The artificial intelligence has looked for patterns between audio recordings and the brain activity of people listening to those recordings. John M Lund Photography Inc / Getty Images
Scientists are trying to use artificial intelligence to translate brain activity into language.
An A.I. program analyzedsnippets of brain activity from people who were listening to recorded speech. It tried to match these brainwavesto a long list of possible speech segments that the person may have heard, writes Science News Jonathan Moens. The algorithm produced its prediction of the ten most likely possibilities, and over 70 percent of the time, its top-ten lists contained the correct answer.
The study, conducted by a team at Facebooks parent company, Meta, was posted in August to the preprint server arXiv and has not been peer reviewed yet.
In the past, much of the work to decode speech from brain activity has relied on invasive methods that require surgery, writes Jean-Rmi King, a Meta A.I. researcher and a neuroscientist at the cole Normale Suprieure in France, in a blog post. In the new research, scientists used brain activity measured with non-invasive technology.
The findings currently have limited practical implications, per New Scientists Matthew Sparkes. But the researchers hope to one day help people who cant communicate by talking, typing or gesturing, such as patients who have suffered severe brain injuries, King writes in the blog post. Most existing techniques to help these people communicate involve risky brain surgeries, per Science News.
In the experiment, the A.I. studied a pre-existing database of 169 peoples brain activity, collected as they listened to recordings of others reading aloud. The brain waves were recorded using magnetoencephalography (MEG) or electroencephalography (EEG), which non-invasively measure the magnetic or electric component of brain signals, according to Science News.
The researchers gave the A.I. three-second segments of brain activity. Then, given a list of more than 1,000 possibilities, they asked the algorithm to pull the ten sound recordings it thought the person had most likely heard, per Science News. The A.I. wasnt very successful with the activity from EEG readings, but for the MEG data, its list contained the correct sound recording 73 percent of the time, according to Science News.
The AIs performance was above what many people thought was possible at this stage, Giovanni Di Liberto, a computer scientist at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland who was not involved in the study, tells Science News. Of its practical use though, he says, What can we do with it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Thats because MEG machines are too costly and impractical for widespread use, he tells Science News. Plus, MEG scans might not ever be able to capture enough detail of the brain to improve upon the findings, says Thomas Knpfel, a neuroscientist at Imperial College London in England, who didnt contribute to the research, to New Scientist. Its like trying to stream an HD movie over old-fashioned analogue telephone modems, he tells the publication.
Another drawback, experts say, is that the A.I. required a finite list of possible sound snippets to choose from, rather than coming up with the correct answer from scratch. With language, thats not going to cut it if we want to scale it to practical use, because language is infinite, says Jonathan Brennan, a linguist at the University of Michigan who didnt contribute to the research, to Science News.
King notes to Times Megan McCluskey that the study has only examined speech perception, not production. In order to help people, future technology would need to figure out what people are trying to communicate, which King says will be extremely challenging. We dont have any clue whether [decoding thought] is possible or not, he tells New Scientist.
Currently, the research, which is conducted by the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research Lab and not directed top-down by Meta, is not designed for a commercial purpose, King tells Time.
To the critics, he says there is still value in this research. I take this more as a proof of principle, he tells Time. There may be pretty rich representations in these [brain] signalsmore than perhaps we would have thought.
