is a NYC-based AI reporter and is currently supported by the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism. She covers AI companies, policies, and products.
Brad Smith said his decision to hook up a webcam to the computer he controls with his mind did not make sense to people at Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company.
“Neuralink was really confused with the idea,” Smith told The Verge.
The decision came just six months after Smith’s brain was implanted with a BCI in November 2024, making him the third person to receive a Neuralink device. Smith was the first Neuralink patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which has weakened his muscles for the past seven years. While the BCI successfully replaced his eye-tracking software as his primary way to control the cursor on his laptop, it quickly became apparent that the tool’s usefulness would come down to what Smith could make of it. Using his mind to control a cursor was great for communicating more quickly and surfing the web, he said. But it’d be even better if he could use it to track his son sprinting down the soccer field.
Neuralink may not have understood why Smith wanted a periscope, but he went ahead and researched the idea on his own. He landed on the simple Insta360 Link 2 webcam — better known as a conference camera, not a medical device. “They just didn’t know why I wanted it, because they don’t know what I experience, but that is why I am here,” Smith told The Verge. (Neuralink did not respond to requests for comment.)
It’s an awesome hack, said Nathan Copeland, another BCI user — and an unsurprising move. BCIs are “just a tool,” Copeland told The Verge. He’s had a BCI from Blackrock Neurotech for over a decade. With it, Copeland has used a robotic arm to fist-bump former President Barack Obama and shake hands with ABC correspondent Will Reeve. But his daily life is still a “mishmash” of software and tech, just like Smith’s. Copeland speaks aloud to his Google Home throughout the day to dim lights or turn on the TV. He uses a custom-made controller with big buttons and a joystick, in addition to a switch controlled by puffs of air, to play video games. (He has a spinal cord injury that left him with partial control over his shoulders, biceps, and wrists.)
“I had some guy that I met on a forum make me one using arcade stick parts and taking apart an actual Xbox controller and soldering the wires and stuff,” Copeland said. “[The BCI] gives a little more agency to people [who] can’t use, like, just the normal means of doing things, but you still have to find software and hardware, things that you can use with it, to continue adapting to the world.”
BCIs like Smith’s Neuralink work by recording the conversations between the brain’s neurons. Neurons release ions in order to pass information to each other; this can be measured as changes in voltage from electrodes implanted nearby in brain tissue. As Smith thinks about moving his hand, the neurons “talk,” and small blips of electric signals transmit from the electrodes in his brain to the laptop screen elevated in front of his face. He thinks and his cursor moves.
The BCI replaced Smith’s eye-tracking software, called Eyegaze, which turned his eyeline into computer cursor movements using an infrared camera mounted above the computer screen. It’s a tiring technology, and it does not work in sunlight, which means it’s strictly for indoor use. It took Smith a few days to master his new thought-controlled cursor. Smith likened it to moving a computer mouse and forgetting you’re moving your hand and arm at all.
Using his mind-controlled cursor, Smith showed The Verge how his vision setup works. Once the webcam is plugged into his laptop, he can click buttons on the webcam’s interface to pan around and zoom in and out. He shared the webcam’s output on a video call, zooming in on a photo of himself and Tiffany taken on their wedding day.
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