, I was upset at first, but then thinking about it, it, it was pretty funny.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  See, there we go.

• 22:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes, exactly. An amazing, an amazing family.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  It was, the, the whole reason is just to show her and everyone around me that I was the same. That nothing had changed.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  And that's the best way to do it is to pull a prank.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  I asked them to do something with the brand, but they didn't do it. They just kept it.

• 23:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exactly. Same guy.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, like torn.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Shucks, yeah.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was like, oh, good job you got, but no, I didn't get to do that.

• 23:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, thank you, Mia. Thank you for coming in.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Thanks, mom.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  I love you.

• 23:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  You guys are awesome.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  So woke up out of surgery.

• 23:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  But you weren't the same person because you had a Neuralink implanted.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean.

• 23:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Did anything feel different?

• 23:35Speaker 01

  No, I've never felt different this whole time. I just feel like the same person. But pulled a little prank on my mom, thought it was hilarious. Can't believe I remembered it because I was so drugged up on anesthesia. I was like, there's no way I remember to do this, but it worked out perfectly.

• 23:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  And after that, it was, you know, Elon Musk came in.

• 23:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Into recovery room.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Into my hospital room, like after I was like recovering a bit. I think he came in probably like a couple hours maybe after my surgery and I was still a little groggy. And he came in, was like, hey, good job. Finally made it here. It's good to see you. Good to meet you. Things like, how do you feel? How's it going? Things of that nature. And I don't remember much, but what I do remember very vividly is how cool his bomber jacket was. It was a sweet bomber jacket. The whole time in my mind, I was like, don't talk about the bomber jacket. Don't talk about the bomber jacket. So I didn't want to seem like a freaking weirdo. But it worked out okay. Got to meet him, kind of, sort of.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  And then a little bit later, the Neuralink team came in and they watched it kind of work for the first time.

• 24:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, so when you say they watched it work, talk a little bit about how your brain signals started showing up through the device.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the first thing they did was came in and woke the device up. And when they heard like the first ding for the first time of it waking up, everyone was so happy. Like there were just like, like sighs of relief, like exclamations, like, oh my gosh. You know, it's amazing sort of thing. Everyone was just so happy. And then they connected it to a tablet to show some brain signals real time. And they held the brain signals in front of mine, uh, in, you know, in front of me. And I was looking at like eight different channels, or maybe my channel is eight different electrodes that were picking up neuron signals. And I got to see real time my brain signals, my neuron spikes.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  If you've seen the Neuralink symbol, the Neuralink logo, it's a neuron spike, basically. It's what they look like. It's almost like a heartbeat monitor, like a heartbeat sensor. It's just a little bit different, a little bit more erratic and. So they showed me like eight different channels and I still remember so vividly, like the third box over on the top row, because it was four and four. Um, I was immediately, you know, when I saw the signals, I was like, can I manipulate this at all? So I started like wiggling my fingers and my toes and trying to move. And I saw um, a very specific yellow spike when I moved like my right index finger.

• 26:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  And this is doing it physically or just thinking about it?

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Um, physically trying to move my finger. I'm just like attempting to move my finger and I saw this big yellow spike every time. And I was like, oh, that's cool. And everyone was like, what, like, what are you doing? And I told them, I was like, look at the third box on the top right now, now.

• 26:36Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 28:36Speaker 01

  And now, I was like, that's my index finger. And everyone freaked out.

• 28:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  Because that that meant the device could read what was going on in your brain?

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Real time.

• 28:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Eventually translate that into something on your computer.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, like real time. Incredibly effective, honestly, for a few hours after my surgery.

• 28:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  And so how do you go from having that experience of like, okay, I'm going to try to move my finger. It's going to show up in one of these eight channels to then being able to move things around on a computer just thinking about them?

• 29:05Speaker 01

  It's calibration. When you calibrate anything, calibrate a mouse, calibrate a controller, a TV, you have to basically train it to do what you want it to do. So with a cursor, they will show a visualization, like an animation of a cursor moving like right, left, up, down, like diagonally and stuff. And all I have to do is follow it with an attempted movement with my hand in some way. I can like reach for it. I can like move my wrist in that direction. I can move my hand in that direction. I can use my whole arm. I could use my feet or anything, just any body part. I use my right hand because that's where the strongest signals come from. And you just follow the cursor.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  And then eventually, all of those times that you follow the cursor, all of those times that you followed kind of the white rabbit, if you will,

• 30:00Speaker 01

  the

• 30:03Speaker 01

  link app, the algorithm, the machine learning is taking those brain signals and teaching this algorithm to

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Associate those movements with the neurons that are firing when it's happening. And eventually you calibrate a cursor and you get control of it.

