Paris: Researchers have criticized billionaire Elon Musk for his claims that his brain implant technology could eventually provide patients with vision superior to normal human sight. Musk has frequently promised that his company Neuralink is developing implants capable of restoring sight to blind individuals. In March, he announced to his 190 million followers on X that the product would be named "Blindsight."

Musk claimed the product was already operational in monkeys, stating, "Resolution will be low at first, like early Nintendo graphics, but ultimately may exceed normal human vision."

However, Ione Fine, a psychology professor at the University of Washington, has described Musk's claims as "a dangerous thing to say." Fine co-authored a paper published Monday in the journal Scientific Reports that utilized models known as "virtual patients" to simulate the potential effectiveness of such implants. The paper argues that the impact of novel implants, including Musk's, is likely to be constrained by human biology.

Fine pointed out that Musk's idea is based on the flawed premise that high-resolution vision can be achieved by implanting millions of tiny electrodes into the visual cortex, the brain region responsible for processing information received from the eyes. "Engineers often think of electrodes as producing pixels, but that is simply not how biology works," she explained in a statement.

Creating an image in the brain involves not only stimulating individual cells, as an implant can do, but also generating a "neural code" that activates thousands of cells. Fine noted that scientists are far from discovering the correct neural code for a blind person, which means the impact of implants would be limited.

"Blindness doesn't make people vulnerable, but becoming blind late in life can make some people vulnerable," she said. "So, when Elon Musk says things like 'this is going to be better than human vision,' that is a dangerous thing to say."