Reading minds requires a willingness to cooperate. By focusing on a mathematical problem, the research results were distorted.
Foil hats recommended by conspiracy theorists are said to protect against mind reading and 5g connections. However, hats are of no use if you don’t want to look funny. Camera Craft / Alamy Stock Photo
Researchers at the University of Texas managed to read people’s minds without installing a separate chip. The people who took part in the study listened to the recordings, and with the help of the data obtained from the brain activity, it was possible to interpret what the people thought about what they heard with the help of artificial intelligence.
In the recordings, “I haven’t got a driver’s license yet” turned into “he hasn’t even started learning to drive”.
The test subjects had to lie in the magnetic imaging device for 16 hours. Based on the blood circulation in the brain, it was verified which areas of the brain are activated by certain words.
Using the GPT language model, which is also used in chat applications, the researchers were able to find out through brain activity what the test subject thinks about a certain word.
The study was published In the scientific journal Nature.
Pronouns as a challenge
However, it was not possible to read the subjects’ thoughts if the subject was not willing to cooperate. By focusing on something else, such as thinking about a math problem, the research results were distorted. The application’s margin of error was also fairly large.
– The error margin for interpreting the words was 92 to 94 percent, but the overall idea is understandable through the circular expressions, assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Texas Alexander Huth states.
According to Huth, pronouns in particular caused a challenge in the study.
– We did not manage to find out who does what and to whom.
Privacy of thoughts
Research on mind reading raises concerns about future applications where thoughts could be read without permission. The researchers also raised the issue in the publication of the research results.
– We know that this can be quite scary. This does sound strange, says Huth.
The reading of thoughts was also successful only on a subject-by-subject basis. Another person’s thought about the number seven, for example, did not correspond to another person’s thought about the same number.
In the future, this could potentially make life easier for people who, for example, have challenges with speech production. The research is still in its early stages, and so far it is far from being able to be made available from the laboratories to a larger public.
Reported about it Science News.