• 30:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, and so how long did it take you to start being able to control computers using that type of brain signal?

• 30:31Speaker 01

  So for the first 10 days, they weren't allowed to charge my implant because of safety regulations. They had to make sure that it was safe in my brain first, that it kind of stabilized, that the temperature range was okay. And so they weren't allowed to charge at all because charging like raises the temperature. And this is a safety study first. So they needed to make sure that everything was good. So every day for the first 10 days, some Neuralink guys would come over. In the Verbo that we were staying at first near the hospital, they'd come over, just two of them blissed in near. And they would wake it up and we would work for an hour tops. And they would say, okay, we used 11%, that's it for today.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  And we would do different tasks. We would do what we call body mapping, which is an animation of a hand. Like moving different fingers in different ways, moving across the screen like a full hand. Like shrugging shoulders, just all sorts of different movements that they wanted me to replicate, to follow.

• 31:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  And it gets kind of wild because I think that when you're using a mouse or when you're moving, you have to first think and then move. But the way that you're working with the Neuralink, the Neuralink can track your intent even before you even realize that it's happening.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's, there's a lot about the implant that I find absolutely fascinating. So first off, let's go through like a couple terms. You have attempted movement and imagined movement. Attempted movement is literally me attempting to move my hand. Pretty self-explanatory. You know, if the cursor is going left, I might try to move my hand to the left. That's me physically attempting to move it. Even though nothing's happening here, all the signals still work in my brain. There's just a disconnect in my spinal cord, so they don't get through. But the Neuralink is picking up those signals. So that's attempted movement. I'm physically trying to move my hand, my fingers, my legs, whatever it is, in whatever direction, in whatever motion to

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Place that in some sort of, you know, keystroke, like map it to a keystroke, map it to a directional control of a cursor, something of that nature. Um, so that's attempted movement. And then we have imagined movement. Imagined movement is basically the same, except you don't physically try to move a body part. You just think about either moving the body part, or you just think of moving a cursor or doing an action that you want the cursor to perform. So you just think like cursor move to the right, left, up, down. You think cursor left click, cursor right click. Um, and you do these things all just by thinking.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  And so there's a difference. This has been like BCI, brain computer interface terminology for a while. This is not something that we've come up with. So, um, you take those things and eventually you get, you know, some really, really interesting outcomes with, um, the algorithm and the implant learning your intention. When you go to move, um, you don't think, you know, move hand here. You just move your hand wherever you want it to go. You don't think grab this. You just do it and you grab. Before you physically move, the signal from your brain has to go all the way down and all the way back up.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  It shoots down to your hand saying move hand this way, all the way back up to your brain. And then the action happens. The same goes for me as I'm trying to attempt to move or I'm imagining moving. And so the implant, the algorithm can anticipate what you're doing, just like your body is firing that signal before you even move. So sometimes when I want to say click or I want to move, the implant will.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Understand my intent and move before I even decide to move, basically. It's a pretty incredible.

• 34:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's crazy.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  Ah, it is. It is crazy. It really is. And so I think that the implant is much more capable than a lot of people um understand. It really, really is fascinating.

• 34:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  And, you know, I'm thinking about video games, and if you're playing video games, that's all coming through your hands. But if you're able to move things on your computer first, you could probably just destroy anybody in any game with this. It's a superpower.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I think of where this technology will go, it's pretty incredible. I don't believe it will be allowed in like certain gaming um platforms and things for like major league gaming. I think they're gonna have to separate it. Either everyone's gonna have to have one, or you're gonna have to understand that other people have one and just accept that um maybe it's better or you're better. Maybe assume like, oh, the Neuralink doesn't add any sort of advantage, so I'll play against it. I don't believe that's true. I think they're gonna have to separate them to their own league, or like ban them in leagues, or everyone's gonna have to have them um in order to be fair, because they really are,

• 35:54Speaker 01

  like you said, a superpower when it comes to video games. Um, it's their aim bots. Like you, you turn around a corner in a first-person shooter and there's someone there. Your brain has to send a signal to your hands and come all the way back up in order for you to move um the joysticks, click buttons on the controller. It doesn't have to do that with a Neuralink. It's all happening sort of instantaneously, like pre-instantaneously if it's learning your intent in your mind and it's sending that signal to a computer and back. I'm not sure what the um latency is, but I have a feeling it's less than whatever you're doing with your hands with a controller. So it's going to be, you know, a few milliseconds

• 36:39Speaker 01

  um are life or death in these sorts of games.

• 36:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. So you're on the life side.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah. So um it's not there yet, but I know that when this technology

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Like really lands.

