US scientists have unveiled a shocking new brain implant that lets users see and read other people’s thoughts.
The team, based out of California Institute of Technology (CIT), had been building devices to help patients with speech and non-verbal disorders.
But they have instead created a sci-fi-level gadget that can read minds.
The brain chip – also referred to as a brain-machine interface – essentially “translated” brain waves “into text in real time”.
“We captured neural activity associated with internal speech — words said within the mind with no associated movement or audio output,” the team wrote in a Nature study published yesterday.
When testing the technology on two participants, researchers attached electrodes to a portion of the brain’s supramarginal gyrus — a crucial part for understanding and processing language.
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Participants were shown a visual or spoken prompt and asked to think of the word demonstrated — such as spoon, python or battlefield, according to the Daily Mail.
Researchers were then able to convert those thoughts into words with 79 per cent accuracy.
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Brain implants and mind-reading used to be concepts for science fiction or crystal ball-wielding psychics.
Now, with the help of eccentric entrepreneur Elon Musk, they are becoming more commonplace.
While they are far from normalised – the same goes for the hand implants – it appears we’re well and truly on the path to a sci-fi future.
Although it comes hand-in-hand with rapidly accelerating AI technology – that threatens to gobble up our jobs or create a whole host of new ones – try not get all Doomsday on us.
This technology is being designed with real, life-changing, medical applications.
Musk has previously pledged that his Neuralink chip – despite being marred by the deaths of chimps – will someday help quadriplegics walk again.
While CIT’s brain chip is intended to help people with speech and non-verbal disorders.
Last year, a separate team of researchers based in Texas announced they had developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) model that also had the eerie ability to read people’s minds.
It was considered a major advancement in the technology that may one day help those unable to talk after a stroke.
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Since then, rafts of scientists across the globe have stepped forward with their own mind-reading offerings.
That include’s an AI-powered helmet that also lets your peer into the minds of those around you, which is shown in the video above.
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Millie Turner
