Elon Musk’s A.I. Company Shows Monkey Playing ‘Pong’ with His Mind

Elon Musk‘s monkey officially has the power of mind control … but so far, it’s only using it to play outdated video games.

Still, it’s a remarkable feat from Neuralink — the company Musk founded that’s developing implantable, artificial-intelligence-powered microchips to go in people’s brains.

The company shared apparent proof of its neural tech in action — video of Pager the macaque using his brain to play “Pong.” Elon recently claimed the Neuralink chips had enabled a monkey to play video games with its mind, but this is the first time we’re seeing it … and it’s pretty incredible.

According to the company … 9-year-old Pager had a Neuralink placed in each side of his brain about 6 weeks ago. He’s learned to interact with the computer by being enticed with a banana smoothie that gets delivered through a straw.

When Pager moves the joystick correctly, he gets some smoothie, and all the while … the Neuralink chips are recording his brain activity for analysis of what his brain does when he moves his hand.

Then, the joystick’s unplugged … and the monkey’s technically controlling the game with his mind, even though he’s still moving the joystick out of habit.

Neuralink says its goal is to enable a person with paralysis to use a computer or phone with their brain activity alone. As you can see, Pager eventually stops using the joystick … and he’s a pro at “Pong” with no hands.