• 36:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  You're gonna start demolishing people.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, there's, there's no, there's no doubt in my mind that people will want it in order to surpass, you know, what regulars are capable of.

• 37:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  I love that you're just referring folks as regulars, because it really is.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's amazing what you're able to do. So, let me just ask you this question. It's a simple question, but I'm curious to hear your answer. I mean, what does it feel like to not be able to move your hand, but to see that movement expressed on a screen? When you think about it?

• 37:25Speaker 01

  You know, what's interesting is, for seven years, seven and a half years, I was trying to move my hand and my body to create new neural pathways, um, to hopefully regain some movement. I never knew if it was working, because there's no feedback. There's no like feedback loop. I tried to move my hand, I tried to move my feet, I tried to move my legs, my body in any way. But I don't know if it's working, if what I'm trying to do is actually being propagated in my brain, really.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  I don't know if trying to move my hand is, um, you know, the signals are actually firing in my brain. When I was able to see my neurons firing for the first time, it really made me kind of emotional, thinking that, you know, when I move my index finger, there are still like neuron spikes, neurons firing in my brain. It's really just my spinal cord. And I think that should give a lot of people hope, honestly, because like, everything's still working, you just gotta keep trying, keep trying, and keep forcing your body with brute force to relearn how to move.

• 38:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I mean, even though you don't have that sensation back, you do have it back in some way.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  It's, it's weird. It's a weird, like, leap, um, psychological leap, sort of physical leap. It's weird to...

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Be able to move without moving. Be able to move something without moving.

• 39:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  So you use the Neuralink app? And that allows you to control your cursor on the screen? So, once you got past the point of saying, "Okay, I can do this", what has that enabled you to do that you couldn't do before?

• 39:19Speaker 01

  I mean, so much.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  It's little things that add up to really big things. Being able to, like I said earlier, fill out an application online, it's given me a lot of hope and,

• 39:37Speaker 01

  you know, purpose and future prospect, like,

• 39:43Speaker 01

  ideas and ability. Like, I might be able to get a job. I might be able to go to school. I can, you know, we were just talking about doing like video editing, if I want to do. I can just interact with a computer at a much, much higher level. Play video games. Just enjoy surfing the web without having to go through the headache of like the macOS navigation and things. And, you know, it adds up to a lot. Being able to send a text in a few seconds instead of a text taking five, 10, 15 minutes sometimes to craft because of how bad dictation is. I mean, it's terrible. There's so much that I'm able to accomplish

• 40:27Speaker 01

  with a computer now that I was never able to do before. Or that would have taken way too long. If you think about, if it takes five minutes to send a text message to one person, imagine trying to keep up a conversation with 10 people in a night. And sending, you know, 50 to 100 texts to each person. It's just not possible with macOS dictation if everything takes that long. With the Neuralink, it's way better. I feel like I've reconnected with my friends, with my family, with, you know, the world in general. Being able to communicate with people online through social media. I really have... Just blossomed into a social butterfly with all of this.

• 41:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's interesting to me because the digital world is so expansive. And for you, you know, being confined in the way that you are physically, it must have felt like a release to just be all of a sudden able to access and interact on the internet the way that you are.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's very Ready Player One. Like, it's getting close.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Like, I'm not like virtually in a world yet, but I sort of am in a way. I'm interacting with people through a computer with the Neuralink from my bed as a quadriplegic, like any person could from, you know, wherever they are in their lives. And I think that's amazing. Sometimes I forget, like, I forget that, you know, I'm even paralyzed and that I'm,

• 41:59Speaker 01

  you know, restricted, like you said, in the way that I am, because it's just so seamless. And I can't imagine what it's going to do for the normals, I've been calling them, when they get this device and are able to do what I'm able to do while also physically going about their lives. People are gonna have a lot of fun with this and they're gonna like play with it and be like, "I don't understand." Because I don't understand a lot. We don't understand the brain and I'm constantly learning. But people will be able to go about their lives, like do the dishes while they're doing stuff with their Neuralink and using their hands and playing with the Neuralink or doing whatever. They're gonna be able to multitask at such a higher level.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  And the Neuralink right now is capable of doing a limited amount of tasks at once, but I don't know that there's an upper limit to this. You can map kind of as many things as you want to different actions with the Neuralink. You think of being able to use, you know, both hands and both feet at the same time. It's pretty hard. You have to be pretty coordinated. Now imagine both hands, both feet, all ten fingers, all ten toes, shoulders, arms, elbows, knees, like every body part that you can imagine mapping to something else. And then that's all attempted movement. If you break that down even farther to imagined movement,

• 43:26Speaker 01

  it's unlimited how much potential and how many different tasks you'll be able to combine and do at once with Neuralink. It's incredible. I don't know where that limit is, what the upward bound is, but I'm positive that it's nowhere near where we are now. I know that it's gonna keep growing.

