American billionaire Elon Musk said that his startup Neuralink has developed an experimental visual implant, Blindsight, which will allow people who are blind from birth to see. At the same time, in the future, the device will be able to capture other spectra, in addition to the optical one familiar to humans – superhuman vision from science fiction will become a reality.
Image Source: Paramount Domestic Television
«Neuralink’s Blindsight device will allow vision even for those who have lost both eyes and their optic nerve. Provided that the visual cortex of the brain is not damaged, it will allow vision even for those who were blind from birth,” Musk wrote on his page on the social network X.
The Neuralink team, in turn, reported on its page on the social network X that the Blindsight implant has received breakthrough approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This paves the way for testing the device in humans. The company is already accepting applications from potential patients.
Musk added that the image quality of the implant will initially be low, like the graphics of Atari gaming platforms, but in the future the device will allow vision in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum, and will also be able to capture radar wavelengths.
The billionaire compared Neuralink’s development to the futuristic device worn by the congenitally blind Star Trek character Geordi La Forge, shown in the image above.