Big Technology Podcast - Neuralink's First Patient Controls Computers With His Mind — With Noland Arbaugh

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

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: [e-mail]

Nolan Arbaugh is a 30-year-old quadriplegic who can control a computer with nothing but his mind. Earlier this year, Arba allowed Elon Musk's Neurraling to drill a hole into his skull, insert more than 1,000 electrodes into his motor cortex, and translate his brain signals into cursor movement and clicks. I traveled to Arbaugh's home in Yuma, Arizona, to discuss his selection, the surgery, the miracle of being able to operate a computer after being confined to a chair and whether he'd like to merge with AI someday. That's coming up on a special edition of Big Technology Podcast right after this. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuance conversation of the tech world and beyond.

Today we come to you from the home of Nolan Arbaugh, Neurlink's first patient, for a conversation about the technology that's allowed him to experience the digital world, without restriction for the first time since being paralyzed eight years ago. Here's my conversation with Nolan Arbaugh. Nolan, welcome to the show. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. So you're the first neurologic 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? Yeah. So the implant is on the top of my head in the implanted in the motor cortex on the left side of my brain. So it's kind of like right on top, just off center to the left. There are 64 threads with 16 electrodes on each thread, totaling 1,024 electrodes in all.

And they are implanted in the part of my motor cortex specifically correlated to right hand movement. And with those electrodes, they pick up neuron spikes, neuron signals. and through an app on a computer right now called the link app, it translates to cursor control. Yeah. So that mouse moving around your computer. Yeah. It's not the eyes. It's not fingers. It's legitimately you think it in one place and it goes. Yes. Amazing. It's pretty cool. For our audience, we're going to get into that in a bit. But I first want to get a chance for everybody to learn about you and to know you. Sure. So let's just talk about the way that you ended up in this position, you're injured.

Yeah. So when I was 22 years old, 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. I think the lake is called Binghamton Lake. There is a beach that was built that goes into the water. 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. 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. I didn't dive in and hit my head on the bottom of the lake or anything. I 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. 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. Three of us ran in together and I got hit in the side of the head at some point as we were getting into the water and right on the left side of my head, it dislocated my C4C5, popped out of place and back into place. Two vertebrae. Yes, almost instantaneously. And I woke up face down in the water. And then what happened? 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. I 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 15 seconds. It felt like forever. It might have been like 10, 15 seconds.

And I couldn't hold my breath any longer. So I decided might as well take a big drink. or 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 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&M

standing over me just bawling and I was trying to comfort her I was saying look everything's going to be fine look I'm all right things like that I crack 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 yeah I was kind of um out of it for a while they had me on like fentanyl three different ways and like some out of hand and stuff I like to tell people it was awesome I never felt

better 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 weeks were uh pretty rough lots of pain lots of nerve pain um Just getting used to not being able to move. It was not fun. So what can you feel and what can't you? I, since I'm a C4, C5, anything below my shoulders, maybe like a couple inches below my shoulders, I can't feel or a move.

So no sensation, no movement. 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, but that's about it. It's a little bit of like bicep flex, and that's about it. There's no feeling down there, no movement. Is it dumb or just non-existent?

It just doesn't exist. Wow. Yeah. So being paralyzed is weird. Like I can see my body. I can feel myself trying to move, and then I just watch nothing happen. So it's odd. It's something you have to get used to.

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. 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 pressure sores and things very easily, and I can hurt myself very easily. So it's just a matter of taking care of my body. I think I've managed pretty well with the help. with my family. Now you're controlling computers with your mind. So when did Neurlink come into the picture for you? A little over a year ago, my buddy called me up, just randomly drunk on a Wednesday at 11

a.m. 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. So he kind of- But you legitimately agreed to it on that first call? Yes, 100%. That's amazing. Within a couple minutes. And he- Your friend is persuasive. Yeah, my buddy. Or you're Daring. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my buddy, Greg Bain, 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. He's a bio major. And 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 NeurLink was.