• 43:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  So you think normals, as you call them, are gonna wanna use it?

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. Absolutely.

• 43:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  What would some use cases be?

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Um, anything that anyone does on a computer. If they want to be more productive, if they want to be better at video games, if they want to just enjoy using it and like Elon's plan is integrating with AI and integrating with...

• 44:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'm about to ask you about that.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, integrating with AI and um, like the virtual reality and basically every device that you can think of that uses Bluetooth, you'll be able to control with the Neuralink. I constantly tell people, like you think things um, like online are Alexa compatible. Like, you know, I have a Alexa compatible fan. I have an Alexa compatible um, like Dyson. I have a Alexa compatible like lights and smart plugs. All of that you're gonna be able to do with the Neuralink. Everything is gonna be Neuralink compatible one day.

• 44:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  And it's so.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, like let there be light, you know? Like, everything is gonna...

• 44:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Except you don't have to say it.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Exactly. You just think. Um, and so one day I think everything is gonna be like Neuralink compatible. Like, like companies will have to put that in their product in order for it to sell. Um, if it's not Neuralink compatible, people are like, well, why, why are we even using this?

• 45:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  Neuralink is about to start testing a robotic arm. Um, and I would imagine, given your experience, you think that if you want to move an arm, why wouldn't you be able to if you can move a cursor on a screen? So what do you think about that? And is that something that you'd wanna participate in if given the chance?

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I hundred percent want to participate in it. I'm not sure that I'll get the chance. Um, I'm not sure that... Neuralink wants me to be a part of all of that. They might, and if they do, I'm more than happy. But there's a chance that maybe the next participants will have better control. They'll be able to control the robot arm a little bit better. I have, you know, like much less threads and electrodes in my brain because of the thread retraction that happened about a month after my surgery.

• 45:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, so talk about what happened there.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so basically immediately after surgery and up to a month, a month and a half after surgery, threads were being pulled out of my brain or just moving in my brain in general.

• 46:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  When you say pulled out, it's the brain that's actually moving and spitting them out.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  The, the brain moved much more than what Neuralink anticipated, which kind of blew my mind, honestly. Like, you would think that we're at a place in human history and medicine that we would know how much the brain moves, but they didn't.

• 46:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  We know so little about the brain.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  We know so little about the brain, which shocked me. They opened up my skull and they, the surgeons were like, "Yeah, that's about right." When you think about what they did, they drilled a hole in my skull. And it's called a craniotomy, craniectomy, it's one of the two. I can't remember which one. One of them is basically like you drill a hole and you place something back over the hole in the skull and one of them you leave it open. But when they're drilling these holes and these craniectomies, they are doing it to relieve pressure in the brain, and so the hole doesn't need to be very big. My skull hole was really big. I mean, not like super big, but big enough to fit the quarter-sized implant, plus it's

• 47:05Speaker 01

  like base in my skull. So, bigger than a quarter, like little square piece is mounted to my skull. So when they cut the hole in my skull, they were able to see the brain. On a bigger scale than they're used to. And the surgeons were like, "Yeah, that makes sense." But the brain pulsed with my heart. They said at a rate of three times as much as they thought. They thought that the brain moved like a millimeter when it pulsed. And mine was moving three millimeters every time it pulsed. So when they implanted the threads, they didn't anticipate that. And they also didn't anticipate a couple of other factors, which they changed for P2,

• 47:49Speaker 01

  which ultimately led to thread retraction in my brain. And they fixed it for P2. So that's one thing that happened to me that's pretty terrible. It was awful. It was a terrible experience. A month in, they basically told me that you have thread retraction. And I was losing control of a cursor. I was not able to control the cursor anymore at that point. And so I thought I was just out of the study.

• 48:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  But they figured it out.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  They figured it out on the software side. Instead of registering sort of like single neuron spikes, they were registering groups of neurons. And so it was really hard, though. When they told me, it was the day that I was going to visit the Neuralink facility in Fremont. It was the morning before, and they told me I had the thread retraction. They wanted to be as transparent as possible with me, which they have been through this entire study. And I thought I was out of the study. I thought it was over. I got to play with it for a month and not even see the peak of the mountain. I just got a little bit of a taste. And it was really, really hard. I like cried in my van on the way to the Neuralink facility. I was like, "This sucks. It's awful." I wasn't expecting this at all.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  And eventually I was just like, "I'm here to do my part. I'm here so that these things happen to me and not the people that come after me. I'm here to do whatever I can to help this product, to help Neuralink." And so that's what I did. And I-

• 49:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's an unbelievable attitude towards it.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  It was hard to get there.

