The Eyes of the Future

If you’re a sci-fi fan, you’re probably familiar with the concept of a bionic human whose organs and body parts have been replaced with cybernetic alternatives to give them abilities superior to a pure human or robot.

What might this concept look like for eyes? In the easiest scenario, we would just keep our eyes. As the old adage goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” For now, at least, our eyes far outshine any competition in terms of resolution, longevity, and range – especially when that competition is narrowed to cameras that could feasibly fit within our skulls.

However, although practical, leaving things as they are feels a little out of step with our transhumanist goal of integrating with technology. A second option would be to completely replace the eye with an artificial counterpart. Although our flesh-and-blood eyes are the best available right now, technology is constantly improving. Artificial eyes may eventually give us abilities we currently lack, such as zooming in and out, altering aperture independently of focal length, or even allowing regular upgrades to our vision. However, such eyes would also be vulnerable to malicious attacks, malfunctions, glitches, and other technological maladies.

Perhaps the answer lies in fully adopting the philosophy on which bionic humans are built and focusing on developing technology to work synergistically with the eye, augmenting rather than replacing our current abilities. This seems to be the current direction of technological advancements in the field: augmented reality glasses, lenses that let you zoom in with a double blink (1), and the recent announcement of the world’s first true smart contact lens (2).

Although we can speculate about the benefits of these technologies – particularly for those with eye diseases – we’ll just have to wait to see what the future holds for our eyes… and the rest of our bodies.

How do you think vision will work in the future? Please let me know on edit@theophthalmologist.com or leave a comment below.