And I was like, that sounds pretty cool. No, and I love that. Your friend calls you and says, Elon Musk wants to put a chip in your brain. And you said, yep. Yeah. Let's do it. 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 going to be, shooting from the hip with this stuff and hurting people left and right just for progress i never thought he would do that so when i heard that human trials had opened up through my buddy bane i knew that he was ready and i had complete faith in the company um what they were doing and 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. Now I could probably do it in, you know, a few minutes with the NeurLink. It's pretty interesting. So he applied, helped apply with me over the phone. He would like ask questions and I would answer, tell them what to put. They were like, what do you want from NeurLink? Like, what do you want to get from this? And I was like an Iron Man suit. Just kind of like joking around. Just like, I didn't think I was going to get this. I thought that it was like the longest of shots because there was nothing really spectacular about me. I feel like I didn't do anything with 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. So I was just kind of joking around on my application, not taking it very seriously. Then you got a phone call? Then I got an email that was like a day later. They said, oh, we're inviting you to apply. They sent me a link with, you know, like 20 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 me for being the first, being the first person to, you know, be interviewed and stuff. And so what was the interview like?

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 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 neuralink um so that was the first interview the next interviews 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. And then it progressively kept becoming more detailed, had like calls with surgeons, had calls with psychiatrists to make sure I wasn't a crazy person.

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 test, 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. 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?

Yeah, you know, I kept my expectations extremely level, through this whole process. They told me constantly that if anything about my injury, about my medical history, didn't line up with exactly what they were looking for, with 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, 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, holy. You know, like, yeah. Like, you made it through another one.

You got another interview. You got another interview. So it's starting to feel real. Yeah. 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. So they said, okay, you're in. and then gave you some options about when exactly you might be able to do this?

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. 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 that the world knows about that's gotten is 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 make this work? A couple things.

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. 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. 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.

They did. And I did. So what was surgery like? What did they do to you exactly in surgery? Yeah, that's a great question. Who knows what they did? I was asleep. You're like, all right, full trust in this process.

Yeah, they put me under, like anesthesia. the surgery was supposed to last between like three to six hours it lasted under two everything went so perfectly you can look up stuff about like the needles and the cartridge for the r1 robot which is the surgical robot that actually took over from the human surgeon to insert the electrodes into your brain yep um we call it tiny dancer i like the name but yeah so the surgeon made the incision drilled the hole of my skull and then let the surgical robot, Tiny Dancer, takeover. They had taken brain scans when I had done all of my testing,

and they had mapped out where each thread was going to 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 to replace the needle,

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 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 54 minutes or something so we should talk a little bit about what this device that they implanted in your brain actually is yes so they take a piece of your skull out if I've read correctly yes so the robot puts these 64 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 yeah and then they effectively plug it up with the device so and then put the skin back over yes 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 out by the device. Yes. Each of the 16 electrodes on the 64 threads 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.

So you wake up from surgery, and the first thing you do is play a prank on your mother. Yeah, this is everyone's favorite part of the story, I think. It's one of my favorite parts. Mia, do you want to come in here for this? All right, we're going to bring in Nolan's mind. Oh, she loves it. She loves being a part of this. Hey, everyone. This is my mom, Mia. Hi, Mia. She's been my mom for 30 years. Hi, Alex. Hi, everybody.

Yeah. She's great. She's the only reason that I've been able to make it this far. She does everything with me, goes everywhere with me. She's my like full-time caregiver, basically full-time nurse. she's also a little like gullible and so my buddy Bain and I he was staying with us for like you know a couple 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 surgery and wake up from anesthesia and like just play a little prank on people 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 freaked out, like tears started flowing. I didn't freak out. What I did was I was kind of a quiet, like freaking out because 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 his stepdad, David and I was like,

and then I wanted to call a doctor like. 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 I'm just just kidding I just smirk like mom I'm just kidding I know right and then I saw him smile and I was like I just have this look and then he goes I'm just kidding I'm like wait you know who I am and he was like yes so no what did nerling do to my son you're like that is my son i saw it took it took like three seconds and i saw like the panic in her eyes yeah i was like i can't

let this go on much longer like it was a mean praying to begin with but i could have kept it going for a while and like watched the freak out unfold but i was like oh that's too mean i would have probably done some not very nice things to others and it's probably like you didn't too part. It went exactly to the place it should have been and not further. I think so as well. And look, I just wanted to bring this story in because I think people should know how amazing this family is. And, you know, it's one story, but I think it gives you a sense. Well, it's like to 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 everything's good yeah and you know hindsight i was upset first but then thinking about it it it was pretty funny the whole reason is just to show her and everyone around me that i was the same that nothing had changed yeah and that's the best way to do it thank you mea thank you for coming Thanks, Mom. I love you. You guys are awesome.

So I'll come out of surgery. But you were at the same person because you had a neuralink implanted. Yeah. Yeah. I mean... Did anything feel different? 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. Okay. and after that it was you know Elon Musk came in into the recovery room 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 it 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. But it worked out okay. Got to meet him, kind of, sort of. And then a little bit later, the NERLing team came in, and they watched it kind of work for the first time.

