Alright, so the way I figure it is that there's three kinds of vision enhancements that the future will bring:
- 1. Eye Enhancement - Vision enhancements created by enhancing the existing eyes themselves.
- 2. Eye Replacement - Vision enhancements created by replacing the existing eyes, whether with superior biological or cybernetic replacements.
- 3. Neural Enhancement - Vision enhancements created not by messing around with the eyes, but with the vision processing of our brains. Think BCIs, and probably used mostly for "full dive" VR and telepresence-ing.
I'm going to focus on the one we will (hopefully) see in the near future, Eye Enhancement and basically how we're going to be adding to the existing eye in this decade and the next (yeah, that's how near future this one is). Interesting to note that we can further break up Eye Enhancement into two subcategories - Vision Enhancement aka seeing better with more clarity like making things out further away (I'd also chalk up like night vision and similar seeing more wavelengths than normal as this type), and Vision Assistance aka things that don't actually improve eyesight itself but puts useful information in view (read Augmented/Mixed Reality and HUD). And I'll be delving into both in this post (or two posts if I run over the word count).
So the first one is the hardest imo, even though it might be the least technologically advanced of the two. Usually because improving human baseline vision would probably entail eye surgery I think. Right now most "vision enhancements" aren't improving the baseline but restoring vision - glasses and contacts currently in use. The best thing for if you want to see better than a normal human is to tote around a good pair of binoculars, which isn't very convenient. But the future is coming. Probably.
There's a company called Ocumetics (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ocumetics&ia=web) and their "Bionic Lens" (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bionic+occula ... F20&ia=web). Now before going forward, I just want to state that I'm not sure on these guys. I checked out a bunch of articles and they seem legit, but there's also a lot of skepticism out there and their claims of 3x better than 20/20 vision is hard to believe, so do your own research. But if true? In the future we can get their lens implanted to have far superior vision than any other human alive today not looking through a binoculars, and that superior vision will remain with us for the rest of our lives even if we live to be 100 and go through the same degenerative force of aging every other 100 year old has gone through to date. It's hard to express how impressive this could be if true.
Ocumetics claim this will be achieved with a specially designed lens that replaces your natural lens like already happens during cataracts surgery, but unlike with existing intraocular lenses this one will be accommodating (meaning it will change shape by being anchored to your eye muscles, the same way your natural lens does when you change focus to look at things closer or further away). Now, I'm not an optometrist and my understanding of how the eye works is still firmly in the "Intro to Biology" level, so maybe someone smarter can figure out if this has the potential to actually make good on these claims or if it's overhyped or worse a total scam, and I'd love to hear the thoughts of someone more educated in this area - but if they're not full of BS and this works as advertised and I can chuck my glasses in the trash and see better than I did even as a child with good vision? I would definitely save and scrounge up my money and go under for this level of visual enhancement.
And if this doesn't pan out? Hopefully some other people will develop a similar concept that does work. But for now it's pretty exciting stuff to think that by decade's end I could have far better than 20/20 vision.
Now closer to fruition and just as interesting and more of a sure thing is Vision Assistance - the cyberpunk AR HUD of our dreams! Now there's a lot of smartglasses either on the market or being developed, so the tech already exists and is in use right now. But it's kind of clunky, early days and far from mainstream. This won't hold true for long however - Apple is rumored to be releasing a Mixed Reality headset this or next year, and a pair of smartglasses in 2024/5. Basically once Apple drops a product the masses adopt, so the field is going to shift soon. There's a lot of applications in AR I'm interested in - having maps and GPS directions in view without having to look away from your direction into a phone (dangerous), subtitles for real time speech or signs (good for translations and the hard of hearing), highlighting certain objects and formations for the hard of seeing (also good for just feeling like the Terminator), having people's names pop up when they come in view (good for those with memory problems - or those like me who have just always been real bad with names), and having certain health information up in view (combined with other wearables I could know what my blood sugar, pressure, and cholesterol levels are in real time - that'd be freaking sweet).
Like I said, unlike Vision Enhancement where Ocumetics is the only game in town working on this that I know of (seriously I love this stuff so if anyone knows of others I'd love to learn of them please) there's a lot of players and will be players in the field of Vision Assistance, with Apple being the one set to take it mainstream. But one company and product I am especially interested in is Mojo Vision (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=mojo+vision&ia=web) who are currently the only ones developing smart contact lenses at the moment instead of headsets and glasses. Their CEO is actually testing these contacts out on his own eyes right now, which is impressive and shows just how close these things are to market. They're going to focus primarily on the visually disabled and the competitive sports communities first, so we might not get to buy or want the first generation or so of these lenses ourselves, unless you're hard of seeing or are a pro athlete, but they have plans for a more general consumer product as well.
Whether Ocumetics and Mojo Vision or some completely different companies, the fact is that in the very near future (like within this decade near) we can be rocking better than 20/20+ vision and have visual information to make the Predator blush. Super cyborg transhuman vision, one of the most interesting superpowers we've ever dreamed of imo is coming online this decade and I don't think the general populace is aware of just how exciting this is! Yes current smartglasses and headsets are bulky, unstylish, and more gimmicky than useful, but things are changing fast and we're on the cusp of sci-fi vision like we've never had before. Outside of longevity/immortality and a full prosthetic body, this is the part of the future that most excites me. Vision is our most useful, beloved, amazing sense, and it's about to become a whole lot better.