66 replies to this topic

[Zaphod]

But our brains are perfectly adapted with use of our current eyes. You cant just improve the eyes without improving the processing, yes you could make small improvements but I think it would require some brain re-wiring for any particularly fundamental change.

[Craven]

Additional functionality is not enough for me. I don't need to charge my own eye, it has some level of self-regeneration it's perfectly fit for my brain and body. Right now (and for quite some time in future) natural eye will be simply better choice. Yeah, people with bionic eyes will get nice feautres in future. Like hearing aid devices now - you can connect them to your phone instead of putting it to your ear, you can connect them to some TV's, probably recording is also avaiable. So I'd expect something like this for bionic eyes, pic taking, sending over, perhaps video feed straight into your eye (this will feel weird). But it won't be enough to convince me to give up on healhy eye.

[Squillimy]

you know what i just realized? would artificial eyes caused you to have complete circular vision, like a camera? you know how you can only focus on a singular point with your eye, and everything gets more blurred the farther you get away from that central point? would it eliminate this with a bionic eye? or no?

[Raklian]

you know what i just realized? would artificial eyes caused you to have complete circular vision, like a camera? you know how you can only focus on a singular point with your eye, and everything gets more blurred the farther you get away from that central point? would it eliminate this with a bionic eye? or no?

 

I doubt it as it has more to do with how your brain processes the visual data than what's happening in your eyeball.

[Craven]

This may sound funny, but I dunno how many of you played Aliens vs Predator games. There was this thing that Alien had wider field of view than human (and predator). Image looks distorted at first, but you can get used to that. And that's a game we're talking about. With 270' field of vision (istead of ~180') for a lifetime you'd be perfectly able to benefit from it, and since fields in front of you would overlap, you'd still be able to percieve depth like normal humans do.

 

But as I said I'm talking from gaming experience

[Italian Ufo]

I would wake in the middle of the night and say dam! I am half robot! No....I dont feel confortable with the idea..Eyes are an external organ.

If it was an artificial liver or nanobots inside me I wouldnt mind...but eyes heck no lol

 

Then again I think we can get the same results with some glasses or special lenses.

[SG-1]

I wouldn't feel uncomfortable with it.

 

You would get more benefits from an eye that is entirely artificial than you would with contact lenses.  Otherwise you would need to mess with the optic nerve and you may as well have an artificial one at that point, because if something goes wrong, you still can't see as your nerve is tampered with.

 

I don't think it will be available without it being completely safe though. 

[Italian Ufo]

I mean imagine to insert a contact lens in this way and still it could take images, store data, film, serve as internet etc...

i think this is less invasive thn bionic eyes:

 

Edited by Italian Ufo, 19 February 2013 - 09:17 PM.

[Italian Ufo]

Thats how this real surgery looks like

 

 

Very simple procedure too

Edited by Italian Ufo, 19 February 2013 - 09:23 PM.

[Raklian]

Imagine the surgeon coming into the operating room after drinking a strong dose of espresso.  Things will get a bit shaky, won't it? Pun intended.

[StanleyAlexander]

If and when neural nanobots become widespread we won't need bionic eyes at all for recording or AR.  I'd bet with nanotechnology there will be other, less invasive ways to directly augment our vision, too.

[EpochSix]

If the opportunity to augment my vision in a way that will provide substantial benefits arises I will do it, my stance is the same with all organs. If a more efficient replacement or augmentation is developed for an organ and I am capable of acquiring it then I will for the sake of living a healthier, more capable, and more flexible life as well as expanding the human experience. I think people that shun this idea and throw it to the sidelines because of their notion that the biological body is somehow sacred or special are preventing themselves from living more capable and healthier lives, and when these technologies are sophisticated and presented to us in the future, I think they will be very quick to change their minds. The human body is a marvel of evolution and nobody that is excited over the future of non-biological augmentations denies that, what we do deny is that it's at all perfect or desirable to hold on to in the case that something more efficient arises.

 

Jumping ahead and asking "would you replace your eye?" is ignoring many prior steps that lead up to something on that scale. Many of us already augment our eyes with technology, contact lenses are an early form of implant technology, it's not entirely beneath the skin but it is beneath your eyelid, when you close your eyes it is no longer on the exterior of your body, you are willing to place an engineered non-biological material onto your eyeball and leave it there all day, the only reason you're not willing to leave it there forever is because it causes irritation and isn't safe.

 

Take it a step further, any of us that have been paying attention to technology news over the last year or two have certainly noticed that developments in retinal implants (one of which was very recently approved by the FDA for treatment of retinal pigmentosa, 30 U.S. patients have already had it implanted) have been taking off very quickly. This is an invasive implant, a chip is placed inside of the eye and interacts with the retina and thus the brain, a primitive but legitimate cyborg implant. Those that have had their sight restored by this technology have had their lives changed, they're now experiencing something they never had a chance to experience before, their human experience has become enriched and broadened.

 

Take it a step further, however many years from now retinal implant technology will be far more sophisticated (especially due to developments in nanotechnology) and will have the potential to augment regular human vision beyond its normal capabilities. The nature of the technology hasn't changed, you're still implanting an engineered device into your body below the surface that interacts with other organs, but now it has made its way from the disabled to you. Your primitive contact lens from 2010 has moved maybe an inch to the back of your eye but is now operating on a much more sophisticated level. Now you're able to see in 20/20 vision, perhaps a memory device has been added, you can now save visual data and upload it to your computer like you normally would with a camera, perhaps a new wireless chip is allowing you to do this without exterior peripherals and cords, perhaps new beyond visible light spectrum features have been added allowing you to see temperature levels.

