- Meta tests a machine that decodes brain signals to words entered on a computer.
- The brain typing system is up to 80% accurate, but nowhere near practical.
- The machine is half a ton, costs $ 2 million, needs a shielded space, and even light head movements disturb the signal.
Meta shows a machine that is capable of turning your thoughts into words written on a screen but don’t expect to write your Instagram -image texts telepathic soon. The unit weighs about half a ton, costs $ 2 million and is about as portable as a refrigerator. So unless you planned to drag around a lab quality magnetoencephalography (MEG) scanner, you don’t send mind-texts soon. And that is before even considering how you can’t even move your head when you use it.
What Meta has done is still impressive. Their AI and Neuroscience team has trained a system that can analyze brain activity and determine which keys someone presses – purely based on thought. There are no implanted electrodes, no sci-fi headband, just a deeply neural network that decipheres brain waves from the outside. The research, which is detailed in a few newly released papers, reveals that the system is up to 80% exactly to identify letters from brain activity so that it can reconstruct complete sentences from a typist’s thoughts.
As you write out sentences, a volunteer sits inside a meg scanner that looks a bit like a giant hair dryer. The scanner retrieves magnetic signals from neurons firing in the brain, and an AI model that is appropriately named Brain2qwerty will work to learn which signals are similar to which keys. After adequate training, it can predict the letters a person writes. The results were not perfect, but could reach accuracy levels of up to 80%.
Brain Typing
Telepatic entry has some real limits for now. The scanner must be in a specially shielded space to block the Earth’s magnetic field, which is a trillion times stronger than what is in your head. Plus, the smallest slope slope is encrypted to the signal. But there is more about it than just another meta-brand product. The research could really increase brain science and eventually medical treatment of brain damage and diseases.
“To investigate how the brain transforms thoughts into intricate sequences of motor actions, we used AI to help words, syllables and even individual letters,” Meta explained in a blog post. “Our study shows that the brain generates a number of representations starting from the most abstract representation level – the meaning of a sentence – and gradually transforming them into a myriad of actions, such as the actual finger movement on the keyboard.”
Despite its limitations, the non-invasive aspect of Meta’s research provides a much less frightening approach than stuffing a computer chip right in your brain as companies like Neuralink test. Most people would not sign up for optional brain surgery. Although a product is not the stated target of research, historical points show that fighting, lab-bound machines do not have to remain that way. A small smartphone does what a computer size couldn’t in the 1950s. Maybe today’s brain scanner is tomorrow’s laptop.