Okay, so when you say they watched it work, talk a little bit about how your brain signals started showing up through the device. 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 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 no in front of me and i was looking at like eight different channels one of 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. If you've seen the neuralink symbol, the neural link 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 so remember so vividly like the third box over on the top row because it was four and four. I was immediately you know, when I saw the signals, I was like, can't I manipulate this at all? So I started like

wiggling my fingers and my toes and trying to move. And I saw a very specific yellow spike when I moved like my right index finger. And this is doing it physically or just thinking about it? Physically trying to move my finger. It's 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 as I told them, I was like, look at the third box on the time. top right now and now and now I was like that's my index finger and everyone freaked out because that meant the device could read what was going on in your brain and then eventually translate that into something on the computer real time incredibly effective honestly for a few hours after my

surgery 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? 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 can 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. And then eventually all of those times that you followed the cursor, all of those times that you've followed kind of the white rabbit, if you will, the link app, The algorithm, the machine learning, is taking those brain signals and teaching this algorithm to 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.

And so how long did it take you to start being able to control computers using that type of brain? Yeah. 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 nerling guys would

come over in the verbo that we were staying at first near the hospital they'd come over just two of them bliss and 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 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 and it gets kind of wild because I think that 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. 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, 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 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. So that's attempted movement. And then we have imagined movement.

Imagine 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. And you do these things all just by thinking. 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 you take those things, and eventually you get, you know, some really, really interesting outcomes with the algorithm and the implant learning your intention. When you go to move, 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. 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 understand my intent and move before i even decide to move basically it's uh pretty incredible that's crazy uh 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 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. Yeah, when I think of where this technology will go, it's pretty incredible. I don't believe it will be allowed in certain gaming platforms and things

for like major league gaming. I think they're going to have to separate it. either everyone's going to have to have one or you're going to have to understand that other people have one and just accept that maybe it's better or you're better or maybe assume like, oh, well, the NERLink doesn't add any sort of advantage so I'll play against it. I don't believe that's true.

I think they're going to have to separate them to their own league or like ban them in leagues or everyone's going to have to have them in order to be fair because they really are, like you said, a superpower when it comes to video games 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 the signal to your hands and come all the way back up in order for you to move the joystick 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 a computer and back. I'm not sure what the 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 are life or death in these sorts of games. Right. So you're on the life side. Yes. Yeah. So it's not there yet, but I know that when this technology like really lands and you're going to start demolishing people. Yeah, it's there, 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.

I love that you're just referring to folks as regulars because it really is. 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? 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 to hopefully regain some movement. I never knew if it was working because there's no feedback.

There's no like feedback loop. I try to move my hand. I try to move my feet. I try 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. I don't know if trying to move my hand is, 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 things. 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 got to keep trying, keep trying and keep forcing your body with brute force to relearn how to move. Yeah. I mean, even though you don't have that sensation back, you do have it back in some way. It's weird. It's a weird, like, leap, psychological leap, sort of physical leap. It's weird to be able to move without moving, be able to move something without moving. So you use the NERLing 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? I mean, so much. 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 you know purpose and future prospect like 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. Um, There's so much that I'm able to accomplish with the 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 text to each person. It's just not possible with macOS dictation if everything takes that long. With the NERLink, 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 social butterfly with all of this. 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. Yeah, it's very ready player one. Like, it's getting close. 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 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 going to have a lot of fun with this and they're going to 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 going to be

able to multitask at such a higher level 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 NERLing. 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 10 fingers, all 10 toes, shoulders, arms, elbows, knees, like every body part that you can imagine mapping to something else and then that's all attempted moving. If you break that down even farther to imagine movement, it's unlimited how much potential and how many different tasks you'll be able to combine and do it once

with NeurLink. 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 going to keep growing. So you think normals, as you call them, are going to want to use it. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. What would some use cases be? 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... I'm about to ask you about that. Yeah, integrating with AI and like the virtual reality. And basically every device that you can think of that uses blue. Bluetooth, you'll be able to control with the neuralink. I constantly tell people, like, you think things like online are Alexa compatible. Like, you know, I have a Alexa compatible fan. I have an Alexa compatible, like, Dyson. I have a Alexa compatible, like, lights and smart plugs. All of that you're going to be able to do with a neuralink. Everything is going to be nerling compatible one day.

