Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Neuralink's First Patient Stuns Crowd in First Interview

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Neuralink's First Patient Stuns Crowd in First Interview · Elon Musk Podcast

0:01
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
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This is a show where we discuss the critical Crossroads, The
0:08
Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink,
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2:04
Welcome everyone. Welcome.
2:06
I think we all know what this All Hands is going to be about.
2:10
We have a very, very special guest.
2:12
I've been calling him VVIP. But yeah, this really the
2:16
purpose of this is for us to show our immense gratitude for
2:22
you know, you all know him as P1, you will know more about him
2:26
today and also for them to just share the journey that they've
2:31
gone through and just just sheer excitement for sharing all the
2:35
progress so far with you all. So I guess without further ado,
2:39
I am going to introduce who you guys all know as Participant One
2:44
or P1 onto the stage. So please, please welcome with
2:49
the big round of applause. Is this is this on?
2:57
Can y'all hear me? All right.
3:00
Hello, humans. I wanted to start this out with
3:04
a joke, but I didn't think you, lesser beings would understand,
3:10
so I'll just hop right in. My name's Nolan.
3:16
I'm obviously the first person with the neural link implant.
3:24
Thank you. Thank you.
3:26
It's, it's been a wild ride. I think more than anything, I'm
3:31
just impressed with all the work y'all have done.
3:34
I mean, I did very little. I let them, you know, cut open
3:39
my skull and put something in my brain and that's about it.
3:42
I was asleep for all of it, so it was super easy.
3:46
Y'all have been doing work for years and I'm just so impressed
3:51
with everyone I've met. And I don't know, it's just it's
3:55
amazing. It's amazing being able to tour
3:57
everything and see, you know, behind the scenes.
4:01
It's just it's fantastic. I can't express enough how
4:07
awesome all of y'all are and how much this is going to change the
4:11
world. I mean I can already see it.
4:14
It's been a month. I think a month was like 2 days
4:16
ago and how much my life has changed and how how much it's
4:22
improved, not just my life, but the implant and the work that
4:25
Y'all are doing. It's been it's been fantastic
4:29
and I can only imagine where this is going to go and y'all
4:33
are really doing just the coolest thing in the world.
4:39
Like I'm so happy to be a part of it.
4:41
I feel so blessed to be a part of it.
4:43
I like I said, I didn't do a whole lot to get selected.
4:47
I just was happened to align with everything that Y'all
4:52
wanted that the study wanted. And so really it was it was luck
4:58
basically. And so at any point today, if
5:03
y'all want to come talk to me, please come on up.
5:06
I'm basically like all of Y'all, just with a bit of hardware in
5:12
my in my skull, bit more compute power, and that's about it.
5:21
So, like, come on up, say hi. I'll ask you about how you got
5:27
into this because I'm fascinated to hear all of your origin
5:31
stories is what I've been calling it.
5:34
And yeah, I think that's about it.
5:36
Good work, everyone. Yeah.
5:54
Yeah, so Nolan is a very impressive person.
5:57
But I want to take just one moment before bragging on his
6:00
behalf about all the work that he's done over the past month to
6:02
also acknowledge his mother, his father, and his friend here in
6:04
the front row. I've spent probably 8 hours a
6:08
day plus at their home the last sort of month.
6:12
Ish. And I just want to acknowledge
6:14
that none of this would happen without them.
6:16
I mean literally none of it. And that's it's a team effort
6:19
the whole way. So just if I could have one
6:21
round of applause for Nolan, but also the family.
6:37
Yeah. And then I want to just talk
6:38
briefly. It's sort of impossible task to
6:40
try to summarize the quantity of data and the impact that no one
6:44
and his family have had over the last month, not just on
6:46
Neuralink. I want to be clear, not just on
6:47
Neuralink, but on the entire industry and what it means for
6:50
the field in general. So I have a pretty impossible
6:53
job of trying to summarize with a few statistics what that looks
6:55
like, just to give you a sense of the kind of crazy, absurd
6:58
amount of data and progress that we've made in the last month.
7:01
So the first is we've done literally only 12 BCI sessions
7:04
so far. We've done five days a week, 8
7:06
hours a day. And for those of you who have
7:08
worked in this field before, you know that this is not the usual
7:11
thing to happen. If you have experience with
7:13
brain gate or previous clinical trials, it's typically a couple
7:16
days a week for a couple hours and by Monday morning at usually
7:20
around 11:00 AM, we've usually surpassed what the normal is in
7:23
terms of data collection for a week.
7:25
The second thing I want to acknowledge is the amount of
7:27
learning that we've taken away from those sessions.
7:28
And so if you actually, if you look at the next bullet point
7:31
there, we've taken, I asked Sammy to compute this 271 pages
7:35
of notes over those 12 PCI sessions.
7:38
And it's to the degree that Google Docs actually doesn't
7:40
load that document anymore and we had to start splitting it up
7:43
day by day and it's it's actually not just about, you
7:46
know, it just wouldn't happen with anyone.
7:47
I want to emphasize that Nolan has a very unique ability to
7:50
give us useful comments on what needs to change to make our
7:53
product better. His parents, his friends have
7:56
given us similar comments and these are pages of notes on what
7:59
we need to change to make it better going forward.
8:01
This is invaluable data. OK now to the the raw stats.
8:04
So Lifetime Nolan has selected 89,285 targets in Webgrid.
8:14
There is no one in the same league.
8:15
That's. Crazy.
8:22
That's. Why?
8:24
There was one day, February 15th, Nolan selected 7762 in one
8:30
day for reference. The maximum I think I've ever
8:34
seen any living creature do is probably pager before that.