• 49:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  It's not easy. It's not like a flip. Well, a switch is flipped. It's something that I have to-

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Work through in my mind and come to a decision that I can be sad about this. Or I can do my part and just focus on my purpose and understand why I'm really here. And what it's gonna do for the future. And that makes things a lot easier. So yeah, the threat of traction happened. So I don't know if with my threat of traction, because I have, they said fifteen percent of the electrodes are still in place in my brain, plus or minus ten percent. So it could be as little as five percent.

• 49:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  But still working with maybe five percent.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  But it's still working.

• 50:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's unbelievable.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  It's, it's one of the greatest pieces of this story, I think, that is hardly ever told.

• 50:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Is that I'm able to do what I'm able to do with a fraction of the electrodes that were originally intended. And that is unbelievable. They changed the way that they are registering the neurons, the neuron spikes. And they knew about it. They knew about it with the monkeys. But they said that it wasn't as good, that they really shouldn't use that type of neuron spike detection. But then in the humans, it worked out way better. And I asked them one day, I was like, so why didn't you guys do this from the beginning? And they just said, we didn't know. Like, this is what this study is for.

• 50:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  You're all learning together.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, this is what the study is for. So with my limited electrodes in my brain, and I'm, you know, with the control that I have of the cursor and my clicks and things, I'm not sure they're as good as like P2 or anyone that's gonna come after. They might have better control because they solved the issue with P2. There was no threat of traction in Alex, in him.

• 51:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Alex is the second patient.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Alex is the second patient.

• 51:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  So you've met the second patient?

• 51:14Speaker 01

  I haven't. I don't know that he wants to meet me.

• 51:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, is he not, he's not going public?

• 51:19Speaker 01

  I, I don't think so. I haven't heard a peep from him. I've mentioned that it's fine if he wants to meet me, but if not, it's his prerogative.

• 51:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  And how many neuraling patients are there at this point? Just two?

• 51:29Speaker 01

  At least one more.

• 51:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  So three?

• 51:31Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 51:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. So.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  It's it's not clear to me if I will get a robot arm. Um, uh, if they do want to give it to me, what? Yeah, it'd be super cool if they if they did. I have some really fun plans if they do give it to me. Um, I don't want to tell. Uh, I think it'll be really cool if they do. I'm not sure that what I want to do is strictly legal, but we'll find out.

• 51:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  I gotta come back to Yuma when this happens.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Um, so, yeah, I think if they give me a robot arm, people are going to be terrified.

• 52:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Wait, are you gonna shoot guns with a robot arm?

• 52:07Speaker 01

  I don't want to say what I'm going to do, but uh, let's, let's just say it'll be really cool if they give it to me. Um, and I might, I might um, ask for forgiveness instead of permission. Let's go with that. Um, and so I don't know, we'll see, we'll see. I have no idea if they'll give me one.

• 52:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  I hope they do.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 52:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  So, um, just, I want to take a moment to say we have some uh, new listeners and viewers here on the feed. And I want to introduce you all to the show. It's Big Technology Podcast. We do this once a week, a big interview like this. And then we break down the news on Fridays uh, with analyst Ranjan Roy of uh, he's of uh, Margins, which is a Substack newsletter. So, thank you all for being here. Uh, please hit subscribe if you like what you're hearing and I welcome you one way or the other. And Nolan, thank you again for being here with us.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Absolutely. Anytime. Thanks for having me.

• 53:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  So now I want to get into the weird stuff.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 53:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Um, so let's talk about first of all, the singularity. One of the things that Elon's talked about with this is that Neuralink is a way to potentially protect humans from AI or make humans more aligned with AI because the AI might be bored with how slow we type. And if we can interact with computers uh, more quickly, then we can potentially uh, sort of make peace and align our interests with artificial intelligence better. Uh, now that you have the device, uh, you know, basically implanted in you, not even basically implanted in you, what do you think about that idea?

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Sounds fun. Sounds really cool. Um, so I think that it's gonna happen. I think that, you know, protecting us from AI is an interesting way to put it. I think that it'll definitely increase human capability at some point. I'm not sure.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  How much? The brain is something that we don't understand. So in my mind, you know, we've worked with typing before. We've worked with typing where, you know, I write a letter with a pencil and the letter, you know, pops up like a keystroke on the screen. Um, I got to the point where I didn't need to like physically attempt to write the letter. I could think of sort of the key, sort of the hand stroke of the letter and it would pop up. And I think that you could take that to its logical conclusion, which is if you can do that with a letter, you can do it with a word. If you can do it with a word, you can do it with a sentence. You can do it with a sentence. Maybe you could do it with whole strings of sentences, of code, of um, like complex ideas.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  I don't think we're anywhere near where this thing is capable. And um, so I believe you could, like, people who are programmers, coders, could use this to maximize efficiency in some way. And like you're saying, be a type faster, um, be able to keep up with some like AI stuff. It it's interesting because like the brain itself is a supercomputer. So like what is our brain, supercomputer capable of with something like Neuralink? I think it's much more than we're like than I've even like scratched the surface of. So yeah, I think it would be really cool.

