Elon Musk is lauding the achievements of his Neuralink technology, calling it “Jesus-level technology.” Neuralink is a brain implant technology that promises to give people suffering from severe physical limitations, such as quadriplegics, the ability to perform basic physical operations with their thoughts. Musk discussed using Neuralink to potentially restore sight to the blind with its new “Blindsight” chip at the 9th International Samsung Smart Mobility Summit in Israel.

“Restoring control of people who are tetraplegics and restoring sight I think are pretty big deals. They’re sort of what I might call Jesus-level technologies,” he said. Blindsight will initially be used for people who have lost both eyes, damaged their optic nerve, or born blind. “It will give them initially limited vision, but I think over time, very precise vision, perhaps superhuman vision,” said Musk hopefully. Speaking to Forbes, Musk spoke glowingly of the applications for the technology. “I think some kind of brain machine interface that can give you cybernetic superpowers is probably good. It could help people that have brain or spine injuries, enable people who’ve never spoken for years to speak again, which we’ve done,” he said. “Give people eyesight who have lost both eyes of the optic nerve or maybe have never even seen at all, blind from birth. By a direct interface to the optical centers in the brain, you can actually restore eyesight or give people eyesight that they’ve never had before. And you can enable people to walk again, which I think is profound. These are kind of Jesus-level things. When technologies are hitting like Jesus-level miracles, that’s pretty good.”

Of course, not everyone was a fan of the comparison. “Stunning claim: a billionaire says his Neuralink brain-implant firm is developing ‘Jesus-like technologies’, prompting scientific and ethical questions as work advances,” wrote one user on X. “Final: scrutiny required. Oversight and legal review likely.” “The stupid reptilian is spouting nonsense again. This is what computer atheism means,” wrote another. “Jesus Christ performed miracles in the name of God, and did not insert chips and flash drives into the heads of sick people. You don’t understand the difference because you’re a biorobot.”

Musk also spoke about his hopes for self-driving cars. “In 10 years, probably 90 per cent of all distance driven will be driven by the AI in a self-driving car,” he said. The future could also include humanoid robots. “I think there will also be humanoid robots that are pretty much everywhere. I think everyone’s going to want one, maybe two.” Whereas such a picture of the future could be somewhat dystopian to lovers of science fiction, Musk said he believed such a future would lead to “universal high income” as people gained more freedom.