New 'Mind-Reading' AI Translates Thoughts Directly From Brainwaves – Without Implants

Rapidcreek@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 116 points –
New 'Mind-Reading' AI Translates Thoughts Directly From Brainwaves – Without Implants
sciencealert.com
21

Let me guess...

  • not very accurate
  • needs to be trained on an individuals brain.

Although DeWave only achieved just over 40 percent accuracy based on one of two sets of metrics in experiments conducted by Lin and colleagues, this is a 3 percent improvement on the prior standard for thought translation from EEG recordings.

The Australian researchers who developed the technology, called DeWave, tested the process using data from more than two dozen subjects. Participants read silently while wearing a cap that recorded their brain waves via electroencephalogram (EEG) and decoded them into text.

Yep.

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Spent over 15yrs studying brain activity in EEG MRI and MEG. Seems like a far stretch, given our ability to accurately access signals. Brain is complicated, and signals like EEG are very poor reflector of specific signals. Like when you view city street lights at night. Pretty, but what can you decipher.

I was determined never to do meth again because I'm not sure I'd survive the psychotic paranoia again.

This news makes me 110% certain I'll never do meth again.

With further refinement, DeWave could help stroke and paralysis patients communicate and make it easier for people to direct machines like bionic arms or robots.

The article doesn't even hint at any use in a justice system. There's nothing to suggest that this could even in principle be used as a lie detector.

dont worry its bogus technology they have had this for decades supposedly now they added Ai and will spend the new funding on strippers and hoes

Ignoring the technology itself, I found it interesting that it has a lot less trouble with verbs compared to nouns (tho the article does not give much information about it).

Would it mean that humans keeps actions very separate (even if similar), while keeping things and concepts more clustered together? Is being precise on what is happening much more important than clearly specifying the subject and object of the action?

I'd wager that humans have much more neural hardware relating to verbs, since they relate to the things you yourself do over longer periods. Let's say I clean my bathroom, or my kitchen, or something else - the actions I take are very similar, and my head has to keep my body doing the right thing for long stretches of time. It's much harder to clean the wrong thing than to clean the thing wrong.

There are fewer verbs than nouns I’m sure our brains prioritize accordingly

This is definitely progress, but we need to keep in mind that the particular language a person speaks can significantly influence how a person's brain works.

AI like this will likely need to be trained from person to person.

So is it only useful for people who silently read? Because I don't see any use case if so, it is not like we think using words, lol.

Many people do think using words through their inner monologue.

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Later on they find the accuracy is about as good as the whole facial recognition fiasco

anyone remember the movie Strange Days? Or the movie Brainstorm?