A team of researchers at the University of Texas has developed a noninvasive means by which human thoughts can be converted into text. Though currently somewhat clunky, the "semantic decoder" could one day be miniaturized and mobilized such that one's most private thoughts could be made apparent anywhere and endlessly.
The scientists' paper, recently published in the journal Nature Neuroscience (look for the centerfold!), indicated that a "brain-computer interface that decodes continuous language from non-invasive recordings would have many scientific and practical applications."
I'm sure that is the case. You can bet that tyrannical governments from China to Canada, and from Iran to Washington, D.C., would love to avail themselves of the "practical applications" this interface would afford them. Regular citizens might not be so excited by this prospect, however.
This new decoder utilizes functional magnetic resonance brain imaging and artificial intelligence, unlike previous brain-computer interfaces, which required invasive neurosurgery to decode speech articulation and other signals from intracranial recordings. Easy-peasy, right?
According to an article in Interesting Engineering, the research team was led by Jerry Tang, a doctoral student in computer science, and Alex Huth, an assistant professor of neuroscience and computer science at the University of Texas-Austin. During a U.T.-Austin podcast, Huth stated, "For a noninvasive method, this is a real leap forward compared to what's been done before, which is typically single words or short sentences." He added, "We're getting the model to decode continuous language for extended periods of time with complicated ideas." Wow.
The researchers claim to realize that the technology raises some ethical concerns. Tang averred, "We take very seriously the concerns that it could be used for bad purposes and have worked to avoid that."
I'm sure the researchers at the lab in Wuhan said the same thing circa 2019.
