Tech In Sight

Elon Musk Touts New Neuralink Brain Chip to Treat Blindness

Musk says his futuristic device that taps into the brain will give some blind people basic vision. But not all are convinced.

Elon Musk has boasted on X that his Neuralink brain chip company is on the way to curing blindness after it secured a “Breakthrough Device” designation from the FDA. “The Blindsight device from Neuralink will enable even those who have lost both eyes and their optic nerve to see,” wrote the controversial Trump-loving Tesla honcho. “Provided the visual cortex is intact, it will even enable those who have been blind from birth to see for the first time.” Alongside his comments he also posted an image of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s character Geordi La Forge, who is blind in the series and used a visor to see. “To set expectations correctly, the vision will be at first be [sic] low resolution, like Atari graphics, but eventually it has the potential be better than natural vision and enable you to see in infrared, ultraviolet or even radar wavelengths, like Geordi La Forge,” Musk added. According to the FDA, the Breakthrough Devices Program “is a voluntary program for certain medical devices and device-led combination products that provide for more effective treatment or diagnosis of life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating diseases or conditions.” Not all are convinced, however. Tech Crunch reports that while the Neuralink device is “very welcome,” it adds that it is “extremely premature to say that such a device could enable blind people to see.”

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David Thompson

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