26 March 2025

The man with a mind-reading chip in his brain - thanks to Elon Musk

Lara Lewington, Liv McMahon & Tom Gerken

Having a chip in your brain that can translate your thoughts into computer commands may sound like science fiction - but it is a reality for Noland Arbaugh.

In January 2024 - eight years after he was paralysed - the 30-year-old became the first person to get such a device from the US neurotechnology firm, Neuralink.

It was not the first such chip - a handful of other companies have also developed and implanted them - but Noland's inevitably attracts more attention because of Neuralink's founder: Elon Musk.

But Noland says the important thing is neither him nor Musk - but the science.

He told the BBC he knew the risks of what he was doing - but "good or bad, whatever may be, I would be helping".

"If everything worked out, then I could help being a participant of Neuralink," he said.

"If something terrible happened, I knew they would learn from it."

'No control, no privacy'


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