8:37
And it's in the low thousands. Not even close.
8:39
It's like a multiplier off absolutely absurd quantity of
8:42
data. The total number of left clicks
8:45
Nolan has done with this BCI 111,000 left clicks, right
8:51
clicks, 35,000 right clicks. OK, now for the most important
8:54
state of all. So for those who know me, I'm a
8:58
very competitive person. Nolan is competitive, but shows
9:01
it in a slightly different way. And I've been playing chess with
9:04
Nolan for the last month incrementally as his BCI has
9:07
improved. And I want to be very clear that
9:10
Nolan will destroy me in any fair competition.
9:12
OK, it's not a close contest intellectually.
9:16
However, Nolan not. However, when the BCI is not
9:22
working well enough for him to beat me and the clock time is
9:24
small enough, I have a chance. And so, just for the record,
9:26
Nolan has beaten me seven times in chess and has only lost four
9:30
times. He's up three games right now.
9:33
Better believe. It and the last two numbers I
9:36
want to talk about, or maybe just the last number I want to
9:39
talk about briefly, is the one on the bottom here.
9:41
And it's I think in some ways the most important metric from
9:44
the last month. And it's the number of hours of
9:46
Civilization 6 played between 10:00 PM and 6:00 AM using ABCI
9:53
and it's on the OR it's 77.6 hours of Civilization 6 played
9:57
between those hours. And Noah, I guess do you want to
9:59
just briefly comment on what that number means and in terms
10:03
of your life, your ability to use your PCI to do that and
10:05
versus what was your the previous alternatives?
10:07
Do you have any comments you want to share on that?
10:08
I don't know what you mean. Yeah, so maybe just as a as a
10:12
reflection when using your previous assist assistive
10:14
technology, things like the mouse stick, was that a
10:17
possibility for you to do? This.
10:18
Yeah, no, not really. So there are a lot of problems
10:24
that arise with using other assistive technology.
10:28
Basically what would happen is say I'm using my mouth stick,
10:32
and if you all don't know what a mouth stick is, it's basically
10:34
just a stick that I hold in my mouth and I can touch.
10:38
My has a little piece of fabric on the end of it basically, and
10:41
I can use it to touch like my iPad or something.
10:45
If I were to use it for that long, I run the risk of getting
10:48
pressure sores. It is basically impossible
10:53
because I have to sit in one position for that long and that
10:57
is just not how my body works. Y'all might not have seen it
11:01
today, but at some point you maybe will.
11:04
I have very bad spasms. I'm very spastic so my legs will
11:09
cake, my whole body shifts to one side or the other and so
11:12
sitting in one position to use a mouth stick in front of an iPad
11:17
is next to impossible. I actually had a quad stick
11:21
which is basically like a sip and puff.
11:23
I don't know if you all know it's sip and puff.
11:24
Sorry, this is a sip and puff where I can control my chair
11:28
with it. It's like a hard blow to go
11:31
forward, a soft blow to go right, a hard suck to go
11:35
backwards and a soft suck to go left.
11:37
And I have a remote that has about 8 or 10 different commands
11:43
on it and I have to be perfectly centered in order to use that.
11:47
And if I spasm at all or move at all, I have to be completely
11:50
readjusted. So getting to play sieve all
11:55
night like that was something I haven't been able to do in well
12:00
since my accident. And it was it was amazing.
12:05
It was so much fun. I was kicking ass.
12:08
So it just it's just not possible with anything else
12:14
that's out there. I've tried it all eye tracking
12:16
software like it's OK, but if, you know, I get off center at
12:20
all, it just doesn't work. There's so many different
12:24
reasons why what y'all are doing is just going to change the
12:28
world. It's going to change how people
12:32
like me are able to just live their lives.
12:38
It's incredible. I can't even describe it.
12:40
I I'm at a loss for words at the impact y'all are making.
12:45
And, you know, it was a lot of fun.
12:47
It was a lot of fun, I guess above all else.
12:49
I had so much fun staying up all night doing that.
12:52
What? Civilization.
12:55
Were you what? Sieve.
12:55
I was Korea. I was Korea.
12:57
And yeah, yeah, yeah, it was great.
13:04
It was a lot of fun. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
13:06
Yeah. I mean, beating him his chest,
13:08
isn't that fun anymore? Yeah, it's.
13:15
Tough up here, yeah? Yeah.
13:21
All right, so I want to just briefly go through a few at
13:24
least moments it gave me goosebumps throughout this trial
13:26
and just talk about at least what they meant for me
13:29
personally, but also the industry.
13:30
And if no one you have any comments along the way, please
13:32
feel free to jump in. So the first one here is can.
13:37
You do that again, 123, go. Cool.
13:42
Wow. Right there, yeah.
13:46
So this happened one day after surgery.
13:47
So this isn't the ICU. Literally, probably, I don't
13:50
know, 12 hours or something after surgery, Not that long
13:53
after surgery. And yeah, maybe don't you just
13:56
explain what you're doing in this video?
13:57
Yeah, so y'all. Put basically different channels
14:03
up in front of me and I could see certain spikes and I was
14:09
just trying to play around with, you know, different movements
14:12
and imagined movements, attempted movements, just to see
14:16
if I could see anything. And I was just trying to move my
14:21
wrist and I noticed the yellow spike and I thought it was super
14:24
freaking cool. And so I showed them all and
14:27
they were all really impressed. They clap for me, which was very
14:32
unnecessary, but it was awesome. It was really, really cool.
14:39
Yeah, it was pretty sweet. Maybe just for people watching.