 

We're going to see a lot of steps before full eye replacement, but eventually all parts of the eye may have a more efficient technological counterpart, where do you draw the line and why? Many of us who are totally comfortable wearing contact lenses or allowing doctors to reshape our eyes with highly advanced medical procedures have already started, why stop? Drawing the line before full replacement, even if it's eventually feasible and practical, does not make sense, especially if you've already started the process.

Edited by EpochSix, 19 February 2013 - 11:56 PM.

[Italian Ufo]

If and when neural nanobots become widespread we won't need bionic eyes at all for recording or AR.  I'd bet with nanotechnology there will be other, less invasive ways to directly augment our vision, too.

 

of course...and how the brain would react to have a compiuter  on 24% hours a day  ? yes, because the human eyes are an extension of the brain.

[qfeys]

I have glasses since I'm 5. Since I'm 12, I am nearsighted with diopter -10/-12. Without glasses, I can't see my toes. Now I am an engineering student and I would like to do research on augmentations of all kind. If tests on rats and cats and monkeys succeed, I guess I would volunteer to be a human test subject.

 

This is what I already know about augmentations + some speculations:

Prior to having completely new super-eyes, we need to figure out brain-computer interfaces, or how to connect our brains with computers. Op to now, our brains are able to cope with everything we tried to connect to them (like artificial hands), so there is no reason to believe that they won't be able to handle something that takes over some processing power. 

When we know how to do that, we can try to connect a several gigapixel camera onto our brains. It does not even have to be implanted. Our brains might have some trouble with 3 visual inputs, so some sectors of the test subject's brain might be under pressure. Everything we want our brain to do, comes at the cost of some things that become more difficult. Maybe, we could solve this problem by adding more neurons ('cause: why not?). When we know how to connect additional complex senses, and we know how to not overload the brain to much, we will make bionic eyes.

These eyes will have a higher resolution than the ones we have now. Also they will have a zoom of at least x10, but I think x50 is possible. The zoom level will be directly controlled with our brains, so it will feel natural to use. Also, our vision will be enhanced with additional frequencies, like infra-red, and we will be able to drive up the brightness, so we will be able to see in the dark, in color. There will be a direct link to the electronic part of our brain, so we can easily save and share images. The same way, we can see visual information that's saved in our electronic memory, or that friends shared with us.

That is what I think will happen.

 

When? I guess that brain-computer interfaces will be finished between 2025 and 2035. A bionic eye could be 5 years afterwards.

[stuffed_leader]

Yes definitely  considering the possibility of connection to the internet. The ability to download apps to your eyes would not only improve vision, but it would give you the edge in any sports, academia  and even bail you out of serious life situations.  Bionic eyes would out date every mobile device. 

[Italian Ufo]

Yes definitely  considering the possibility of connection to the internet. The ability to download apps to your eyes would not only improve vision, but it would give you the edge in any sports, academia  and even bail you out of serious life situations.  Bionic eyes would out date every mobile device. 

whats the need of it ? i mean you can get the same result with contact lenses or glasses.

[tornado64]

Yes definitely  considering the possibility of connection to the internet. The ability to download apps to your eyes would not only improve vision, but it would give you the edge in any sports, academia  and even bail you out of serious life situations.  Bionic eyes would out date every mobile device. 

whats the need of it ? i mean you can get the same result with contact lenses or glasses.

From a technical view it's much easier to build that in an eye than in contact lenses. You always have this possibilites, I mean you could have an infrared camera or somthing similar and seing infrared with AR, In the end it's about convenience. Let's say contact lenses/glasses are way off in an eyes resolution and it would be possible to build a bionic eye with more functions I think I would go for it. I don't want to wear contact lenses or glasses all day.

[stuffed_leader]

Yes definitely  considering the possibility of connection to the internet. The ability to download apps to your eyes would not only improve vision, but it would give you the edge in any sports, academia  and even bail you out of serious life situations.  Bionic eyes would out date every mobile device. 

whats the need of it ? i mean you can get the same result with contact lenses or glasses.

 Glasses or contacts would do the same thing, but since the buyer could lose or break those things they would be on a lower tier of internet connected vision. Whereas bionics eyes would more or less be permanent. 

 

I agree most will probably use glasses or contacts, but in the early years the more extreme will take to bionics. 

[Italian Ufo]

I mean if we are without internet or video games or other feautures in our eyes for some moment it wont be the end of the world. I mean do humans really not know anymore how to live without internet?  I loose my contacts or glasses..is not the end of the world.

I have high respect for human body so I will never  do things like that but I respect everybody else choice.

 

Bear in mind that in the future a compiuter could be contain in a berry of rice, there will not be the need to replace an entire eye. At leeast I will wait for this technology to come.

Edited by Italian Ufo, 23 February 2013 - 08:00 AM.

[stuffed_leader]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="Italian Ufo" data-cid="38823" data-time="1361606431"><p> I mean if we are without internet or video games or other feautures in our eyes for some moment it wont be the end of the world. I mean do humans really not know anymore how to live without internet? I loose my contacts or glasses..is not the end of the world.<br /> I have high respect for human body so I will never do things like that but I respect everybody else choice.<br /> <br /> Bear in mind that in the future a compiuter could be contain in a berry of rice, there will not be the need to replace an entire eye. At leeast I will wait for this technology to come.</p></blockquote> That's why I think it will be for the more extreme. There are some people that really can' t go without some form of internet