Elon Musk is at it again, this time setting his sights on curing blindness with his brain-chip startup, Neuralink. On September 17, Neuralink announced that its latest experimental device, Blindsight, received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) coveted “breakthrough device” designation. This little gadget will give people who have lost both eyes—and their optic nerve—the ability to see again. Not only that, but Musk claims it could eventually provide vision even better than natural eyesight, allowing people to “see” in infrared or ultraviolet light. Move over, Tony Stark.
Now, before we start imagining a world where everyone’s walking around with robotic eyes that can see through walls, it’s important to remember that this technology is still in its infancy. The FDA’s breakthrough designation sounds fancy, but it mainly fast-tracks the development process—it’s not an automatic stamp of success. So, for now, Neuralink’s grand vision remains just that—a vision. The device still needs to prove itself in clinical trials, which will be a long road, much like other brain-computer interface (BCI) projects that came before it.
Neuralink is certainly not the only player in the BCI game. Companies have been dabbling in brain implants for years, hoping to give paralysed patients the ability to control computers or restore limited vision to blind individuals. But the results so far have been, well, pixelated at best.
BCIs, like Blindsight, work by stimulating neurons in the visual cortex with electrodes. The problem? Neurons don’t function like pixels on a screen, and recreating natural vision is far more complex than just connecting some wires. Imagine trying to paint a detailed landscape using only a few blobs of colour. Neuralink may be increasing the density of those electrodes, but we’re still a long way from recreating anything close to natural vision.
The ethical questions are just as fuzzy. What happens if the technology fails or the company goes under, leaving patients with obsolete implants in their brains? Plus, how far should we go in enhancing human abilities? The future of BCIs like Neuralink’s remains promising, but let’s hold off on ordering our infrared contact lenses just yet.