• 55:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  What do you think merging with AI could look like and would you do it?

• 55:19Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I'd absolutely do it. Um, first off.

• 55:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  You're like, whatever it is, count me in.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, like, technology is a tool ultimately for humans to use, right? Like, there is no such thing as an evil technology, just evil people with evil intentions. Um, technology is just a tool for us to use and we can use it for good, we can use it for bad. People will use it for bad, people will use it for good. And I think the good will far outweigh the bad. It's a lot like the internet. No one knew where the internet was gonna go. And I think the internet has done more for the world in the good sphere than it has in the bad sphere. There's always going to be the bad and there's nothing to do about it.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  With Neuralink and AI and merging, I believe that the good will far outweigh the bad again. And we just need to learn how to utilize that um, technology, uh, the capability and.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  You know, I'm not really sure exactly what it looks like. It's almost like you ask the people who first created the internet, what is the internet gonna look like in ten, fifteen years? They might have ideas, but they would have never guessed what it looked like, you know, twenty years later or something. So it's hard to imagine what this thing will become.

• 56:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, so your device can read your thoughts right now?

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 56:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  It can read, you know, your intentions.

• 56:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Do you think there's ever gonna be a point where this stuff gets so implanted into our brains, where companies can write? I mean, in animals, for instance, you can send certain electrical signals and make them behave a certain way. Is that a worry for people?

• 56:58Speaker 01

  I don't think it's as sci-fi or far off as you might think.

• 57:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  So you're saying this is feasible?

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm saying it's already happening. When you think of blind sight, that's exactly what they're doing. They're sending signals into the visual cortex and letting blind people see. Like, that is writing on the brain. When you are, you know, taking sort of what they're going to do with quadriplegics or paralyzed people, putting an implant in the motor cortex and one below the level of injury, you're reading from the brain and then writing sort of into the spinal cord. But you can do that with neural links in the brain as well. I believe that the writing is gonna happen sometime soon.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  And all of this comes with, you know, like, warning signs, like flashing warning lights, like, hey, this could be used for bad, but I don't think that should stop us. I think that we need to continue researching it and continue in this fear and hope that it is used for more good and then deal with the bad and the consequences as we come. It's a lot like AI. If you think of something like... I don't know, AI art, where the government is just sort of like trying to play catch up with how to regulate AI art and what people are allowed to do and aren't allowed to do.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  We'll get there, and they'll they'll figure it out soon enough. But there's this kind of gray area, this time when we don't really know. I think the same is gonna happen with Neuralink, but I'm all for it.

• 58:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  But what about like if if everybody's walking around with Neuralinks and these devices end up being able to write? And like cause humans to do things that maybe they don't intend to do, isn't that like? A pretty big vulnerability or?

• 58:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, obviously.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  When you're talking about things like that, it's it's definitely something that people immediately jump to. With like sci-fi and being able to control people's thoughts, control people's bodies, their movements, all sorts of things. It it goes into

• 59:08Speaker 01

  like the device is being hackable. The device, my device is hackable. You'd have to find some way in, like through a Bluetooth signal. And you would be able to maybe control my cursor on a screen to be able to hack my neuron spikes and the brain signals. And maybe like decode that to see what I'm doing on a computer. But you would just need to, I would just need to disconnect and you wouldn't be able to do that anymore. I think that there are a lot of safeguards in place. Neuralink is very, very

• 59:44Speaker 01

  active with their security, they're like cyber cybersecurity. Yeah, they're they're literally the smartest people I've ever met in my life, all of them, they're so impressive. Each one of them could be at any big company making probably millions of dollars. But they come to Neuralink, make much less, and that's not a knock on Neuralink, it's just, you know, it's it's the sphere that they're in. They make much less, but they're making so much more of a difference. And they're the most impressive people I've ever met. And they are very, very serious about their security. And what it would take to like hack something like this, think about, it's a device. It's a computer essentially. Any computer, any device can be hacked, but

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  It's getting harder to hack certain things. We're getting to a place where I think cybersecurity is getting better, but who knows? And at that point, you have to, you know, figure out how to mitigate that. And I'm sure we will. I'm sure it's not going to be something where we're making all these devices, implanting them in someone. And we're like, oh yeah, they're hackable and all these people are going to be able to be controlled and stuff. I think before anything like that happens, we have to prove that there's some sort of safeguard against these sorts of things.