14:41
If we play this one more time, the spike is in the upper right
14:44
corner. It's the third.
14:45
One, It's a yellow. I think it's a yellow spike.
14:47
Yeah. I'm.
14:48
Not sure we have the ability to play it again, but here we go.
14:50
Whoa, can you do that again? Yep, 123 go.
14:55
Cool. Wow, cool.
14:58
Right there. Yep.
15:00
So it's so cool, Yeah. OK, cool.
15:03
And now the next video I want to show is actually a couple of
15:05
days later. We're at the VRBO that the
15:08
family rented in Scottsdale, doing some initial data
15:10
collection from the device. And what you'll see in the video
15:12
most importantly is the dog, Gracie, who is just an absolute
15:15
All Star dog. But the bigger picture I want to
15:19
convey with this video is that it's outside, this is by a pool
15:23
that this research session is happening where this initial
15:25
data collection is occurring. And this is something, you know,
15:27
basically PCI has exited the lab.
15:29
That's the point of this video that's so incredible.
15:47
I just want to give one round of applause to all the people who
15:49
made that possible, that you can do that kind of thing outside.
16:01
All right. The next video I want to show,
16:02
it's actually, it's a very special moment to me because
16:05
it's the first time that no one is getting, getting control of
16:08
the computer cursor on the screen.
16:09
So what you'll see in this video is no one's actually exiting the
16:12
calibration experience and getting control of the cursor
16:14
for the first time. So here we.
16:33
Go. I think I can do better.
16:41
That's so cool. All right.
16:44
Yeah. I think the main point I want to
16:46
take away from that is just the last comment that no one had
16:48
there. I think I can do better.
16:49
It basically summarizes, no one's summarizes his work during
16:52
this entire entire last month. OK.
16:55
The next video I want to just briefly walk through happened
16:57
actually the same. It happened on the first day of
17:00
him being able to use his BCI. And I'll play the video and then
17:03
explain what it is afterwards. So I think the significance of
17:05
it will be more clear once you've seen the video.
17:07
Here we go. It's good.
17:29
Doing great. Oh, shit.
17:36
Sorry. Congrats.
17:42
Oh, well done, man. He's a new world record holder,
17:47
no? Way for the first day.
17:54
This was a surprise this month for one of five.
17:57
I thought it was higher. I thought I would have to get to
17:59
5 or something. Oh my gosh, that's crazy.
18:05
I know, yeah. So I think this is a remarkable
18:10
technical achievement. But the thing I want to
18:11
highlight about this is actually that this happened on like hour
18:14
7 1/2 of that day. And I just want to just call out
18:18
again, this is not a typical thing to have the kind of
18:20
determination and grit required to do this.
18:21
And it's just a remarkable testament to know on that on the
18:24
very first day he had access to this thing, he blew the previous
18:26
thing out of the water. It's ridiculous.
18:28
So, yeah, one big hand for Nolan.
18:29
Thank you. Thank you.
18:45
All right, now this next video. This was actually I think a
18:49
request of of Nolan. During our first initial home
18:51
visit, the first time I met, I met Nolan.
18:53
We talked about things you might want to do with this BCI and how
18:56
one of the games he likes to play.
18:58
He referred to it as Brio Kart, not Mario Kart, but.
19:01
It's a much different game, Much different.
19:05
Game One of the goals was to be able to actually play the game
19:07
Mario Kart with his friends. And in this video I think we
19:11
posted this at one point on Slacker, a version of this.
19:13
And there was a vote of sort of which of these was controlled by
19:17
ABCI, which of these was known and which of these was his dad?
19:21
And I'm not saying anything about his dad's skill set, but
19:26
in some ways it's kind of like a Turing test for BCI.
19:28
If you can't tell the difference, this is a
19:30
remarkable, remarkable achievement and again, a
19:32
testament to no one's ability to figure stuff out blazingly
19:35
quick. And so I'm gonna hold off until
19:37
the end to say which is which, but here we go.
19:58
Chris, smile over here. Oh no.
20:11
Hopefully you can get that drifted All right, so Nolan was
20:14
the guy on the right, the one who sniped that dude with the
20:17
Greenshot halfway through, and also the guy who I'll mention
20:20
has the best taste in which player to play as Mario Dry
20:23
Bowser for the win. I would like to just really
20:26
quick, for those of you who don't know what Burial Card is,
20:31
So if you've never played, it's Mario Kart, except everyone
20:35
starts with a beer in hand and you're not allowed to drink and
20:39
drive. So you have to pull over and
20:42
drink your beer periodically and you have to finish it before the
20:46
end of the race and that's it. And so I've wanted to play that.
20:51
It's so much fun. If you've never played, I would
20:56
say we could have a little tournament in the office, but
20:58
I'm not sure how y'all feel about your employees getting
21:01
drunk. But it's so much fun.
21:04
Just. What's the What's the winning
21:05
strategy here? Chug it all.
21:08
Yeah, just in the beginning. Yeah.
21:09
Wait, you can't, but you can't drink and.
21:11
You can't. So you just stay there.
21:13
You shotgun it and then you drive and hopefully you're not
21:17
too jacked up to be able to finish the race.
21:21
But that's it. That's it.
21:22
It's so much fun. OK, that's it.
21:26
That was it. Yeah, maybe we'll have that set
21:29
up later. Yeah.
21:30
OK. OK.
21:32
I'll play it. In the next video here, it's
21:36
actually a similar one, just a slightly different perspective,
21:38
and it means something very personal to me and I'm guessing
21:41
to a lot of you, which is why I wanted to put in this deck.
