Our thoughts are just electrical signals from the brain. Not far off will be the appearance of devices that will read these signals, like a turnstile in the subway reads information from a travel card.
After all, if there is an electrical impulse, albeit a very weak one, it means that in the presence of supersensitive devices it can be caught and converted into something. Researchers from different countries have recently made significant progress in this area. And reading minds no longer seems like fantasy to them. AiF.ru looked closely at the most interesting developments.
How to find the "Marilyn Monroe neuron"?
Recently, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that scientists from Tianjin University have created a device called the Brain Talker. It detects signals from neurons in the cerebral cortex, decodes them and converts them into digital data. Its size is remarkable: it is a chip. In fact, the Chinese have made a microcircuit that will read and decode a person's thoughts.
Scientists have been working on devices designed to exchange information between the brain and an electronic device (the same computer) for a long time. The technology was called the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). It was originally conceived to help immobilized people, patients with speech loss. Sensors placed on the head should read simple intentions and implement them: for example, a person looks at the monitor, moves the cursor to a certain letter in the alphabet, selects it and puts it in the message line. And so letter by letter. In the same way, you can turn on or off the TV, give commands to a wheelchair, operate prostheses, etc.
This, of course, is not yet mind reading, but the connection between brain activity and external device is obvious. The main problem with technology is that the electrical signals that the brain transmits contain a lot of background noise. And it is very difficult to find in this noise a signal from a specific group of neurons (even such terms as "my grandmother's neuron" or "Marilyn Monroe's neuron" have appeared). And even more so to “isolate” human thought from them.
"The chip we have developed is capable of recognizing minor neural electrical signals and effectively decoding the information they contain," explains Tianjin University researcher Ming Dong. "This greatly improves the speed and accuracy of information transfer."
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According to the researcher, their development will bring neurocomputer interface technologies from laboratories to the mass market. The device will be portable and available to the general public. It will be used not only in hospitals, but also in educational programs and in the entertainment industry.
For example, you can play computer games with your mind. Last year, in an experiment at the University of Washington, three volunteers played Tetris using a "telepathic" link. It looked like this. The screen was not visible to the player who was supposed to control the pieces. And the other two are visible. They mentally told him where to move the figures: the device read their electroencephalogram (EEG) and made the lights flash in a certain way. This blinking was a hint to the player.
The authors of the experiment admitted that all this still looks very primitive, but in the future it will help people with brain injuries communicate directly, without any bulbs. That is, the thought of one person (or at least his intention) will enter the brain of another. And this is already real mind reading.
Can you talk in silence?
Another trend in neurocomputer interface technologies is attempts to turn thoughts into spoken language. The person himself will not have to speak.
For example, a group of scientists from the Netherlands, Germany and the USA uses models based on neural networks for these purposes. The subjects read aloud, speak, or simply listen to audio recordings, and the system reads the signals from the brain. Then the neural network analyzes the "behavior" of the auditory cortex (it is active both during speech and during listening) and reproduces words and sentences. The accuracy reaches 75%.
Another team of European researchers relied on data from six people who had a brain tumor removed. A microphone recorded their voices, and electrodes read information from the speech centers of the brain. The computer compared the electrode readings with the audio recordings. 40% of the data is recognized correctly.
Scientists at the University of California at San Francisco took a different path. In their laboratory, artificial intelligence analyzes human lip movements and reproduces speech. To be more precise, one neural network coordinates brain signals with lip movements, and the second converts these movements into a synthesized voice.
When the device is brought to mind, the person will mentally reproduce the movements of the mouth (or silently move the lips), and others will be able to hear his speech, voiced by the computer. This means that dumb people will be able to speak freely and clearly.
A movie you can't help but love
Of course, mind reading technologies could not be ignored by the military. In May, it was announced that the Pentagon's research arm, DARPA, is going to spend tens of millions of dollars to fund programs that aim to create a neurointerface to control technology.
This has already been called "a weapon controlled by the power of thought," but for now it is about teaching operators to mentally send instructions to machines. For example, using a helmet or other device worn over the head. If scientists succeed, then it will be possible to connect weapons to neurointerfaces. Let's say combat drones. Therefore, it is possible that in the 21st century traditional (or the notorious hybrid) wars will give way to "wars of thought."
Finally, an unexpected solution was found in the film industry. Last year, British filmmaker Richard Ramchern presented The Moment, which allows the viewer to change the plot with the help of thoughts. More precisely, you can change some scenes, their order and transitions between them, the rhythm of the narration, musical accompaniment, and the key events and the ending remain the same. The viewer wears a helmet for recording brain activity, similar to devices for taking EEG. Once you think about the fact that you don't like the scene, how it is adjusted, and the action switches to the main storyline.
The film is only 27 minutes long. The first test impressions were successful. Of course, it is impossible to create a branched plot with different scenarios, and you cannot show such a film in a cinema (it can only have one viewer), but the experience is still interesting. At least by the fact that it shows that neurocomputer interface technologies can have the most unexpected applications. After all, if there is an electrical impulse, albeit a very weak one, it means that in the presence of supersensitive devices it can be caught and converted into something. Researchers from different countries have recently made significant progress in this area. And reading minds no longer seems like fantasy to them.
