An amazing development: a system that translates brain activity into text, a boon for those who are physically unable to write or type.
Main point: “The device – part of a longstanding research collaboration called BrainGate – is a brain-computer interface (BCI), that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to interpret signals of neural activity generated during handwriting.”
More about it:
- “…the man concentrated as if he were writing – effectively, thinking about making the letters with an imaginary pen and paper.”
- “…electrodes implanted in his motor cortex recorded signals of his brain activity, which were then interpreted by algorithms running on an external computer, decoding T5’s imaginary pen trajectories, which mentally traced the 26 letters of the alphabet and some basic punctuation marks.”
Why it matters: “Similar systems developed as part of the BrainGate have been transcribing neural activity into text for several years, but many previous interfaces have focused on different cerebral metaphors for denoting which characters to write – such as point-and-click typing with a computer cursor controlled by the mind.”