This is a linkpost for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA77zsJ31nA
I hear they've implanted some monkeys. Have they talked about what they've been able to get the monkeys to do? Controlling high-dexterity mechanical arms, for instance?
Pager, a nine-year-old Macaque monkey, can play some simple 2D video games, including MindPong, with his Neuralink. These games appear to use the inputs from a single joystick (or the signals from the Neuralink associated with moving a joystick). Here's Neuralink's video explaining it. Other companies and devices may have different capabilities.
They specifically didn't talk about it and pretended the animals died of something else, but they got a bunch of young macaques to gruesomely and slowly die from it. https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/20/23882888/elon-musk-brain-implant-startup-neuralink-monkeys-euthanized Detailed report is worth reading; their own report is plain incompatible with competent, ethical and responsible procedure, and trying to imagine how the macaques (higher primates with self-awareness) experienced this is horrifying. Having an infected, loose brain implant dangling and dripping pus from my head while the small wires migrate through my brain and shred neural tissues, with all the mental and physical effects that come with that...
He is looking for human volunteers. I really wouldn't put that thing into my head. Musk has outright lied about both the benefits and issues crucial to safety, and with his staff, pursues a strategy of applying immense pressure on them to meet targets the staff considers scientifically nonsense, within impossible deadlines, under sleep deprivation and an unreliable framework, while their results are misrepresented, in the mistaken belief that that gets you a safe, ethical product for brain insertion. That dude can't manage a social media company responsibly, he shouldn't be sticking his devices into brains.
I don't recall reading on the Neuralink paper anything related to implants on monkeys. Although they do cite Miguel A. L. Nicolelis et al. “Chronic, multisite, multielectrode recordings in macaque monkeys”.
"Electric vehicles, rockets... and now brain-computer interfaces. Elon Musk's newest venture, Neuralink, aims to bridge the gap between humans and artificial intelligence by implanting tiny chips that can link up to the brain. At a press conference on July 16, Neuralink's ambitious plans were detailed for the first time, showcasing a future (a very distant future!) technology that could help people deal with brain or spinal cord injuries or controlling 3D digital avatars."