Elon Musk's monkey officially has the power of mind control ... but so far, it's only using it to play outdated video games.
Still, it's a remarkable feat from Neuralink -- the company Musk founded that's developing implantable, artificial-intelligence-powered microchips to go in people's brains.
The company shared apparent proof of its neural tech in action -- video of Pager the macaque using his brain to play "Pong." Elon recently claimed the Neuralink chips had enabled a monkey to play video games with its mind, but this is the first time we're seeing it ... and it's pretty incredible.
According to the company ... 9-year-old Pager had a Neuralink placed in each side of his brain about 6 weeks ago. He's learned to interact with the computer by being enticed with a banana smoothie that gets delivered through a straw.
When Pager moves the joystick correctly, he gets some smoothie, and all the while ... the Neuralink chips are recording his brain activity for analysis of what his brain does when he moves his hand.
Then, the joystick's unplugged ... and the monkey's technically controlling the game with his mind, even though he's still moving the joystick out of habit.
Neuralink says its goal is to enable a person with paralysis to use a computer or phone with their brain activity alone. As you can see, Pager eventually stops using the joystick ... and he's a pro at "Pong" with no hands.
Definitely gives new meaning to monkey business.