The first person to receive a Neuralink brain-computer chip implant says: Elon Musk helped me have a new life. He's so cool.

On September 18th, it was reported that Noland Arbaugh, the world's first person to have a Neuralink brain-computer chip implanted, revealed that he met Elon Musk via FaceTime on the day of his surgery and said bluntly, "He's really a cool guy."

Arbaugh, 29 years old, not only demonstrated "playing chess with his mind" live at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech Summit but also shared his real journey from despair to rebirth.

In 2016, while still a student at Texas A&M University, Arbaugh had an accident while diving at a summer camp, which left him paralyzed from the neck down. Over the next eight years, his life changed completely, and he mainly relied on his family for care.

Arbaugh described those days as "a life with extreme limitations." He said, "I had my days and nights reversed. I went out less than a few times a year and thought I might never be able to travel again. At that time, I could hardly see any future."

The turning point came from a phone call from a friend. When his friend asked if he was willing to have a chip implanted in his brain, Arbaugh almost didn't hesitate to answer, "There's nothing else to do anyway."

Elon Musk founded Neuralink in 2016 and spent many years researching, developing, and testing brain-computer interface technology. Finally, in May 2023, it received FDA approval for human testing.

On January 28, 2024, Arbaugh underwent a two-hour surgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. Doctors implanted a coin-sized chip into his skull, which was connected to thousands of electrodes thinner than a human hair. Surprisingly, Arbaugh was discharged from the hospital 24 hours after the surgery and didn't even take painkillers.

"If no one told me, I wouldn't even feel the existence of the chip," he said with a smile.

On the day of the surgery, Arbaugh, who was still recovering from anesthesia, met Musk via FaceTime. What impressed him most was the pilot jacket Musk was wearing. "I kept saying, 'Your jacket is so cool,'" he said. Six months later, the two met again at Tesla's Gigafactory in Austin and talked about SpaceX, aliens, and life. Arbaugh sighed, "He's not just an entrepreneur but also a very interesting person."

On the stage of the Fortune Tech Summit, Arbaugh controlled the computer cursor with his mind and played chess in real-time against chess grandmaster Anna Cramling. He explained the operating principle to the audience: "I just need to think about the direction I want the cursor to move. It's very intuitive. This technology is actually easier to use than many people think."

Now, Arbaugh's life has changed completely. He has returned to college to study neuroscience, founded his own company, and visited many cities such as Paris and New York.

From being confined to his home in the past to being "extremely busy" now, Arbaugh, as an unofficial ambassador for brain-computer interface technology, is fulfilling his original intention of "helping others": "Whether it succeeds or not, my participation can make this technology benefit more people."

This article is from "Tencent Technology". Author: Jin Lu. Republished by 36Kr with permission.