Living life with a mind-reading chip
Tech Life
BBC
4.4 • 221 Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What is it like to live with a computer chip in your brain ? Noland Arbaugh became the first person to receive a device from Elon Musk's neurotechnology firm, Neuralink. Noland tells the BBC about his operation to implant the chip, how he can control a computer with his thoughts, and how it has improved his life.
Also on Tech Life this week, we explore a crypto solution to an electricity problem in rural Zambia, and look at one attempt to tackle the tricky subject of copyright and AI.
Tell us about the one bit of tech you use in your life everyday – get in touch by emailing [email protected] or send us a Whatsapp on +44 330 1230 320.
Presenter: Imran Rahman-Jones Producer: Tom Quinn Editor: Monica Soriano
(Image: A photograph of Noland Arbaugh attending a sporting event. Credit: Noland Arbaugh)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What do Selena Gomez, LeBron James and Martha Stewart all have in common? |
| 0:06.1 | Their lives and fortunes are all being discussed in season three of Good Bad Billionaire. |
| 0:10.8 | Yes, the podcast exploring the minds, the motives and the money of some of the world's wealthiest individuals is back. |
| 0:16.8 | I'm Zing Singh and I'm Simon Jack. |
| 0:18.5 | Each week we take a closer look at some of the world's mega rich. |
| 0:21.8 | And try to decide together whether we think they're good, bad or just another billionaire. |
| 0:26.4 | Good bad billionaire. |
| 0:27.4 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.4 | Hello and welcome to TechLife on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:34.3 | The program about how tech has an impact on all of us around the globe. |
| 0:38.7 | I'm Imran Rahman Jones, and on the program today, the man with Elon Musk's chip in his brain. |
| 0:45.3 | I still forget sometimes how incredible the technology is until I'm around someone that has never |
| 0:50.4 | seen it, and they are watching me do it with sort of a jaw on the floor and I'm like |
| 0:56.4 | oh yeah this is a really big deal isn't it? We'll hear about the crypto-powered solution to bringing |
| 1:01.9 | electricity to a rural part of Zambia and the boss of a freelancing platform trying to help |
| 1:08.6 | creative stay in control of their work when it comes to AI. |
| 1:13.1 | It learns from everything everyone ever created, and then it generates based on those |
| 1:20.4 | learnings without giving any reward or compensation for the people that actually contributed |
| 1:26.4 | to the learning of AI. |
| 1:51.4 | Imagine being able to control a computer with only your thoughts. |
| 1:56.2 | Once the stuff of science fiction, it's very much a reality right now with several companies around the world hoping to transform people's lives in this way. Brain computer |
| 2:02.7 | interfaces or BCIs are a way of communicating directly from the brain to the computer using |
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