Recommended Videos
Go here to see the original:
By Reading Brainwaves, an A.I. Aims to Predict What Words People Listened to - Smithsonian Magazine
- The Grotesque Slander of Comparing Gaza Protesters to Neo-Nazis - The New Republic - April 29th, 2024 [April 29th, 2024]
- Joe Alt Is A Strong Fit For The Los Angeles Chargers - Sports Illustrated - April 29th, 2024 [April 29th, 2024]
- How The Manosphere Of Alt Right Content Targets Boys - BuzzFeed - April 29th, 2024 [April 29th, 2024]
- Say Hello To Joe Alt, Future Hall Of Fame Right Tackle - Barstool Sports - April 29th, 2024 [April 29th, 2024]
- An Alt-Right Icon Just Gave the Single Dumbest Seinfeld Take Ever - Cracked.com - April 4th, 2024 [April 4th, 2024]
- Ireland & Wales Rugby Fans Take On Alt-Right On Twitter - Balls.ie - February 18th, 2024 [February 18th, 2024]
- Doja Cat Reacts to Backlash Over Alt-Right Comedian T-Shirt: 'It Didn't Affect the World' - TooFab - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- Doja Cat Responds To Backlash Over Alt-Right T-Shirt: 'It's Not An Attack' - HipHopDX - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- Marvel and DC Writer Mark Waid Rejects Mark Millar's Call To Root Out Comic Book 'Cancel Pigs', Dishonestly Paints ... - Bounding Into Comics - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- Maudlin Strangers unveil intense alt rock banger Im Not In The Right Mind [Video] - EARMILK - December 19th, 2023 [December 19th, 2023]
- The Dark Economics of Russell Brand - WIRED - September 23rd, 2023 [September 23rd, 2023]
- Pro-Kremlin Propagandist Ties to White Nationalist Movement ... - Southern Poverty Law Center - September 23rd, 2023 [September 23rd, 2023]
- Opinion | How to Argue Against Identity Politics Without Turning Into ... - The New York Times - September 23rd, 2023 [September 23rd, 2023]
- Anna Wintour: 'I just have to make sure things are being done right' - Financial Times - September 23rd, 2023 [September 23rd, 2023]
- Opinion | Donald Trumps Abortion Shell Game - The New York Times - September 23rd, 2023 [September 23rd, 2023]
- How to Treat Right-Wing Violence in the U.S. - The New Yorker - August 30th, 2023 [August 30th, 2023]
- Scalise, No. 2 House Republican, Says He Has Blood Cancer - The New York Times - August 30th, 2023 [August 30th, 2023]
- Emails reveal Secret Service contacts with Oath Keepers - Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington - August 30th, 2023 [August 30th, 2023]
- How Trump's Election Lies Left the Michigan G.O.P. Broken and ... - The New York Times - August 30th, 2023 [August 30th, 2023]
- Alt Right: A Primer on the New White Supremacy | ADL - March 2nd, 2023 [March 2nd, 2023]
- The Dangerous Subtlety of the Alt-Right Pipeline - March 2nd, 2023 [March 2nd, 2023]
- The Alt-Right Manipulated My Comic. Then A.I. Claimed It. - March 2nd, 2023 [March 2nd, 2023]
- Richard Spencer: Five Things to Know - Anti-Defamation League - February 20th, 2023 [February 20th, 2023]
- From Alt Right to Alt Lite: Naming the Hate - Anti-Defamation League - February 18th, 2023 [February 18th, 2023]
- Alt-right Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com - February 18th, 2023 [February 18th, 2023]
- What Is QAnon, the Viral Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theory? - January 8th, 2023 [January 8th, 2023]
- Benedict XVIs Most Powerful Influence on the Catholic Church Came Before He Was Pope - The New Yorker - January 6th, 2023 [January 6th, 2023]
- Netflix Removed Kanye's 'Harmful Alt-Right Beliefs' From David ... - November 23rd, 2022 [November 23rd, 2022]
- Where Are All the Women on This Alt-Right, Anti-Choice, Toxic ... - November 23rd, 2022 [November 23rd, 2022]
- Forbes Gets Punked - Labels FTX Former CEO's Girlfriend a "New Darling ... - November 23rd, 2022 [November 23rd, 2022]
- Alt-Right Picks Wrong Side in Dutch Farm Crisis - November 23rd, 2022 [November 23rd, 2022]
- La Mirada Chamber Invited Alt-Right Racist to Moderate School Board ... - October 30th, 2022 [October 30th, 2022]
- Hate & Extremism | Southern Poverty Law Center - October 30th, 2022 [October 30th, 2022]
- America First Political Action Conference - Wikipedia - October 25th, 2022 [October 25th, 2022]
- Pepe the Frog - ADL - October 25th, 2022 [October 25th, 2022]
- Paul Joseph Watson - Wikipedia - October 25th, 2022 [October 25th, 2022]
- Jack Posobiec - Wikipedia - October 25th, 2022 [October 25th, 2022]
- QUIET - Wikipedia - October 25th, 2022 [October 25th, 2022]
- Shintaro Abe - Wikipedia - October 25th, 2022 [October 25th, 2022]
