Elon Musk is on a mission to cure blindness with his newest technology: Blindsight.
Neuralink’s next offering has already restored the vision of monkeys.
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Neuralink’s ventures often sound like the wild imaginings of a mad scientist’s laboratory.
That said, the company has made some incredible scientific breakthroughs.
It recently implanted the first ‘Telepathy’ brain chip, allowing a man to control a computer mouse and more with his thoughts.
Not only did the patient fully recover from the procedure but he’s even played a game of online chess using just his mind.
Now that Telepathy is on track, Musk is turning his attention to the next project – Blindsight.
Musk first announced the chip in November 2023, stating that it would likely only be ready in a few years.
However, the company has already made great strides in the development stages of the chip, running successful tests on monkeys.
The visuals are currently low-quality, comparable to a Nintendo video game from the 1980s.
We’re not sure how the monkeys conveyed that during testing but we’ll take Musk’s word for it.
Neuralink has come under fire for its animal testing practices, but Musk has assured the public that no monkeys have been harmed.
“No monkey has died or been seriously injured by a Neuralink device!” he posted.
He has gone on to say that Blindsight will not only restore lost vision but grant the ability of sight to those who have never been able to see.
“Even if someone has never had vision ever we believe we can still restore vision,” Musk said.
“The visual part of the cortex is still there. We’re confident they could see.”
Now Neuralink needs to be granted permission to test Blindsight on humans.
After the success of Telepathy, perhaps this technology will be available sooner than we think.
