MINDHUNTER
Creepy Black Mirror-style AI machine can read your mind and recreate images from your thoughts
Artificial neural network analyses brain signals and generates an image of what a person is looking at
SCIENTISTS have created a creepy artificial intelligence system that can read your mind.
The chilling computer echoes TV drama Black Mirror in which a machine allows anyone to record and play back their memories.
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Researchers in Japan developed a method to "see" inside people's minds using an fMRI scanner, which detects changes in blood flow in the brain.
Volunteers were asked to look at images of objects such as a swan, an aeroplane or a stained glass window.
Signals from the scanner were fed into an artificial neural network, a computer system that apes how a human mind works and is able to learn and solve problems.
The network learned to recognise images, and then used signals from volunteers' brains to reconstruct what they were thinking about.
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With remarkable accuracy, the colours and shapes of the images it produced closely match the photos that the volunteers were looking at while in the scanner.
The machine was also able to reconstruct symbols and letters, demonstrating it could truly see what the person was seeing and was not guessing based on its learned knowledge of natural shapes.
The breakthrough opens a "unique window into our internal world", according to the Kyoto Universty team.
And the technique could theoretically be used to create footage of dreams and help disabled patents communicate with their loved ones.
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The scientists wrote in a : "We found that the generated images resembled the stimulus images (both natural images and artificial shapes) and the subjective visual content during imagery.
"While our model was solely trained with natural images, our method successfully generalized the reconstruction to artificial shapes, indicating that our model indeed 'reconstructs' or 'generates' images from brain activity, not simply matches to exemplars."
Car reads thoughts
CARS that increase drivers’ reaction times and anticipate acceleration, steering and braking by reading brainwaves could be available within five to ten years.
The Brain-to-Vehicle technology was unveiled by Japanese motoring giant Nissan yesterday.
It detects signs that the driver’s brain is about to start a movement, such as turning the wheel or pressing the accelerator.
Driver assist technology then begins the action more quickly.
Nissan claims cars using the feature can react up to half a second quicker than drivers.
Geraint Rees, an expert on neuroimaging at University College London, told the Times the study marked a big advance in the technology.
He said he was impressed by the way the AI had learned to read letters of the alphabet it had never encountered.
The professor said: "This is a significant improvement on their earlier work."
Neural networks are at the centre of many developments in AI including Google's translation tool, Facebook's facial recognition software and Snapchat's live filters.
Last year computer experts created a "Nightmare Machine" that spontaneously generates terrifying images.
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