(this has been done experimentally, effectively giving people a low res greyscale sort of sight from a camera - note I was seeing stuff about this a good 10-15 years ago so it may be better now, actually)
it's worse, the for-profit company spun up to privatize the gains of that public research went bankrupt and put their patients into a cyberpunk hell of having to crowdsource parts and repairs for their cybernetic eyes
Yet in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, he heard troubling rumors about the company and called his Second Sight vision-rehab therapist. “She said, ‘Well, funny you should call. We all just got laid off,’ ” he remembers. “She said, ‘By the way, you’re not getting your upgrades.’ ”
WHAT THE FUCK
WE HAVE BIONIC EYES BUT NO ONE IS MAKING THEM ANYMORE?? THEY """"MOVED ON"""" TO OTHER TECHNOLOGY AND JUST GHOSTED HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE WALKING AROUND WITH UNMAINTAINED BIONIC IMPLANTS?? WE HAVE BIONIC FUCKING EYES AND MUSK WANTS TO FUND HIS MONKEY BRAIN TORTURE IMPLANTS INSTEAD???
it's worse, the for-profit company spun up to privatize the gains of that public research went bankrupt and put their patients into a cyberpunk hell of having to crowdsource parts and repairs for their cybernetic eyes
Yeah that whole situation is fucked up.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/bionic-eye-obsolete
WHAT THE FUCK
WE HAVE BIONIC EYES BUT NO ONE IS MAKING THEM ANYMORE?? THEY """"MOVED ON"""" TO OTHER TECHNOLOGY AND JUST GHOSTED HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE WALKING AROUND WITH UNMAINTAINED BIONIC IMPLANTS?? WE HAVE BIONIC FUCKING EYES AND MUSK WANTS TO FUND HIS MONKEY BRAIN TORTURE IMPLANTS INSTEAD???
The market works, folks!
"Sorry, the abstract utility of you paying to have vision was judged to be less than that of our investors buying more rental properties."