Neuralink Received Breakthrough Device Designation from the FDA for Blindsight

The Breakthrough Devices Program [1] is just a special review program. Designation just means you get to go through a non-standard approval process because your technology is too different to be well-served by the normal review process.

It is not a endorsement or approval of the technology. It is basically just approval to get faster responses from the FDA.

[1] https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/how-study-and-market-you...

Any new patents regarding the avoidance of implant neural scaring?

Naming alone, this is complicated.

- It could be just what it says on the tin "letting the blind see".

- It could be a reference to the real neurological condition where one can in fact see but the conscious mind is convinced they cannot.

- It could be a reference to the novel "Blindsight" by Peter Watts, which is relevant to the above neurological condition but is really about just how bad humans are at perceiving the world around them and being unreliable narrators.

I realized back when he started naming the spaceships, Musk has read many of the novels I have, but seems to have taken radically different lessons. The potential misinterpretations of "Blindsight" are the utility of sociopathy in society and acceptability of manipulation to manage unreliable humans.