YouTuber Basically Homeless has engineered a neuromuscular assist system that delivers electric shocks to the muscles in his arm, resulting in lightning-fast reaction speeds.
The project, documented on his YouTube channel, required numerous components, including a computer vision program trained to detect enemies in real time on Counter-Strike 2.
This signal was then sent to a Raspberry Pi, which triggered electrodes positioned on his arm to induce muscle activation in a direction relative to enemy positions on the screen.
The tech, which was far from perfect and actually hindered the YouTuber’s reaction speeds at first, due to the conflict between his natural reflexes and the electrical stimuli, underwent numerous revisions to get it in working shape.
One of these improvements was locating a muscle responsible for working his trigger finger to automate the entire process. In its final iteration, Basically Homeless recorded reaction times under 100 milliseconds – roughly half of his unassisted baseline.
In footage of him competing against other players, the aimbot was able to reliably locate and precisely eliminate opponents, proving especially effective when using scoped weapons.
Don’t try this at home
Despite the final version proving to be surprisingly effective, Basically Homeless noted several times in the video that the electric shocks themselves were uncomfortable at best and painful at worst. Due to the length of exposure, he had others fine-tune the process to give his arm a rest. Not exactly ideal if you’re in the market for a marathon gaming session.
Likewise, while the terms of service in any first-person shooter are unlikely to cover the act of using unnecessary neuromuscular assistance to provide an edge over your opponent to this degree, it’s almost certainly not something one would want to risk if they want to avoid a ban.
Basically Homeless asked his teammates at numerous intervals whether they would consider the setup to be cheating. The answer was always a resounding no. I can only imagine those responses would wildly differ were they on the receiving end.
