A world wherein people can read the thought-processing of others seems like another plot for a science-fiction show. However, that plot can become our new reality with the help of technology and intellectually competent scientists.
Throughout the last decades, brain-reading technologies have been progressing quickly. Cognitive scientists, AI researchers, and neurologists collaborate to produce technological advancements. These will allow them to read what is happening in someone’s mind.
In fact, one of the many influential people pushing this development is Elon Musk and his brain-centred company, Neuralink. With this in mind, how can today’s machines know what we think? Can technology read your mind?
Can Technology Read Your Mind? Technologies that can Read Mind
In the past, mind-reading techniques involving implanting electrodes deep in one’s skull were considered invasive. Now, scientists have developed new methods using tools and machinery that can detect one’s brain activity without opening the internals of an individual.
So, can technology read your mind? Researchers and scientists use two main methods to detect a person’s brain activity non-invasively: Electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Electroencephalography (EEG)
Electroencephalography (EEG) is the traditional brain-scanning technique that attaches sensory devices to the scalp to detect our brain’s electrical activity. It is mainly used in the medical and neurological fields for capturing the signals produced by our brains.
EEG is one of the tools that can enable mind-reading by deciphering speech imagery. Speech imagery or covert speech is our thought process that has not been articulated (for example, you think of the word apple, but you didn’t say it out loud yet).
Even paralyzed individuals or people who have lost their ability to speak can still imagine speaking, which the EEG can decode through.
Although challenging, this technique is a popular mind-reading method because it is non-invasive, cost-friendly, and has an accurate temporal resolution.
What makes EEG thought-provoking is that it has a few limitations. Because it is non-invasive, the process is corrupted by external noise. The EEG also has trouble depicting different lengths of words as the signals detected lack structure, making the word imagined by a person difficult to decipher.
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Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is the latest method of non-invasive brain imaging that detects neuron activity as well as the changes in the blood flow of the brain.
Like EEG, fMRI is used in the medical field to scan what part of the brain is active during a specific action. Using an fMRI machine, scientists can now scan the occipital lobe, an area of the brain responsible for vision.
The fMRI can be used as a brain-reading technology by transmitting the information from the occipital lobe to a computer’s artificial intelligence (AI) that could build an almost-identical image.
The fMRI is a popular brain-reading method because it is non-invasive, objective, and has high resolution. The downsides, however, include the expense and the ambiguity of the process.
Can Technology Read Your Mind? Ways that Technology can Do Mind-reading?
It is noteworthy to know that the aforementioned methods have limitations, and what they produce is not a hundred percent accurate. Despite these restrictions, the use of these processes has been proven significant and effective by conducted studies.
Through using EEG and fMRI, there are useful applications of mind-reading technology, especially in medicine and security.
Natural Image
Researchers from Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands, have developed almost-accurate images from reading the minds of two participants through fMRI.
The researchers fed the information coming from the fMRI to an artificial intelligence (AI) system. Neither the participants nor the AI had seen the photos before the experimentation.
The AI system recreated facsimile images, and neurological professionals believe this investigation is a stepping milestone for synthetically reading people’s minds.
AI developer and cognitive neuroscientist Thirza Dado, the main researcher, believes that the findings from this study could help blind people restore their vision.
Lie Detector
Brain-reading technology can be used as a substitute for the polygraph, a lie detector system. One alternative is the blood oxygenated level dependent fMRI (BOLD fMRI), in which the change of location of the brain’s oxygenated blood indicates whether a person is lying.
Another substitute is brain fingerprinting using EEG, in which the P300 event-related potentials of a person are recognized to determine whether he or she has information about a specific event.
Despite a decent replacement for polygraphs, using brain-reading technologies as lie detectors causes concerns about inaccuracy and ethical problems involving false-positive results to non-criminals.
Detecting Thoughts
Studies found that brain-reading technologies can detect one’s attention and thoughts. A study by Marcel and Mitchell (2009) used fMRI data to teach a computer to detect parts of the brain engaged in specific thoughts.
Although the findings were thought to be 100% accurate, the computer can only detect ten specific thoughts. Another research conducted by Yamazaki (2015) found that an AI system could detect what a person was about to say during a rock-paper-scissors game before they could even say the word.
The researcher was able to track Broca’s area part of the brain using EEG to determine the words two seconds before they say a word.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Perhaps there are other questions you want to get answers to. Here’s everything to know:
Is there a Technology that can Read Minds?
The researchers at the Radboud University in the Netherlands have developed the technology that can “read minds” as it could turn the person’s neurological activity into such an amazing and accurate picture.
Can AI Read Your Mind?
There are a lot of commercially available AI systems that can read and even comprehend texts at proficiency levels that vary. Such examples are Siri and Alexa, computers that can read minds and convey what you think about graphics forms through monitoring the brain with about 83% accuracy.
How Far Away is Mind-Reading Technology?
Mind-reading technology is likely just a decade away from being ready for the public. However, we can see instances of mind-reading technology in society through social media algorithms. Even the wireless mind-reading tech still under development will function using the brain-computer interface to track neurological impulses.
Conclusion
Can technology read your mind? The field of science, specifically neurology and the development of AI systems, has to take credit for making mind-reading technology possible. Despite the progress the developers and scientists have made, tools and machinery can’t fully read what’s going on in our minds, at least not yet.
Professionals believe that in little to 10 years, synthetically reading minds as a norm can be made possible. For now, mind-reading technology can only detect almost-identical images, detect lies, and detect thoughts using fMRI and EEG.
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