from the I-heard-what-you-were-thinking-of-saying dept.
Team IDs Spoken Words and Phrases in Real Time from Brain's Speech Signals
UC San Francisco scientists recently showed that brain activity recorded as research participants spoke could be used to create remarkably realistic synthetic versions of that speech, suggesting hope that one day such brain recordings could be used to restore voices to people who have lost the ability to speak. However, it took the researchers weeks or months to translate brain activity into speech, a far cry from the instant results that would be needed for such a technology to be clinically useful. Now, in a complementary new study, again working with volunteer study subjects, the scientists have for the first time decoded spoken words and phrases in real time from the brain signals that control speech, aided by a novel approach that involves identifying the context in which participants were speaking.
[...] In the new study, published July 30 in Nature Communications [DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10994-4], researchers from the Chang lab led by postdoctoral researcher David Moses, PhD, worked with three such research volunteers to develop a way to instantly identify the volunteers' spoken responses to a set of standard questions based solely on their brain activity, representing a first for the field.
To achieve this result, Moses and colleagues developed a set of machine learning algorithms equipped with refined phonological speech models, which were capable of learning to decode specific speech sounds from participants' brain activity. Brain data was recorded while volunteers listened to a set of nine simple questions (e.g. "How is your room currently?", "From 0 to 10, how comfortable are you?", or "When do you want me to check back on you?") and responded out loud with one of 24 answer choices. After some training, the machine learning algorithms learned to detect when participants were hearing a new question or beginning to respond, and to identify which of the two dozen standard responses the participant was giving with up to 61 percent accuracy as soon as they had finished speaking.
[...] Moses's new study was funded by through a multi-institution sponsored academic research agreement with Facebook Reality Labs (FRL), a research division within Facebook focused on developing augmented- and virtual-reality technologies. As FRL has described, the goal for their collaboration with the Chang lab, called Project Steno, is to assess the feasibility of developing a non-invasive, wearable BCI device that could allow people to type by imagining themselves talking.
See also: Facebook gets closer to letting you type with your mind
Brain-computer interfaces are developing faster than the policy debate around them
Previously: Brain Implant Translates Thoughts Into Synthesized Speech
Related Stories
Scientists Take a Step Toward Decoding Thoughts
Stroke, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other medical conditions can rob people of their ability to speak. Their communication is limited to the speed at which they can move a cursor with their eyes (just eight to 10 words per minute), in contrast with the natural spoken pace of 120 to 150 words per minute. Now, although still a long way from restoring natural speech, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, have generated intelligible sentences from the thoughts of people without speech difficulties.
The work provides a proof of principle that it should one day be possible to turn imagined words into understandable, real-time speech circumventing the vocal machinery, Edward Chang, a neurosurgeon at U.C.S.F. and co-author of the study published Wednesday in Nature [DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1119-1] [DX], said Tuesday in a news conference. "Very few of us have any real idea of what's going on in our mouth when we speak," he said. "The brain translates those thoughts of what you want to say into movements of the vocal tract, and that's what we want to decode."
But Chang cautions that the technology, which has only been tested on people with typical speech, might be much harder to make work in those who cannot speak—and particularly in people who have never been able to speak because of a movement disorder such as cerebral palsy.
YouTube video (48s) comparing a person speaking a sentence to the synthesized audio created from brain wave patterns.
Also at UCSF and TechCrunch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @06:01PM (4 children)
but we know the real reason they are researching this stuff is to be able to pry info from people's brains to use against the person in one way or another. interrogations, travel hub behavior analyzing, marketing, politics, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @06:12PM (2 children)
Thankfully I doubt they'll be able to read information not actively being processed, so they won't be able to pry out memories unless they can make you lucidly recall them.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @06:58PM (1 child)
- underling: Sir, the interrogation target keeps thinking "pig pig pig..." according to the brain-speech-interpreter while we interrogate him.
- supervisor: Charge the fucker with obstruction of justice and toss 'em in the hole until he tells us what we need to know, we now know he's hiding it from us. For good measure, whack 'em on the head a bit as well to 'encourage him'. And while you're at it, just toss an extra charge of disrespecting the law at him as well for calling us pigs
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @08:01PM
Well they're already doing that sooo
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Wednesday July 31 2019, @07:06PM
This probably can be adapted to work as a side-channel attack against the Cone of Silence used by CONTROL.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday July 31 2019, @07:21PM
For some reason whenever you try using the tech on politicians it produces no text.
