Scientists train AI to read human thoughts

Scientists train AI to read human thoughts

　Scientists have created a new tool that can turn people’s thoughts into words. It works by using an Artificial Intelligence(AI) program to translate brain activity into words.

　The new method was developed by a team of scientists at the University of Texas at Austin. The tool has two main parts. The first is a scanner¹ that allowed the scientists to record brain activity. The second is an AI system that the researchers trained to turn videos of brain activity into words.

To record brain activity without surgery², the scientists used a big machine called an fMRI machine. The fMRI machine uses strong magnetic fields and radio waves³to create pictures showing which parts of the brain are active. The fMRI machine can record the activity of the brain as it happens.

　To translate these recordings into words, the researchers used an AI tool called “GPT-1”. Like ChatGPT, GPT-1 predicts which word is most likely to come next, based on the information that came before.

　The testing was done on three human volunteers. Each person spent sixteen hours in an fMRI machine listening to stories. The people imagined the stories as they heard them, and the fMRI machine recorded their brain activity. GPT-1 then used these recordings to make connections between the words and ideas in the stories and the brain activity of the listeners.

　Then came the test: The researchers played a brand new⁴story. GPT-1 was only given recordings of the people’s brain activity. But the words that GPT-1 predicted were very similar to the words in the story that the people were listening to.

Notes:

1. scanner n. 扫描器 2. surgery n. 外科手术