21:44
What you'll see in the next video is it's a very normal
21:47
scene. What you see is a dad and his
21:49
son playing Mario Kart, something I grew up doing all
21:52
the time with my parents, something I did a lot with my
21:54
friends growing up, and something that wasn't possible
21:57
until this this happened. And I just think the normalcy of
22:01
it contrasted with the absolute absurdity of doing it.
22:04
Using a BCI is something to just marvel at and just take in and
22:07
soak in for a second. So here we go.
22:33
Yeah, it still blows my mind that, yeah, Yoshi here has been
22:35
controlled without moving any hand at all.
22:37
It's just completely using BTI. And then yeah, the last slide, I
22:42
just wanted to return to the message I said at the beginning
22:44
here, which is that this really, truly is a team effort.
22:46
I think I'm one of the few people who's got to experience
22:48
the full, full journey in Arizona with Nolan and his
22:52
family and just got to see their dynamic, how much they care
22:55
about each other and how supportive they are.
22:57
All are of not just the work we do, but of the impact it's going
23:00
to have on the thousands of people that come next.
23:02
So just one more round of applause for the whole game.
23:23
All right. And now I think we're about to
23:24
jump into Q&A. And so I'm going to be the first
23:26
person to ask a question here. And then I'll hand it off to in
23:29
young, whoever he is, to come up here and help help with this.
23:32
So my first question to you, since Bane is pictured in this
23:35
image here, you can say whatever you want about him.
23:37
You're on stage with cameras. And everything.
23:40
But I guess my first question to you is how did you first hear
23:42
about Neuralink and what is that?
23:43
Yeah. So I don't know if all of you
23:45
have heard this story. I didn't know what Neuralink was
23:51
six months ago. My buddy Bane, after my accident
23:57
eight years ago, almost eight years ago, he's a biology major.
24:01
He ended up working in a neuroscience lab, and he got
24:04
really into everything that Y'all are doing and about, you
24:08
know, five months ago he called me in the middle of the day and
24:13
he was already kind of slurring his words.
24:15
So I was like, something something's afoot.
24:18
And he told me that Neuralink had been approved by the FDA and
24:23
y'all had opened up human clinical trials and then I
24:26
should apply for it. And I was like, what the hell is
24:27
Neuralink? Tell me about it.
24:29
And he did. I guess the best part of the
24:32
story is that he was wasted when he did it.
24:36
He he he was drunk and calling me at, like, noon.
24:40
And I was like, why the hell are you drinking at noon?
24:44
I guess he was trying to prepare himself for a wedding that he
24:46
was going to. It's like, I need to test to see
24:48
how much I can drink before I get drunk.
24:51
Yeah. It was for science.
24:53
Yeah, it was. So he sent me through the whole,
24:57
like, online. We went through the whole
24:59
application process together. He spelled my name wrong on the
25:03
application. So there's that.
25:06
Yeah. And I asked for an Iron Man
25:10
suit. So any of you out there who can
25:12
make that happen, come see me. But yeah, it was, it was wild.
25:17
And after that, basically every step of the way, I just wanted
25:21
to be the first person to get interviewed.
25:24
I was like they, I was emailed back and they said, you know,
25:28
choose a slot out of these times and we'll like FaceTime or
25:31
something. And I chose the earliest one.
25:33
And I did that basically every step of the way.
25:35
I got up to a hospital which like for some reason was only
25:41
like 2 hours away from my house. Like the site that they had
25:45
chosen, which was just wild like it was.
25:48
I'm so lucky. Everything just lined up like
25:50
the stars aligned for this. It was really crazy how fast
25:56
everything happened that day. I think it was what, like
25:58
September 19th or something like that.
26:00
And five months later I was getting brain surgery.
26:02
So it all happened pretty quickly and I wouldn't have it
26:05
any other way. Does that answer your question?
26:09
Yeah. OK, cool.
26:20
All right. So we'll open it up to Q&A, Scan
26:24
the QR code there or, you know, if you have a question, raise
26:28
your hand and I'll bring the mic over to you.
26:34
Oh yeah. How did your family feel about
26:48
you applying, about you getting further and further along in the
26:52
application process? How did you communicate to them,
26:55
you know, what you would, you know, what you intended to do.
26:58
And how did that, how did that happen?
27:02
Yeah, So I've been very open with my parents, my family about
27:07
this whole process. I told them basically that if
27:11
they didn't want me to do it, I wouldn't be here.
27:14
They I ran everything by them, but they are the most supportive
27:19
parents in the world. I don't think y'all understand
27:23
how rare it is for a family to take on the role.
27:28
They have to sacrifice so much just to make me comfortable.
27:34
People in my position don't really get that a whole lot.
27:38
A lot of families stick them in the home somewhere.
27:41
They just can't really handle it.
27:43
Maybe not that they don't want to, but they're just not capable
27:46
of it. My family, there's not enough
27:51
words to say how much I appreciate everything they've
27:54
done for me. And so this whole process, I
27:58
walked through with them everything that was happening
28:02
and that could happen. I was very blunt about all of
28:06
the downsides to a surgery. I mean this brain surgery.
28:09
So it was something we talked at length about and they just
28:15
wanted to support me and whatever I decided I thought a
28:20
lot about this. I thought a lot about, you know,
28:24
all of the upsides and the downsides, and it was not an
28:29
easy decision, I'll say. I mean, I wanted to do it from
28:32
day one once I started hearing about it and I started learning
28:35
more and more about it. But I definitely took time to
28:40
step back and evaluate all of, you know, the the downsides that
28:47
I could be bringing to my family.
