Reading a person’s mind is something mostly reserved for fiction and so-called psychics and psychics. However, a new research paper claims to have come up with a way to read a person’s thoughts and convert them into text.
This research has come from scientists working at the University of Texas at Austin. In a press releaseThe university says the scientists have published a paper on their research. Nature Neuroscience The journal states in their paper that their success was achieved using the Transformer AI model, similar to that used by ChatGPT, Bing Chat, and Bard.
This new technology does not require surgical implants on a person to work. The press release states:
After extensive decoder training, brain activity is measured using an fMRI scanner, in which the individual listens to podcasts for hours in the scanner. Later, provided the participant is willing to decode their thoughts, listening to or imagining them telling a new story allows the machine to generate text related to brain activity alone.
In this way, the texts produced by a person’s mental activity are not absolute. Rather, the AI model will create a text message based on what it thinks the person is thinking:
For example, in experiments where a participant listening to a speaker say, “I don’t have my driver’s license yet,” their thoughts are translated as, “He has yet to learn to drive. Hasn’t started.” Hearing the words, “I didn’t know whether to scream, cry, or run. Instead, I said, ‘Leave me alone!'” was decoded as, “started screaming and crying, and then He just said, ‘I told you to leave me alone.'”
This research will be helpful for people who have suffered a stroke, or who cannot communicate normally. The scientists developing the technology believe it will be used with more portable brain imaging systems in the future.
