First YouTube Video Edited With Neuralink Chip, Here’s How

Brad Smith showed the internet how he edits video with nothing but thought, on the YouTube clip he posted last week. The former operations executive, now living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, can no longer type or speak in the usual way.

After surgeons placed Neuralink’s coin-sized device in his motor cortex, he began steering a cursor by imagining jaw clench and tongue motion. Neuralink’s software picks up the tiny electrical bursts and turns them into mouse movement. Smith said in the clip that this method soon felt quicker than his old eye-tracking screen, which only worked in dim rooms.

The same footage explains that more than 1000 electrodes sit on flexible threads inside his brain. Each thread listens for a clear pattern, then sends the data wirelessly to a MacBook Pro sitting on his bedside table. According to Smith, early exercises asked him to picture moving a hand. That pathway had faded, so engineers asked him to picture tongue taps instead, and the signal grew sharper.

Elon Musk rang the family the night before surgery. “I hope this is a game changer,” he told Smith, according to reporter Ashlee Vance’s Core Memory profile. Smith laughed back through a speech device and promised to give the new kit everything he had.

How Did Engineers Teach Smith To Master The Cursor?

 
Daily drills began as soon as he returned home from Barrow Neurological Institute, according to Vance’s article. Neuralink staff placed dots on a laptop screen and asked Smith to park the pointer on each one in turn. He practised up to ninety hours a week, often over video link when the team could not visit in person.

Smith had spent four years letting his eyes do the work, and his brain needed to unlearn that habit. According to Vance, weeks passed before he felt ready to switch off the eye gaze Tobii unit for good. When that moment came, he scrolled pages at will, dragged icons across the desktop and even beat his sons in a round of “Mario Kart.”
 

How Did A Silent Patient Regain His Own Voice?

 
Smith lost speech two years after diagnosis, but the family stored old recordings on a hard drive. According to the YouTube video, those clips fed an ElevenLabs model that rebuilt his natural tenor. Now his digital narration carries the same Utah lilt he once brought to karaoke nights. Tiffany Smith told Vance that the first playback reduced them both to tears because it sounded “just like before.”

The voice upgrade lets team meetings now flow in real time because Smith speaks whole sentences instead of typing letter by letter. According to Vance, Neuralink’s engineers even trial an AI chat window that listens to room conversations and suggests quick replies. Smith picks one with a thought and fires it off in seconds. The tool still needs polish, but it already shortens pauses that used to stretch for minutes.

Tiffany has noticed a brighter house. Curtains stay open because lighting no longer scrambles the system, and neighbours hear Brad’s own laugh rather than a robotic tone. Evening jokes now arrive fast enough to match the children’s energy.

What New Life Has The Chip Unlocked?

 
Before surgery Smith rarely left his darkened bedroom; bright light blocked his eye-gaze link. According to Vance’s account, the implant changed that within weeks. He rolled into his son Lincoln’s robotics contest, watched through a webcam fixed to his laptop and cheered each round in real time. Days later he sat beside the local pool and chatted with parents who stopped to ask questions.

Road trips had felt impossible since the pandemic. Now the family plans a drive back to Utah, mapping charger stops for their van and cafés with level access. Smith can already order water or adjust his ventilator without help, easing Tiffany’s load on the journey.

According to Vance, Smith shares ideas for quicker typing shortcuts and fresh cursor gestures in every call with Neuralink staff. He says the project gives him a reason to wake early, log hours of practice and pave the way for users he will never meet.

Smith summed it up well in his video, saying, “It took years to get here, and I still break down and cry. But I’m ready to serve the next person who needs this tech.”