28:52
You know, not just not just the health downsides, things that
28:58
could have happened during surgery or afterwards, but
29:00
everything that comes with this, which like any notoriety that
29:06
comes with it. I'm like, I don't care that
29:09
people know who I am and I don't think my family does either.
29:12
But like we have nothing to hide.
29:14
But at the same time, it's a lot to ask your family to step into
29:18
that role. And so, you know, it was, it was
29:22
not easy. It was not easy and we talked a
29:24
lot about it. But like I said, they're so
29:27
supportive. I wouldn't be here without them.
29:29
So they deserve all the credit through all of this and I'm just
29:34
so blessed to have them. Yeah, I hope that answers the
29:38
question. All right, I'm just gonna read
29:49
the next question from here. What does it feel like to move
29:52
the cursor with your mind? It's freaking wild.
29:58
It's it's hard to explain honestly.
30:02
Like so much of what I feel is, is impossible to get others to
30:15
understand. So like, right now I can feel
30:22
myself moving my index finger. It's not moving, but I can feel
30:26
it. I'm doing it and it's it's just
30:29
not able to, you know, there's no way for y'all to understand
30:34
like what that feels like. I can explain it, I can try, but
30:40
there's just no way. And seeing that translate onto a
30:44
screen and being able to move a cursor is just, it's such a
30:49
wild, wild feeling. It's it's like not being able to
30:56
explain this to Y'all it's it's hard.
31:01
It's very difficult. But then you can see it
31:05
happening real time on a screen and so there's a connection
31:11
there. I feel like like I'm.
31:13
I'm showing people like how amazing this technology is by, I
31:19
don't know, just thinking that's crazy.
31:24
I remember when I first got control and I was moving it with
31:30
my mind. So there's a difference between
31:32
like attempting to move it versus imagining to move it.
31:35
Attempting, I feel like, is kind of cheating.
31:38
It's probably not. But when I attempt to move
31:42
something, it does feel like I'm moving it with, say, my hand and
31:45
my wrist. Even though you can't see it to
31:47
me, I can feel things in my arm moving around.
31:51
Maybe that you just can't understand I guess, but when I
31:59
first moved it just by thinking it, it blew my mind for like a
32:03
day. Like I just could not wrap my
32:06
head around it. It was so cool.
32:09
It I can talk at length about this, like what it actually
32:14
feels like and y'all like, come up and ask me as many questions
32:18
as you want because this is not an easy thing to answer.
32:21
It is. It is very, very complicated,
32:25
like what I'm feeling and what I can explain to you.
32:30
It feels very cool. I don't say that.
32:35
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
32:36
That probably doesn't answer your question, but it's it's
32:39
kind of a very difficult thing to answer.
32:41
I don't know. Sorry.
32:45
Unknown. Yeah, yeah.
32:47
What's up? Sorry, let I'll let everybody
32:49
applaud. No, you don't need to, please.
32:51
OK. Yeah. 1st thank you to you and
32:58
your family for being here, we we really appreciate it.
33:00
Yeah, absolutely. I have a two-part question.
33:04
First part, is there anything that surprised you about the
33:06
whole process? Yeah, how fast it was.
33:10
Y'all move it lightspeed like it.
33:13
It was crazy. Like I don't like you don't get,
33:17
you don't go from applying for something to brain surgery in
33:20
five months. Like that just doesn't happen,
33:23
at least not in my experience. It was crazy how fast everything
33:28
moved and I think everything was basically set in stone kind of
33:35
around December. So that was, you know, three
33:38
months after I applied. And then there was just a lot of
33:41
like waiting around. I know that the clinical side of
33:44
things wanted to interview more candidates and see if there was
33:48
someone that was better than me and like good luck with that.
33:52
So so it was. But it was crazy.
33:55
It was crazy how fast everything moved it.
33:59
It just kind of blew my mind. Also just how awesome everyone
34:04
is. Like, I don't it's not like I
34:06
was expecting all of you to suck.
34:08
Like, don't don't get me wrong, but everyone that I've met has
34:11
just been so impressive and like so amazing and y'all are so
34:16
accommodating to me and my family.
34:19
Like every step of the way it's just been, it's been amazing.
34:24
So you know, y'all should all be.
34:26
You should be very proud of, like what you've built here.
34:29
And the people that Y'all have chosen to have around, it's just
34:34
like y'all are among some of the greatest people I've ever met in
34:37
my life. And like that shouldn't be just
34:43
kind of glossed over, I guess. Y'all are really incredible.
34:47
So thank you for everything. So that's part one.
34:49
What's Part 2? Thank you.
34:57
And Part 2 is you know you're the first patient to receive 4
35:01
devices. What advice would you give to
35:03
the second patient? And I don't know we can you can
35:18
think about it. We can maybe talk.
35:19
No, yeah, it's it's hard to say. I so going into this, all I ever
35:26
wanted was to help people. Obviously there's a lot of
35:30
upside that comes with this in in the consent forms and
35:33
everything that I signed. Basically they flat out say
35:35
there's no upside to this. And I'm like that's a lot of BS,
35:38
like there's a lot of upside. But they basically want me to go
35:43
in understanding that, you know, anything could go wrong at any
35:48
moment and you know, you could be out of the study, the drop of
35:51
a hat basically. So don't, you know, put too much
35:55
stock in what you're going to get out of this.
35:59
It's really hard not to because I've seen how amazing all of the
36:04
technology is. I've seen like, I don't know.
