Elon Musk says Neuralink is ready to cure blindness — says Blindsight will ‘enable even those who are completely blind or have never seen to see’

Elon Musk says Neuralink is ready to cure blindness — says Blindsight will ‘enable even those who are completely blind or have never seen to see’

The technology is reportedly "ready from an engineering standpoint."

Elon Musk’s Neuralink has been pushing advancements in the brain-computer interface (BCI) space, with patients now able to play World of Warcraft through a Neuralink brain implant. However, the billionaire founder gave a recent update on its second product, which will be Blindsight. Musk claims that it will “enable even those who are completely blind or have never seen to see,” and that it’s already “ready from an engineering standpoint” and “just waiting on regulatory approval.”

Neuralink was founded in 2016, but it didn't begin human trials until 2024. The progress also started small, with the first implantee starting with moving a mouse cursor “just by thinking.” It has since advanced its technology, with Musk seemingly launching its first product on X and calling it Telepathy. “It enables high-speed communication with computers or humans simply by thinking,” Musk wrote. “Output bandwidth will vastly exceed the fastest human speed or typing in a few years. Read that sentence again.”

While Neuralink isn’t the first to work on BCIs, it’s one of the more successful companies, partially because of Musk’s financial backing. Other companies are working on similar technologies, though. For example, Meta is developing a non-invasive magnetoencephalography scanner that lets users turn thoughts into keypresses, while Chinese outfit NeuroXess, founded in 2021, is accelerating toward human trials this year.

However, Blindsight is unique, as most of these technologies currently focus on the brain sending signals to control external machines. Cochlear implants and sensory neuroprosthetics already send signals from sensors into the brain, allowing deaf patients to hear again and patients to regain the ability to feel through touch. Neuralink’s Blindsight, on the other hand, aims to create an artificial visual pathway, allowing a patient to use a camera to capture visual images and then convert the signals into something that the brain can understand via a BCI.

These medical advancements could help people with limited movement or those who have lost the ability to move their bodies regain independence, as they could use BCI to control machines with their thoughts. But Musk's mention that the technology could enable high-speed communication with humans simply by thinking could also mean much more than helping people regain mobility. Beijing announced last year that BCI technology is a nationally strategic sector, and with the renewed arms race between the East and West in drones, lasers, and new technologies, it’s not far-fetched that someone, somewhere, has thought of using BCI to create super soldiers.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.

Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.

Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.