• 1:00:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  And what about the idea that we'd just be able, if we have neural links implanted, to like download stuff? Keep them like in a neural link file in our brain and then sort of access it as we need. So effectively infinite memory.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Yes, that would be awesome.

• 1:01:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Wouldn't be cool?

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  That would be super cool. Um, I think that there is a lot of unknown with this. What we're going to be able to do with it, what it's going to be capable of. I'm down for basically everything. I think that any sort of improvements or progress is going to be a lot of fun and something that humans will utilize to make extreme change in the world. Um, and I think it'll be for good, honestly for good.

• 1:01:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  So do you think we might end up with a, you know, collective human consciousness with this? Where like, you know, these devices can read my thoughts and maybe your thoughts and then we can sort of merge? And forget the AI, what about humans?

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  Have you read the book Nexus?

• 1:01:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  No.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  Okay, it's very similar.

• 1:01:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Like there's the Borg in Star Trek.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so basically Nexus is about like a computer that runs in people's brains, allows them to connect to each other and experience each other's thoughts, emotions, and goes a bit deeper into like sex stuff and things like that. Um, and it gets you like high in some ways and stuff. Um, collective consciousness is interesting. I'm not sure what this is capable of. If it gets to that point, I think that would be wild. It would be absolutely.

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  Incredible. Um, I don't believe that it's something that needs to be, you know, feared. I think, you know, it goes back to like an age-old um problem of if you are afraid of getting in trouble, just don't do anything wrong. And the collective consciousness thing is if you are afraid of what people might see in you, well, then just be better. Um, I don't think that would happen. I think that you would probably end up getting people who are kind of crazy and don't want to connect with other people in like a collective consciousness. But then you get into things like Minority Report stuff and all sorts of weird avenues that this can go down.

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know. I, I just think I'm excited to see where the technology goes. And that's like way down the road stuff. That's like, you know, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, a hundred years down the road stuff. Um, that's like future people problems. Let's focus on this now.

• 1:03:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. But would you do it?

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. Absolutely.

• 1:03:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, and your attitude is like, alright, any experience?

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, to me, it really is a technology that humans can utilize, not be afraid of.

• 1:03:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  Humans are never going to

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  um, how do I put this? Humans are going to be human no matter what. Um, no matter what this does, humans will still have the same problems, still have the human condition that will be good and evil. And so I don't believe this is going to change that. I just believe that we will find a way to adapt it to ourselves and to our lives and to human progress. And so I'm not afraid of it. I think it's something that should be embraced and then should be um

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  you know, used to solve problems and then we can find ways to, you know, mitigate consequences and things along the way.

• 1:04:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  Should we get really out there?

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  Sure, let's do it.

• 1:04:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, what about this, I think it's a Joe Rogan idea of um having these devices send signals to your brain that like without having to take drugs, feel drugs. Uh, do you think that that's feasible and is that something you'd want to try?

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  I definitely think it's feasible. Um.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  I don't know that I would try things like that. Some of it goes against like my religious beliefs.

• 1:05:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  Um, what I like, I don't really do, like, I don't smoke weed or do like mushrooms or any sort of other drugs anymore. Um, I used to, but that was, you know, before I realized that it didn't align with my like beliefs. Um, so there are things that I am still opposed to, but I know other people won't be. And I don't think, um, necessarily that it's my place as like a citizen of the United States to tell them that they can't, though I would tell them as a Christian, that's probably not the best for them. Um, but I do think it's possible.

• 1:05:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  It would be crazy to like do heroin without the possibility to overdose, but it would still change your brain chemistry.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, it'd be crazy. Um, I am not sure that that would be something that would be allowed. It might be something like, you know, drugs are regulated, um, in the United States. Maybe something like this would be regulated too, like you're not allowed to do it. Um, and if you do, then you can get in a lot of trouble and I'm sure there will be ways to find these things out. So, um, yeah, uh, I'm not sure. I'm not sure where that goes. But there's a lot that you can do with that, you know, drug trips, um, feeling like different emotions. If you're like really sad, you can just flip a switch and be happy. If you just wanna be in the feels, you can make yourself really sad. You can experience maybe what it's like to have sex. Um, you can experience what it's like to, you know, be,

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  I don't know, the happiest you've ever been in your life. You can experience all sorts of a range of emotions and, uh, physical sensations, um, that I think people will explore. And who knows, maybe it's just not the same. Maybe you do it and it's like, yeah, you get a quick hit, but it's not the same as actually physically, you know, like interacting with the world. And maybe that's where we get, people realize that it's just an escape and you need to go and touch grass, you know?