36:08
I've glimpsed what the possibilities are and now it's
36:12
hard to live any other way. So I would say to the next
36:20
patient, the next candidate, just to enjoy it as much as
36:23
possible because it is. It is so much fun working with
36:28
y'all like I can't. I can't describe how much fun
36:31
I've had with Bliss and near and you know Sammy and Biata and
36:36
Harrison. Y'all coming to my house and
36:40
like just can I cuss? Am I allowed to do that?
36:46
Just like shooting the shit at my house like like y'all are.
36:51
It's just so much fun. Like 8 hours of work feels like
36:54
nothing. And I know that y'all might look
36:58
at me and think, are we pushing him too hard?
37:00
Like 8 hours a day is a lot. Like it doesn't feel like that
37:04
it I could keep going and going and I want to.
37:09
I really do. So I just hope that the next
37:12
patients appreciate like what they're being allowed to be a
37:16
part of and appreciate the people around them and just have
37:20
fun, because it is a lot of fun. Like, I'm sure all of you will
37:26
have the chance to do this someday and that'll be, that'll
37:32
be so much fun. We can play games together.
37:35
I can beat your ass at chess too.
37:39
I'm I'm more than willing to do that if you are gluttons for
37:43
pain. So it'll be.
37:46
I just want people to understand, like how lucky they
37:49
are to be a part of this, just as I've realized how lucky I am.
37:52
I think that's that's what I would say.
37:57
So yeah, Part 2. Done.
38:06
All right, I'll read off one more from the Slido.
38:09
So what are some capabilities you'd like to see in future
38:13
iterations of the device? I mean, I know that there are a
38:18
lot of things that y'all have planned, so all of that.
38:23
I mean, the Optimus robot sounds so cool, like and I not just not
38:32
just how cool it is because it is freaking awesome, but at the
38:35
same time it'll change. Like specifically quadriplegics
38:42
lives. Having a a full time nurse is
38:47
something that is not possible for people like me.
38:50
I'm so lucky that I have my parents and, you know, my
38:54
brother and other people who work with me around the clock.
38:57
But most people don't have that. And I can just imagine having an
39:01
optimist robot as like just someone that's there all the
39:05
time that can help you with whatever you need.
39:08
It's it's gonna, Oh my gosh, it's gonna change so many
39:11
people's lives. It's gonna be amazing.
39:16
So I would like to see that. I think that's in the works.
39:21
I mean it it'll just be it'll be crazy.
39:23
Also it would be really cool if like Optimist can be like a
39:30
little chauffeur. Like I'm I'm thinking like hey
39:34
get me one of those cyber trucks and have them just like have
39:37
them like toss me in and have the cyber truck have like an
39:40
eject button and y'all can like it'll be great just to travel
39:45
around. Like I basically have to have a
39:49
group of people around me all the time to get me to go
39:51
anywhere. Like I'm from Arizona, if y'all
39:54
don't know. So like driving up here is a 10
39:56
hour drive and I loved it. I didn't mind but the people
39:59
around me, not so much. So like the people driving,
40:03
Sorry David, Yeah, yeah. But imagine having like self
40:12
driving car and an an ability to get in the car and have someone
40:17
get you out and stuff like. If I could do all of that
40:20
without meeting other people, just everything that improves,
40:23
you know, independence, quality of life, it's I can.
40:29
I can just see the possibilities.
40:30
And I know that for me already it's been amazing.
40:33
But I know where this can go and it's going to keep going and
40:36
y'all are going to keep busting your asses.
40:38
And I know that because I've met like so many of you and I'm just
40:42
so impressed and y'all think that like the amount of data
40:45
that I've collected and the amount of work I've put in is
40:47
impressive. But I don't think it is a drop
40:50
in the bucket to what y'all have done.
40:52
And I know that you're going to keep pushing like it's it's just
40:55
going to keep growing and growing exponentially and what
41:00
is possible is going to, it's just going to keep expanding and
41:08
y'all are going to keep changing people's lives and it's going to
41:11
be amazing. So yeah, I think that's that's
41:15
about it. I don't know how you did this,
41:20
but I think you did tap into Lon's master plan, which is, you
41:24
know, when you can imagine a future where you buy a Tesla.
41:27
It comes with an optimist robot that has a SpaceX you know,
41:32
rocket engine attached to it that you can control the shelf
41:35
for with Neuro Lincoln plan going through a bunch of
41:37
tunnels. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I.
41:40
Mean that that's the vision, right?
41:43
I mean, I I've thought that if this all works out, I mean it
41:46
would it would benefit Elon to put me on Mars if I could.
41:52
If I could control like an army of optimist robots.
41:56
That's way better than anything y'all could do.
41:59
So like, I would be I would be so useful.
42:02
So, Elon, if you're seeing this, man, like, hit me up, you know?
42:11
Yeah, that's kind of a joke, but not really.
42:16
Yeah, I guess you can come. I won't need you if I have all
42:20
those optimist robots. I'm just joking.
42:23
I'm just joking, Mom. I love you.
42:32
Anyone else? Hi, I'm Alex.
42:34
I'm on the on the robotics team here.
42:36
Hey Alex, I'm Nolan. Nice to meet you.
42:38
Nice to meet you too. In the speaking to your recovery
42:42
after surgery, the in the days after that, were there any parts
42:47
of that that were particularly difficult or any parts that you
42:50
expected to be hard that were easier than you thought that
42:52
would be? Yeah, brain surgery was easy,
42:55
man. Like I I was expecting a much
43:00
longer recovery time and they kicked me out of the hospital.
43:04
Like a day later I was like, are y'all sure?
43:07
Like like you don't need to keep me for observation or anything.