- #FireMcMaster, explained. How alt-right media and a handful of | by ... - October 23rd, 2022 [October 23rd, 2022]
- Right-wing politics - Wikipedia - October 23rd, 2022 [October 23rd, 2022]
- Real Viking History and the Imagined White Supremacist Past | Time - October 23rd, 2022 [October 23rd, 2022]
- More Toxic, Alt-Right, QAnonism | No Minister - October 23rd, 2022 [October 23rd, 2022]
- Steve Bannon's influence on conservative politics: Expert on alt-right explains - University of Colorado Boulder - October 23rd, 2022 [October 23rd, 2022]
- Alt-right - Wikipedia - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Alt Right: A Primer on the New White Supremacy - Anti-Defamation League - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- How the Alt-Right Happened - American University - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Alt-right pipeline - Wikipedia - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Richard B. Spencer - Wikipedia - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- incel Meaning & Origin | Slang by Dictionary.com - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- red pill Meaning & Origin | Slang by Dictionary.com - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Just The News - Media Bias/Fact Check - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- The Download: TikTok moral panics, and DeepMinds record-breaking AI - MIT Technology Review - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Roe vs. Trump in the Michigan Midterms - The New Yorker - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- PhD student examines clash of masculine identities on internet hate site - University of Toronto - September 27th, 2022 [September 27th, 2022]
- Clickbait extremism, mass shootings, and the assault on democracy time for a rethink of social media? - The Conversation - September 27th, 2022 [September 27th, 2022]
- A Case of Rhabdomyolysis in a Young, Morbidly Obese, Asthmatic Woman With COVID-19 - Cureus - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- Mothers of the movement: Leadership by alt-right women paves the way for violence - The Conversation - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- An antidemocratic philosophy called 'neoreaction' is creeping into GOP politics - The Conversation - August 2nd, 2022 [August 2nd, 2022]
- How Stop the Steal Captured the American Right - The New York Times - August 2nd, 2022 [August 2nd, 2022]
- Alt Right: A Primer on the New White Supremacy - June 24th, 2022 [June 24th, 2022]
- Will Tehama Sheriff Candidates Ties to Alt-Right Extremists Alarm ... - June 24th, 2022 [June 24th, 2022]
- Racist Great Replacement Conspiracy Went From Alt-Right to Mainstream - June 24th, 2022 [June 24th, 2022]
- Trump and his mob tried to overthrow American democracy and threaten to try again - Ohio Capital Journal - June 24th, 2022 [June 24th, 2022]
- Pacifism is the wrong response to the war in Ukraine - The Guardian - June 24th, 2022 [June 24th, 2022]
- How Culture Went Back to the Middle Ages - ArtReview - June 24th, 2022 [June 24th, 2022]
- FoxO3 restricts liver regeneration by suppressing the proliferation of hepatocytes | npj Regenerative Medicine - Nature.com - June 24th, 2022 [June 24th, 2022]
- The Alt-Right Has Its Very Own TV Show On Adult Swim - June 11th, 2022 [June 11th, 2022]
- The Nation: "The Libertarian Party Goes Alt-Right" - June 11th, 2022 [June 11th, 2022]
- Milwaukee business owners don't all want the RNC - Wisconsin Examiner - June 11th, 2022 [June 11th, 2022]
- Alt-Right Incels at Deep State Daily Stormer Site Celebrate Buffalo ... - June 3rd, 2022 [June 3rd, 2022]
- Alt Right Journalist Whos Lost Every Lawsuit Over Banned Accounts ... - June 3rd, 2022 [June 3rd, 2022]
- PBS, Lincoln Project Label DeSantis, Press Secretary 'Alt-Right' - June 3rd, 2022 [June 3rd, 2022]
- Johnny Depp-Amber Heard Verdict: The Actual Malice of the Trial - The New York Times - June 3rd, 2022 [June 3rd, 2022]
- How To Keep Meat Juicy With Science : Short Wave - NPR - June 3rd, 2022 [June 3rd, 2022]
- What Do Female Incels Really Want? - The Atlantic - May 17th, 2022 [May 17th, 2022]
- 'Well be here again': How tech companies try and fail to prevent terrorism - Protocol - May 17th, 2022 [May 17th, 2022]
- Republican and more Republican: Idaho shifts ever rightward - The Guardian - May 11th, 2022 [May 11th, 2022]
- Listen up! Here are the finalists of the 2022 Student Podcast Challenge - GBH News - May 11th, 2022 [May 11th, 2022]
- Dark Enlightenment - Wikipedia - April 27th, 2022 [April 27th, 2022]