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