"The most amazing thing that has ever happened to me is that Elon Musk put a chip in my brain."

Noland Arbaugh was quadriplegic after an accident in 2016, but with the world's wealthiest man's assistance, the "neuralnaut" has found new life.

The best names competed in the Speed Chess Championship in Paris last week, with Noland Arbaugh making the opening move. What's more amazing is that he used his wits alone to move the pawn in a world-first event.

Arbaugh, 30, is the first person in history to get a brain chip made by Neuralink, Elon Musk's brain-computer interface (BCI) startup. After an accident left him paralyzed below the shoulders, chess was one of the few things he could still perform, and it has since become an integral part of the 30-year-old's life.

However, after he got the implant in January and started moving components around with his brain, it turned into his gateway to the outside world. A month after his surgery, the firm posted a video of him playing; he said that opening the Speed Chess Championship was "the coolest thing that's happened to me."

The journey to France demonstrated how drastically Arbaugh's life has changed since his operation in January of 2016, the same year that Neuralink was established in California. At that time, he was 22 years old and had suffered a freak accident while swimming in a lake that left him paraplegic.

Arbaugh tells me, "It's made me a lot more independent," after we meet in the e-sports venue's basement after he just concluded

practicing his initial maneuver. He wears a cap, a goatee, and a tiny gold hoop earring, just like any other millennial. However, he is accompanied by his parents, who assist him with eating and drinking, and the adapted wheelchair he has been using for the past eight years.

He returned to live with them at the family home in Arizona following the accident, where he is cared for full-time by them and care professionals. His life has been severely limited by his inability to control his limbs, but in recent months, he has gained a fresh perspective. "I feel like I can return to school and find employment, which are things I never would have thought I could do before Neuralink," He says. "I feel just as capable as everyone else," for the first time in nearly ten years.

When Arbaugh's friend called to ask, "Do you want to get a chip in your brain?" he was the first to learn about Neuralink's clinical trial. “Sure, why not?” I replied. In a light-hearted manner, we applied, and everything went smoothly.

The chip, which has 64 "threads" and 16 electrodes, is implanted in his left brain's motor cortex, which regulates the movement of his right hand. Thinking now enables him to move his fingers or a cursor on a screen in any direction. He says, "A lot of machine learning is involved." "I experiment, the implant picks it up, and it simply gets better and better with time.

He participates in the study by attending team meetings electronically from his home for four hours every day, five days a week. It also grants access to the overlord of Neuralink. On the day of Musk's operation earlier this year, Arbaugh initially spoke with him over FaceTime: "He was supposed to be at the hospital at Barrow Neurological Institute in Arizona, but he had a plane malfunction, so he couldn't make it." Arbaugh says he's "just a regular guy; he's very successful." They have subsequently met in person. I believe that there are many aspects in which we are similar.

It's difficult to believe that the modest Arbaugh has a lot in common with the villain from pantomime who enjoys starting arguments on social media. However, he thinks that Musk's collaboration with Neuralink demonstrates the billionaire's dedication to significantly enhancing people's lives. He states, "We have a common vision of what this could do for people in general and the future." "I am aware that we both merely wish to assist in some manner."

Musk is less able to convey his goal than Arbaugh. Where is he losing his message? "He says anything he wants to say; he doesn't hold anything back. Arbaugh ponders, "I believe he doesn't care because he is so powerful." The majority of individuals would be scared to speak certain things for fear of being fired or having their jobs taken away. It can wreck their lives. That is not a concern for him.

A month after surgery, Neuralink declared a "breakthrough" when it published a video of Arbaugh playing online chess. However, things quickly went awry. In Arbaugh's brain, several of the chip's connecting threads "retracted," decreasing the speed and effectiveness of his commands.

It was hard to go back from what had been a "luxury overload"—the post-Neuralink world where he could compose a message in a matter of seconds using chip-enabled cursor control instead of spending ten to fifteen minutes using voice control on a computer and that no longer required a mouth stick to operate an iPad. "I was on such a high, so it was really hard," he recalls. "One day, I'm going to take a tour of Neuralink and get to know the entire staff. "We don't know what's going to happen," they then tell me. In essence, we are no longer in charge of this. We have no idea how to solve it.

It caused Arbaugh to struggle philosophically in addition to physically and cognitively. "Why would God give me this chance and only allow me to do it for a month?" I asked myself. It had so much more to offer me, and I felt like I had so much more to offer.

However, he reasoned, "That gave me a lot of purpose because the chip could continue to collect data that might be useful for future devices." Furthermore, even if it didn't work on me again,

I would continue to assist. (Since then, the functionality has been restored.) In July, a second patient received the Neuralink implant with the threads problem resolved, proving that. "Knowing that I had some influence on that for everyone who follows me is an incredible feeling," he says.

Arbaugh, a former Texas A&M University student, and athlete went swimming with friends in Pennsylvania eight years ago while working as a camp counselor. Today, he can only vaguely recall the day he dove into a lake, struck his head on something, and sank to the bottom face-down, feeling nothing below his shoulders. At first, he found it difficult to adjust to his new life as a quadriplegic.

A few months after his injuries, he remembers a "horrible" attempt to fly, in which he had to be forcibly lifted into the plane seat. "It was difficult to be seen that way," he recalls. Around the two-year mark, when doctors advise that further recovery is improbable, there was a greater level of acceptance.

New vitality also appeared. I wanted to return to school, so I started working on retraining my brain to study. I simply worked as hard as I could every day to improve myself in every manner. He also applied to medical trials, but he never heard back from any of them until Neuralink got back to him. After that, the business narrowed him down to three possible

He had to agree to a "laundry list of risks" before surgery, which included removing a portion of his skull and implanting a gadget the size of a pound coin. One of the hazards was that he might not make it through the procedure (his mother couldn't bear to read it in full). But the result he was most concerned about was a "mental deficiency" of some kind.

He states, "My brain is kind of who I am at this point because I can't move." "And it's really scary to let someone enter and look around." In the end, optimism prevailed over dread. "I wanted to assume the risk just in case something went wrong. Instead of someone else, I wanted it to happen to me.

Life improved after he left the hospital one day later. However, the chip is not a cure-all; it can only restore a little portion of what he has lost. "Being a husband and father has always been my dream... But in my opinion, it's simply not possible," he continues. Additionally, I don't think I would make a decent father or husband. In addition to having that child, I would simply be an additional burden [to a partner]. The kid and I would have to be cared for by my wife. In my opinion, there are numerous ways in which someone I would date could perform better.

It's the one subject where Arbaugh comes out as even somewhat dejected. I continue to have ongoing difficulties with it. However, I've already made up my mind and will proceed accordingly.

After a year, the trial's first phase concluded, and there will be five "more hands-off" years left, during which time the technology might advance even more. He is currently thinking about a career in neuroscience or law in addition to serving as a spokesperson for Neuralink, effectively presenting the company's real-time technological advancements.

Both parties benefit from the relationship: Arbaugh is aware that becoming the company's first "neuralnaut" (he also jokingly refers to himself as a "cyborg") will open doors for him that won't open for the second or third in line.