While we’d normally be unsettled by the sight of robot arms clinging to knives, in this case, it’s a testament to the wonders of science. Robotics, in conjunction with AI and a brain-machine interface, combined to give Chmielewski –– who has had limited feeling in his hands and fingers since a childhood accident –– the agency to perform such an everyday task, which for him is anything but ordinary.
As documented in the video below, last month, Chmielewski mentally powered two modular prosthetic limbs created by the smarties at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, to perform simultaneous bimanual manipulation of a Twinkie. In other words, he used a fork and a knife to cut pieces of the cake and feed himself.