Can AI Read Your Mind?

By analyzing fMRI scans, mind-reading technology can now translate brain activity into language. How accurate is it? Will we still have freedom of thought?

By Cody Cottier
May 26, 2023 1:00 PMJun 7, 2023 9:05 PM
A human and robot hand illustrate the concept of brain decoding
(Credit: Ole.CNX/Shutterstock)

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We tend to think of our minds as, for better or worse, impenetrable fortresses. Other people see our internal thoughts only when we transform them into language and send them out into the world.

Earlier this month, however, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin chipped away at this barrier between internal and external.

By feeding brain imaging data into an artificial intelligence model, they captured the gist of what their subjects were hearing, seeing and thinking. As the technology’s accuracy improves, it could even enable communication with people who are paralyzed, or who have otherwise lost the ability to speak.

Mind Reading Technology

Speech decoding is nothing new. But, until now, it has relied on brain implants that detect a person’s attempts to form words and then convert those vocal signals into language.

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