And it's so. Yeah. Like, let there be light. Yeah. Like, everything is going to. Except you don't have to say it. Exactly. You just think. And so one day I think everything is going to be like neuralink compatible. Like companies will have to put that in their product in order for it to sell. If it's not neuralink compatible, people would be like, well, why are we even using this? Neurlink is about to start testing a robotic arm.

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 could move a cursor on a screen? So what do you think about that? And is that something that you'd want to participate in if given the chance? Yeah, I 100% want to participate in it. I'm not sure that I'll get the chance. I'm not sure that Neurrelink 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. 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. When you say it pulled out, it's the brain that's actually moving and spitting them out. The brain moved much more than what Neurlin anticipated.

which kind of blew my mind, honestly. Wild, yeah. 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. We know so little about the brain. We know so little about the brain, which shocked me. They opened up my skull, and the surgeons were like, yeah, that's about right.

When you think about what they did, they drill the hole in my skull. And it's called a craniotomy, craniectomy. It's one of the two. I can't remember which one. And 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 in 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 like base in my skull. so bigger than a quarter like a 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 surge of 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, 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. But they figured it out. 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 neural link facility in Fremont. It was the morning before. And they told me I had the thread of traction. 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 NERLink facility. I was like,

this sucks. It's awful. I wasn't expecting this at all. 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 Neurlink. And so that's what I did. And I some unbelievable attitude towards it. It was hard to get there. Right. It's not easy. It's not like a while a switch is flipped. It's something that I have to 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 going to 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 thread of traction, because I have, they said 15% of the electrodes are still in place of my brain plus or minus 10%. So it could be as little as 5%. But it's still working with maybe 5%. That's unbelievable. It's one of the greatest pieces of this story, I think, that is hardly ever told. 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. You're all learning together.

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 going to come after, they might have better control because they solved the issue with P2. there was no threat of traction in Alex in him. Alex is the second patient. Alex is the second patient. So you've met the second patient?

I haven't. I don't know that he wants to meet me. Oh, is he not, he's not going public? I don't think so. I haven't heard a peat from him. I've mentioned that it's fine if he wants to meet me, but if not, it's his prerogative. And how many nerdling patients are there at this point? Just two?

At least one more. So three? I don't know. Okay. Yeah. So it's not clear to me if I will get a lot. a robot arm. If they do want to give it to me, what? Yeah, it would take it. Super cool. Yeah. 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. Okay. I'm not sure that what I want to do is strictly legal, but we'll find out. I got to come back to you mo when this happens. Um, so, um, so yeah, I think if they give me a robot arm, people are going to be terrified. Wait, are you going to shoot guns with a robot arm? I don't want to say what I'm going to do. But, uh, let's Let's just say it will be really cool if they give it to me. And I might ask for forgiveness instead of permission. Okay. Let's go with that.

So I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. I have no idea if they'll give me one. So now I want to get into the weird stuff. Cool. So let's talk about first of all the singularity. One of the things that Elon's talked about with this is that Neurlink 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 more quickly, then we can potentially sort of make peace and align our interests with artificial intelligence better. Now that you have the device basically implanted in you, what do you think about that idea? Sounds fun. Sounds really cool. So I think that it's going to 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 how much. The brain is something that we don't understand.

So in my mind, we've worked with typing before. We've worked with typing where I write a letter with a pencil and the letter pops up like a keystroke on the screen. I got to the point where I didn't need to 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 like complex ideas. I don't think we're anywhere near where this thing is capable.

And so I believe you could, like people who are programmers, coders, could use, use this to maximize efficiency in some way. And like you're saying, be tight faster, be able to keep up with some like AI stuff. It's interesting because like the brain itself is a super computer. 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. What do you think merging with AI could look like and would you do it? Yeah, I'd absolutely do it. um first off you're like whatever it is count me in 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 going to 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. With Nerlink and AI and merging, I believe that the good will far away the bad again. And we just need to learn how to utilize that technology, the capability. And, 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 going to look like in 10, 15 years? They might have ideas, but they would have never guessed what it looked like, you know, 20 years later or something. So it's hard to imagine what this thing will become. Okay. So your device can read your thoughts right now. Yes. It can read, you know, your intentions. Do you think there's ever going to 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? I don't think it's as sci-fi or far off as you might think. So you're saying this is feasible? 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 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 neuralinks in the brain as well. I believe that the writing is going to happen something. time soon 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 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. We'll get there, and 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 going to happen with neuralink, but I'm all for it. But what about like 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? Yeah, I mean, obviously when you're talking about things like that, 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 goes into 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 in 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 NERLINK is very, very active with their security. They're like cyber security. Yeah, 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 NERLink make much less. And that's not a knock on NERLing.