• 1:07:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, definitely. Okay, a couple more questions for you.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 1:07:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  You're thirty?

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  So you made a bet by working with Neuralink that Neuralink is gonna be around for decades because this is permanently in your body.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Talk a little bit about, did you think about that at all in terms of if Neuralink goes under, then what am I gonna do about this? Because it is a risk.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not too worried about Neuralink going under. They have probably the most funding of any sort of company or study maybe in the world because of Elon Musk. So I'm not too worried about it.

• 1:07:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  But Elon will probably, I mean, just looking at timelines, he'll probably be dead by the time

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:07:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  when you still have the device in.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  That's true. I, I've seen different studies where certain like devices are left in participants because the study goes under and they lose funding. If that happens, it happens. I mean, I am not afraid of this thing being in my mind permanently. I have seen

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  the data and the study about it being in monkeys for long periods of time. And, you know, the stress testing that they do to these devices to see how long they'll last. I think that I will die before the Neuralink chip does.

• 1:08:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, you are so optimistic.

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  I try.

• 1:08:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  How, how have you maintained and built this sense of optimism? Because I don't think, I don't think everybody would be the same way.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  Um, a lot of it has to do with my faith. I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for my life and that keeps me going. It helps me realize that there's something bigger than me, that there's a bigger plan in the universe that is, you know, so much more grand and so much more important than anything that's happening with me. I believe that my accident really did save me from a salvation standpoint. I believe it's probably one of the best things that ever happened to me in a weird way. Because I think that if I would have died that day, or if, you know, I would have not been injured at all, who knows like where I would be?

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  I definitely don't think that if I died that day, I would have gone to heaven. I definitely don't think that if I was never injured, that I would have ever made my way back to Christianity and God. I believe that, I tell people when I was pulled out of the water that day, I believe God pulled me from the fire. I honestly, truly believe that. And then the support system I have is one of the only reasons that I've made it this far. The people around me, my family and my friends are You know, the best in the world. I know everyone says that about their family and their friends, but I honestly believe that that's true for me. And then it's just kind of who I am. I'm not a very stressed person, stressful person. I just kind of roll with the punches.

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• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  And I think, you know, well, where do I go from here? You know, a lot of people always think about like how they'll react in like high-stress situations. And what I've learned about myself is I am cool as a cucumber. I just don't, I just don't freak out about things. I just accept it and move on. And it's just always how I've been.

• 1:11:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  This is the last one. We have a lot of people that will be listening to this show that work in the tech industry.

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 1:11:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  And you basically made the distinction with Neuralink folks. They could be pulling a million-dollar salaries elsewhere. They're working for less, and they're doing this work. I think this entire conversation has sort of been a demonstration why folks who are in the tech world, you know, if you want to like, I think, make the most of your working years, try something like this. But I'd just like to hear your perspective. If you're speaking to the people who are thinking, should I do another year at Instagram? Or should I think about doing something like Neuralink? What would you tell them?

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  I think that you need to think about like what

• 1:12:01Speaker 01

  you're capable of and what your purpose is in life. And what

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  Change you want to leave behind in the world and what you want to affect in the world and where you think you can make the most difference. Because it's not about making money. It's not about finding a way to get a nice house or get a nice car or anything along those lines. It really is just about finding a way to help others and doing everything you can to be selfless and affect positive change in the world. And that's what people at Neuralink are doing. That's what I'm trying to do.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  And I think if more people did that, then we would be in a much better place. And I know people say that all the time. If everyone just did this or took like one less shower a day or ate like one less meal a day, we would solve world hunger and things like that. I honestly do think that if people in the tech world paid a bit more attention to what is going on with things like Neuralink or different studies or companies that are trying to help, are trying to push forward humanity and what people are capable of and how we can help people in my situation

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  or other terrible situations that they could really make a big difference. So I encourage people to look at companies like Neuralink and see what they're looking for and take a pay cut, but go make a difference and try and help be another little cog that pushes the medical field forward, the tech field forward, and pushes positive experience for people like me.

• 1:14:02Speaker 01

  I don't know. I'm just so thankful to everyone that does it. And I think that should be enough. I think looking these people in Neuralink in the eyes and saying, "I'm so happy that you did this. I'm so grateful." I think that should be enough and it's not about money, you know?

• 1:14:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Absolutely. Nolan, thank you so much for sharing the story. Appreciate you being here.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  Absolutely, man. Thanks so much for having me.

• 1:14:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.

• 1:14:25Speaker 01

  See ya.