THE world’s first ever mind-reading helmet has finally been revealed but the creepy AI tech has left many worried as it can turn your thoughts into written text.
Despite the eerie new device not looking like the thing of the future it certainly acts like it and is seen by the creators as far less invasive, ethically cleaner, and less dangerous than Elon Musk‘s rival Neuralink.
A clever team at the University of Technology Sydney has been hard at work creating a revolutionary helmet that can seriously read minds.
The hat is able to read brain waves when it’s placed on someone’s head and translates their feelings and thoughts into text through the magical power of artificial intelligence.
The technology is also hoped to help people who can’t talk communicate with others and act as a seamless connection between humans and machines, like when a person has a bionic limb.
The study has been rigorously tested with participants who whack on the helmet and let the sensors take over to produce some pretty remarkable results.
A random text is sent out to a participant as the sensors get to work the moment they sense the person thinking.
It tracks their brain waves as they read out the sentence in their heads before the waves get translated into a separate text that often closely resembles the original.
The results and recordings then get converted into text through a system called electroencephalogram recordings, that works using a clever AI model called DeWave resulting in a bewildering mind reading experience.
For example one of the tests asked the participant to think: “Good afternoon! I hope you’re doing well.
“I’ll start with a cappuccino, please, with an extra shot of espresso.”
After a few seconds a screen showed the AI hard at work translating the brainwaves into a text response.
The final results came back as: “Afternoon! You well? Cappuccino, Xtra shot. Espresso.”
Despite not being perfect, the response is pretty close and made the clever boffins working on the project excited for the scientific breakthrough they’d just made.
Overall some sentences turned out trickier than others but it still achieved a 40 per cent success rate out of the 29 people tested on.
The major advancement in AI tech prompted Professor Chin-Teng Lin from the university that worked on the special helmet to praise his team.
Lin said: “This research represents a pioneering effort in translating raw EEG waves directly into language, marking a significant breakthrough in the field.
“It is the first to incorporate discrete encoding techniques in the brain-to-text translation process, introducing an innovative approach to neural decoding.
“The integration with large language models is also opening new frontiers in neuroscience and AI.”
He also called the technology non-invasive, relatively inexpensive and easily transportable especially when compared to billionaire Musk’s attempt – Neuralink.
Tycoon Musk has been trying to get a similar brain chip concept off the ground in recent years but plans on inserting a chip into the person’s brain.
Musk claimed in the past that the technology from his company, Neuralink, “will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs.”
His project was approved by US regulators to undergo human trials back in May and they are now looking for their first human volunteers despite Neuralink coming under fire as it was revealed more than 1,000 animals dropped dead in the trials.
The device will be implanted into the brain by a specialist robot instead of a human in a rather dystopian method.
Going forwards, Chin-Teng Lin hopes the research into the mind-reading helmet can keep going until they reach a whopping 90% accuracy in the AI readings.
A figure that would blow away any previous attempts at the wacky yet incredible idea.
Other researchers from across the globe have been developing a separate AI-powered tool that recreates the music people listen to during brain scans.
The experiment, conducted by a team of researchers from Google and Osaka University in Japan, is the first of its kind.
Scientists said the AI tool, called Brain2Music, works by analyzing brain imaging data from people who are listening to music.
After examining a person’s brain activity, the AI produces a song that matches the genre, rhythm, mood, and instrumentation of the music the subject was listening to.
Even though people continue to have reservations over AI some people have been helped massively by its introduction to the world.
One of these is a man who was once paralysed but can now stand and even walk again thanks to some mind-reading tech.
Scientists created a “digital bridge” to restore the link lost between Gert-Jan Oskam’s brain and spinal cord after a horror bike crash.
Oskam can now control the movement of his legs again and stand up, walk and even climb stairs.