It's just, you know, it's the sphere that they're in. They make it 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 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. And what about the idea that we'd just be able, if we have neuralinks implanted, to like download stuff, keep them like in a neuralink file in our brain and then sort of access it as we need? So effectively, infinite memory. Yes. That would be awesome. Would it be cool? That would be super cool. 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. And I think honestly for good. 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. You know, forget the AI. What about humans? Have you read the book Nexus? No. Okay. It's very similar. Like there's the Borg in Star Trek. 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. And it gets you like high in some ways and stuff. 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 incredible. 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 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. 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 values that this can go down. I don't know. 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, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 years down the road stuff. That's like future people problems.

Let's focus on this now, you know. But would you do it? Oh, for sure. To me, it really is a technology that humans can utilize, not be afraid of. Humans are going to be human no matter what. No matter what this does, humans will still have the same problems. So have the human condition. There 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 used to solve problems and then we can find ways to, you know, mitigate consequences and things along the way. Should we get really out there? Sure, let's do it.

I mean, what about this, I think it's a Joe Rogan idea of having these devices send signals to your brain that like without having to take drugs, feel drugs? Do you think that that's feasible and is that something you'd want to and try? I definitely think it's feasible. I don't know that I would try things like that. Some of it goes against like my religious beliefs. Right. 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. I used to but that was you know before I realized that it didn't align with my like beliefs. So there are things that I am still opposed to, but I know other people won't be. And I don't think 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 it's probably not the best for them. But I do think it's possible. It would be crazy that like do heroin without the possibility to overdose, but it would still change your brain chemistry. Yeah, it would be crazy. I am not sure that that would be something that would be allowed. It might be something like, you know, drugs are regulated in the United States. Maybe something like this would be regulated too. Like, you're not allowed to do it. 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 yeah, 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, feeling like different emotions. If you're like really sad, you can just flip a switch and be happy. If you just want to be in the feels, you can make yourself really sad, you can experience maybe what it's like to have sex. You can experience what it's like to, you know, be, I don't know, the happiest you've ever been in your life. You can experience all sorts of a range of emotions and physical sensations that I think people will explore. And who knows? Maybe it's just not the same. Maybe you, 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 yeah definitely okay a couple more questions for you let's do it you're 30 yes so you made a bet by working with neurolink that neuralink is going to be around for decades because this is permanently in your body talk a little bit about, did you think about that at all in terms of if Neurlink goes under, then what am I going to do about this? Because it is a risk. Yeah, I'm not too worried about Neurlink 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. And I do know. Elon will probably, I mean, just looking at timelines, he'll probably be dead by the time when you still have the device in.

That's true. 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 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 the last, I think that I will die before the neuralink chip does. Okay. You are so optimistic.

I try. How have you maintained and built this sense of optimism? Because I don't think everybody would be the same way. 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. 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 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 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. This is the last one.

We have a lot of people that will be listening to this show that work in the tech industry. Okay. And you basically made the distinction with Nerlink folks. They could be pulling a million dollars 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 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 Neurilink? What would you tell them? I think that you need to think about like what you're capable of and what your purpose is in life and what 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 that Neurlink are doing.

That's what I'm trying to do. 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, you know, 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 NeurLink or different studies or companies that are trying to help or trying to push forward humanity and what people are capable of and how we can help people and like my situation or other terrible situations

that they could really make a big difference. So I encourage people to look at companies like Nerlink and see what they're looking for and take a pay cut but go make a difference and help be another little cog that pushes, you know, the medical field forward, the tech field forward, and pushes positive experience for people like me. I don't know. I'm just so thankful to everyone that doesn't, and I think that should be enough. I think, like, looking these people in Neurlink 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? Absolutely. Nolan, thank you so much for sharing the story. Appreciate you being here. Absolutely, man. Thanks so much for having me. It's great having you. It's great being here with you and your family. Thank you, man. Thanks. You're welcome anytime. All right. I'm going to take you up on that. Yeah, absolutely, man.

All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you, Nolan. And to his family for having us at his home in Yuma, Arizona for this amazing discussion. Can't thank you guys enough. Thanks to you all for listening. Ron John Roy and I will be back on Friday breaking down the week's news as we do week after week. Thank you for listening.

And we'll see you next time on Big Technology, podcast.