43:13
They're like, no, you're good. Like, put some, put some, you
43:17
know, like Aquaphor, that's where.
43:19
Put some Aquaphor on it. You'll be fine.
43:21
Don't wear hats for a while. It's like, OK, like that's fine.
43:28
It really sucked not being able to wear a beanie for like 2
43:32
weeks outside of that, like that was the hardest thing I
43:36
experienced. Honestly, it was so easy.
43:40
I don't know, like, I just expected it to be way I don't
43:49
say more invasive because, you know, it's brain surgery.
43:51
I don't know how much more invasive could you get, but it
43:54
just did not seem like that. Like I went into that surgery 2
43:58
hours later I was out, I was drugged up on, you know,
44:02
anesthesia for like a couple hours and after that I was ready
44:05
to go. It kind of sucked not being able
44:09
to use the BCI to its full capacity early on.
44:13
I think we had to wait like 10 days for it to charge, for me to
44:16
be allowed to charge it. So all of our sessions were
44:19
like, I don't know, an hour or something like that.
44:21
And that sucked. Like, I was ready to go like day
44:26
one out of surgery. It just wasn't that bad.
44:31
So anyone that's thinking about getting this, like, do it.
44:36
It was so easy. Hey, Nolan.
44:49
Michael from Microfab. We met earlier.
44:51
You could see mine like, hey, what's up, Michael?
44:53
Hey, how you doing? What would you say to the
44:55
critics, Like the people who say what we're doing isn't novel or
44:58
what we're doing is dangerous. What would you say to them?
45:04
Like, like, what do they know? I mean, like, look at me.
45:09
Do. Like, do I look sick?
45:12
Or outside of my handicap, do I look disabled, like, in any way?
45:17
Did it? Did it, you know, affect my
45:21
ability to tell awesome jokes, like fun little story?
45:30
I know I shouldn't have done this right out of surgery.
45:35
My, my The first time I saw my mom, she walked in and I looked
45:41
at her and I was like, who are you?
45:51
She was not happy about that. It it lasted about 3 seconds.
45:58
She looked at the doctors and was like, like, what?
46:01
What did you do? I was like, I'm just kidding,
46:03
Mom. I'm still paying for that, I
46:08
think. But I mean it it was, I've heard
46:14
a lot of people say a lot of bad things about it.
46:17
I mean, I was on, you know, X for 5 minutes at one point
46:22
looking at people call me the Antichrist and stuff.
46:25
Like it's it's funny like because they just don't know.
46:30
They don't know how amazing this technology is, how little, like
46:39
how little recovery time it took, just how easy the whole
46:45
process was. I mean, granted, maybe because
46:48
on P1 everything was just so smooth, like y'all freaking move
46:53
mountains when you need to and that's amazing.
46:58
But this is just, it's such amazing technology and it was so
47:04
simple that I feel like this thing should be out on the
47:08
market today. Like it.
47:11
I know y'all have a lot to do and there's a lot of improvement
47:14
to come. But like after that surgery and
47:18
after that first day, I broke that world record and you know,
47:23
continued to break it like every day for weeks straight and just
47:26
kept climbing. Like they should have looked at
47:29
that data and they're like, all right, like that's enough.
47:31
We can stop the study now. Like that's like, that's how I
47:36
feel at least and how much it's helped my just life already.
47:40
Like my quality of life. Like I freaking played sieve for
47:43
like 7 hours one night. That was awesome.
47:46
Like, I would never be able to do that otherwise.
47:49
And sure, like we're still working out the kinks and stuff,
47:52
but once we get this figured out, like it's there's no reason
47:58
for it not to be out there. I don't think at all.
48:02
Maybe y'all know something I don't, but for the most part, I
48:06
think like, no one should be afraid of this.
48:10
I wasn't. I mean, I the amount that y'all
48:14
put my mind at ease even before the surgery was incredible.
48:18
I was not worried even going into the surgery.
48:22
I was just excited to get to work, honestly.
48:26
So, you know, like like just get over it, you know?
48:33
Yeah. Does that answer your question?
48:35
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
48:37
OK. All right.
48:47
So do you feel the implant in any way?
48:51
Yeah, I mean, we have whole conversations together.
48:58
Sorry, that's a that's a bad joke.
49:01
People are going to think I'm actually crazy.
49:06
No, a little bit. I mean, I can feel it when
49:10
people like bump up against it or something.
49:13
There are certain things that I can feel, you know, I don't
49:18
know. It's hard to describe.
49:19
I mean, there's something in your brain, so you can feel it a
49:25
bit, but not as much as I would have thought.
49:29
I would have thought it was just like a feeling that you'd have
49:33
constantly and it just doesn't go away.
49:35
I mean, I I've read a lot of the lot of the negative stuff about
49:41
this before the surgery, about, you know, all the terrible
49:45
things that Y'all were putting the monkeys through and how
49:48
awful it was. You know, monkeys like picking
49:51
out the implant and rubbing it on the ground and all sorts of
49:54
stuff that just after talking with the with the monkey people
49:58
today, I realized how just wrong all of that is.
50:04
I'm glad I asked because now anyone that asks me about it, I
50:08
can just say y'all are a bunch of idiots.
50:12
Like those monkeys are taken the care of, like they get better
50:18
treatment than I do. I've been, I've been asking
50:23
since day one for banana smoothie and I still haven't
50:29
gotten it. So just like to throw that out
50:33
there guys. But outside of that, I don't,
50:38
yeah, I don't feel it at all. Really.
50:40
Very, very minimum impact on my life or anything.
