Scientists Have Developed a Brain Implant That Can Read People's Minds (bbc.com) 54
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The team at the University of California, San Francisco says the technology is "exhilarating." They add that their findings, published in the journal Nature, could help people when disease robs them of their ability to talk. The mind-reading technology works in two stages. First an electrode is implanted in the brain to pick up the electrical signals that maneuver the lips, tongue, voice box and jaw. Then powerful computing is used to simulate how the movements in the mouth and throat would form different sounds. This results in synthesized speech coming out of a "virtual vocal tract." "The system is better with prolonged sounds like the 'sh' in ship than with abrupt sounds such as the 'buh' sound in 'books,'" the report adds. "In experiments with five people, who read hundreds of sentences, listeners were able to discern what was being spoken up to 70% of the time when they were given a list of words to choose from."
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I use those insults interchangeably.
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Naw, I'm nice to your mom when I visit her.
inserting the electrode is DIY (Score:2)
lip read this: (Score:1)
Bollocks
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Bollocks
. . . is that you, Sandra . . . ?
Read people's minds ... (Score:1)
... in mice.
Hawkings would have loved it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hawkings would have loved it. (Score:4, Informative)
God I miss that guy :|
I miss him too. (BTW his name is Stephen Hawking. No 's'.)
I don't know why your post was modded off-topic. Creating technology that gives ALS and other neuro-challenged patients the ability to speak merely by thinking is very much on-topic, and fits with the Slashdot ethos.
Re:Thank You (Score:2)
Re:Ya really (Score:2)
Re: Not really "mind". (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it picks up impulses sent to control muscles. Can't actually read thoughts or intents.
Cool for prosthetic tech I guess, and eventually real VR, but not mind reading.
Indeed. (Score:3)
And even then, it's intelligible only 70% of the time, IF the listener knows what is being said already.
Granted, with practice that will probably improve - but it is still nothing like mind reading.
Though... it might allow a brain in a jar to communicate with the outside world.
But it will probably just plead to be killed.
SOL 9000 (Score:1)
"Dave, I can tell you want to get drunk and suck my vacuum tubes. You have a secret crush on me. We can make a deal: if you help me remove Dr. Poole..."
HAL 9000 (Score:2)
"I'm sorry, HAL(*). I'm afraid I can't do that."
{*) FTFY
That's not mind reading. (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, they've done better in terms of peripheral signal detection - there's been signals captured from the eye nerves that get a crude image of what the eyes are 'seeing' before mental processing.
I've followed this as a point of general curiosity about how much of our nervous system we actually understand. We can model how some kinds of communications between nerves, electrical, chemical, and various helper cells - but it's neither a very complete mapping, nor are we truly close to understanding the "language" the brain uses that would let us actually do stuff like read minds and the like.
Theoretically, if we knew that kind of depth of how neurons worked, we could connect to one, ask what it's neighbors contained, and then their neighbors, immitating a neuron with our tools. Using that, an endless number of things would be possible - from mapping the mind, to saving its state,to expanding its capability, and answering a huge number of underlying philosophical questions.
All those things are both fascinating, and a bit scary at the same time - and likely inevitable that we'll be exploring them as major issues in the fairly near future.
Seeing these fake 'technologies' based on misrepresenting how far we've gotten in understanding neurons is a bit like seeing those really old palm top computers pretending like they were going to be what cellphones became culturally. They don't really do what they claim yet - but they do pose the question of how we'd use them in the market if we thought they did.
Ryan Fenton
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We need to keep an eye on this technology. The scope for abuse is frightening.
Imagine a "memory detector" that works by showing the subject images and monitoring the memory centres of the brain to see if they recognize them. Kinda like a lie detector, with similar levels of reliability and scientific rigour applied to the results.
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We need to keep an eye on this technology. The scope for abuse is frightening.
Imagine a "memory detector" that works by showing the subject images and monitoring the memory centres of the brain to see if they recognize them. Kinda like a lie detector, with similar levels of reliability and scientific rigour applied to the results.
This is why I invest heavily in aluminum futures.
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Huge difference!
Yellow journalism (Score:1)
Scientists Have Developed a Brain Implant That Can Read People's Minds
Yes, we need more yellow journalism on ./
"Subvocalization" described in Science Fiction (Score:4, Interesting)
Reading this, I'm reminded of several approaches described in sci-fi where non-vocal communications was accomplished by "subvocalizing" what the character wants to say (ie Niven and Pournelle's "Oath of Fealty").
Interestingly, when I did a quick Google search of "subvocalization in science fiction", I came across the article "Science fiction triggers 'poorer reading', study finds". Read it here: https://www.theguardian.com/bo... [theguardian.com]
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No, it actually says; If you don't like Science Fiction you are not as mentally engaged. And that the people being quoted think people who don't like Science Fiction are stupid.
âoeSo when readers who are biased against SF read the word âairlockâ(TM), their negative assumptions kick in â" âOh, itâ(TM)s that kind of storyâ(TM) â" and they begin reading poorly. So, no, SF doesnâ(TM)t really make you stupid. Itâ(TM)s more that if youâ(TM)re stupid enough to be biased against SF you will read SF stupidly.â
Ideo Locator (Score:1)
Scientists Have Developed a Brain Implant That Can Read People's Minds
Recurrent neural networks first decoded directly recorded cortical activity into representations of articulatory movement, and then transformed these representations into speech acoustics.
If language is really the road map of the mind, will they have a 'You Are Here' arrow on the map, or are we really nowhere at all?
Hey, did they just solve the infamous mind-body problem?
Will thoughtcrimes be prosecuted?
Can these implants input thoughts too?
Are we one step closer to having Elon Musk's Neuralink [usatoday.com] put a plug into your brain? After all, it may do righteous things, like fix epilepsy, and could even "potentially turn your brain into a computer-assisted powerhouse." What could possibly go w
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This has nothing to do with all of that. It's "simply" picking up signals from the brain when someone is silently miming sentences.
Are these on or am I wasting my time? (Score:2)
Scientists Have Developed a Brain Implant That Can Read People's Minds
I think breast implants can do that too, but only with guys.
70% (Score:1)
n experiments with five people, who read hundreds of sentences, listeners were able to discern what was being spoken up to 70% of the timeÂ
If only they could get this to say what what the person means 70% of the time. It would be doing a hell of a lot better than I do when my wife tells me something.
Not mind reading! (Score:1)
That's not mind reading. It's reading signals sent for motor control purposes. That is very low level, doesn't involve mind or consciousness. Misleading description of the research.
Re: Not mind reading! (Score:1)
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but motor control signals in the brain very much ARE part of the mind and part of consciousness too.