50:46
Yeah, it. Yeah, I think that's about it.
50:58
All right. We'll wrap with these last two
51:01
questions. So, all right.
51:02
Was there some particular wow moment of amazement that you
51:05
experienced that you didn't expect at all after all the
51:09
discussions and implant early trials?
51:15
Yeah, there were a few. Going into the surgery I
51:19
expected it to be. They told me anywhere from three
51:22
to six hours, and I don't know if you all know it was like
51:25
under 2, which was just wild to me, how just smooth everything
51:31
went. So that was pretty awesome.
51:38
I mean, when I first actually moved the cursor with my mind,
51:42
it it, like I said, it blew my mind for like a whole day.
51:46
I just couldn't knock it over it.
51:48
I mean, there's like, like, I knew that this is what the plan
51:52
was. I guess, like, I knew that this
51:54
was the whole goal of it, but I was like, OK, but how, like real
51:57
is this? Like, am I actually going to be
52:00
able to control something with my mind?
52:02
And when I did, I was like, all right, sounds good to me.
52:07
It was really, really cool. That was a pretty big, wild
52:09
moment. Yeah, I don't know.
52:16
Playing Mario Kart and coming in second, like, repeatedly kind of
52:21
blew my mind. I didn't think that would be
52:24
possible like a week into having it.
52:27
It was like 2 weeks, I think. But a week into using it, that
52:32
was freaking wild. Even though like my dad and my
52:38
buddy wouldn't let me win, I took second and not first
52:42
because they're brutal. My family is just way too
52:47
competitive. But I mean we went from like I
52:50
don't know if y'all know from what's the lowest like 50CC and
52:53
I was like my first time using it.
52:56
I didn't come in last and I expected to came in like 11th
52:59
and then every game after that I moved up it was like 11th and
53:03
8th and 6th and then second like over and over again.
53:06
Then we moved up to the 100CC and I came in second again.
53:10
Just like this should not be possible like this soon.
53:15
The fact that I was breaking records on like, day one, that
53:18
just blew my mind. I didn't think that was
53:20
possible. Whoever held those records
53:22
before me is probably pissed. Sorry.
53:32
So yeah, they were. I mean, there's the whole thing
53:34
has been kind of like a wow moment.
53:36
Honestly, it's hard to pick one, but it's just been so much fun.
53:42
Yeah, I think that's it. All right.
53:54
And the last question, what's a simple small thing that BCI
53:57
enabled you to do that you really enjoyed?
54:09
I mean, I don't know if Y'all would call playing sieve simple
54:12
or small, but when I was able to play that that weekend, I think
54:19
I played it like two nights in a row, 7 hours one night, like
54:22
another few hours four or five the next.
54:26
That that was just, it was so cool.
54:33
I obviously really enjoyed that. I spent freaking like 10 hours
54:36
doing it one weekend, something I never thought I would be able
54:41
to do again. I tried playing save a few times
54:44
since my accident and like my buddies can tell you that it
54:48
it's just a couple hours, maybe tops that I was able to do it.
54:53
And it was frustrating the entire time being able to play
54:56
it for so long like that and being able to play it like while
55:01
I was in bed. Not needing any help from
55:04
anyone. Not needing to be adjusted.
55:06
Not needing to ask, you know my parents or my brother to get up
55:11
in the middle of the night and come, you know help me out.
55:14
Being able to play it past the time they went to bed was just
55:19
it. It's life changing.
55:21
It really is. It makes it makes being it's
55:24
going to sound kind of crazy but it makes being paralyzed really
55:28
not that bad. I've.
55:31
I mean, I think I have a really easy life.
55:35
I just lie around and people do things for me, which is, you
55:39
know, pretty nice. So, you know, anything that
55:46
makes me more independent, I'm all for.
55:51
And this is, you know, probably going to make people like me the
55:57
most independent that they might ever be until it all gets cured.
56:03
And I think that's a very real possibility.
56:05
I know where this is going. And it's going to like like just
56:11
thinking about someone say breaking their neck or or you
56:16
know dislocating their neck, going into a hospital and two
56:21
days later like getting surgery, getting an implant, something
56:24
two days later walking out like that is just it's such a real
56:29
possibility now. And that it makes me like so
56:34
happy that other people don't have to go through this.
56:39
Like it's, you know, it's everything I could have ever
56:44
asked for And to be a part of it and to be helping in some way to
56:49
be able to, I don't know be useful in some way.
56:55
It it completely changed how I live.
56:58
I mean, I don't know, I'm y'all might not feel this way because
57:04
y'all stay up super late doing work anyways.
57:07
But I've I've heard that people who stay up late at night, it
57:14
can be a sign that they don't want to they don't have anything
57:18
to look forward to the next day. And that's basically how I lived
57:22
for eight years. And since I started doing all
57:25
this, I'm in bed by like 9:10 PM.
57:29
I'm waking up at like 6-7 in the morning, just excited for the
57:33
next day. And that's something that I
57:35
never thought would happen to me ever again.
57:38
So y'all have given me like a purpose, and it's outside of
57:43
everything else that I've been able to do.
57:44
It's more than I could ever ask for.
57:46
So thank you guys. Thank you so much.
57:52
Hey, thank you so much for listening today.
57:53
I really do appreciate your support.
57:55
If you could take a second and hit the subscribe or the follow
57:58
button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening
58:00
on right now, I greatly appreciate it.
58:03
It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never
58:06
miss an episode and each episode is about 10 minutes or less to
58:10
get you caught up quickly. And please, if you want to
58:13
support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stage Zero and
58:19
please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you
58:22
tomorrow.