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Wednesday July 31 2019, @07:25PM (1 child)
To check which in a fixed set of possibilities the brain activity maps to, is a very very different beast to translate into text.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @08:11PM
Machine learning
Step 1: Put on the (now literal) tinfoil hat
Step 2: INTERROGATE (train the machine)
Step 3: Try and get subject to "talk"
Step 4: Apply questionable algorithms to subject's neural responses to determine probability values, if machine says "yes" goto step 5. If "no" goto step 99
Step 5: Refer - https://www.xkcd.com/538/ [xkcd.com] *
*redacted* Step 6-98: lol, used for referencing necessary situational applications of jurisdiction
Step 99: apply most marketable method of prosecution or resolution to the incident
* "Wrench" is a metaphorical method to apply leverage
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday July 31 2019, @07:53PM
All your Brains are Belong to Us.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday July 31 2019, @08:06PM (9 children)
If I said,
"When your government is corrupt and degenerate is not the time to encourage(or allow) them to make vast technological strides."
could we call this some kind of new law? Maybe,
"The worse your government is the less you should be rooting for their success at mind control and doomsday device research."
If there's not already one then I'm making up this law right now.
Thank me later.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @08:21PM (1 child)
Last I checked Facebook is a private corporation.
- If you still believe that fiction mod this up.
- If you realize that most of government is controlled by corporations mod this up.
I give you Schrödinger's bullshit
(Score: 1) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Thursday August 01 2019, @11:43AM
Wittgenstein said don't make any statements that you are not absolutely certain about.
I am certain facegag from its inception has been integrated with Darpa due to that project that was cancelled on the same day, also Zuckerborg is not capable in any way of preventing basically his entire board of directors from being actual trained spies, nor any of his sys admin team. And then there's that bizarro pentagram cult they have going on indicated by the inside of his hoodie which he only accidentally revealed.
It is clear to me that something is going on that steamrolls over the definition of business and government and we are using words that only barely match up with what we are talking about.
I think maybe what we should be more alarmed about is that there are no journalisetic entities remaining who would even try to answer these questions, we're all looking up at these institutions like loincloth wearing exiles in a Dali painting and the most we can say for certain is that they are excercising power and being extremely secretive about their intentions while literally moutains of propaganda and degenerate asocial media entities rain down.
Have you thought recently about how small listening devices might be with nano tech? Do you really think if exxon didn't reveal what it knew about climate disaster in 1972 that versizombie is going to reveal the true capabilities and risks of 5G?
You should be scared about how little we know and how virtually every institution from a structural functional perspective is inherently designed to deceive, and that there seem to be no remaining entities capable of even explaining to us what our rights are or what technologies are being used to negate them.
We think technocracy means rule by gorgle admins, but it could also mean whoever gets their first can simply impose an -ocracy with their new gadget.
At least I can say that no one should be developing mind control tech without strict oversight, same should be said for AI, viruses, things that go boom and anything else that will be impossible to isolate if it escapes from the lab.
In order to defend america, not only does america have to be first to get the tech, but the citizens have to be told about it at that time, otherwise their rights are inherently violated. This is of course the reasining for wearing a tinfoil hat, if they can read your mind from space and transmit adverts to your sleeping brain, your faraday cage waterbed is a rational idea and not using one is insane.
Of course, when your neighbors start marching down the street in lockstep with glazed eyeballs and surround your house chanting, it will be too late.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday July 31 2019, @11:23PM (4 children)
So ... no more research or technological strides?
(Score: 1) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Thursday August 01 2019, @11:31AM (3 children)
You have to set priorities, if you are a superintelligent nanobot researcher working for trump and netanyahu's cult, maybe your brain cycles would better be used ensuring you have political rights and legitimate functioning representation before you hand your boss a new superweapon that they will use against you.
Otherwise you are not smart at all.
You do realize one of the main goals of the university is to prevent people with gifted intelligence from gaining a political education so that your powers can be directed exactly for the interest of your superiors, who do not have these gifts, and are frequently sociopaths up to no good at all.
Look up organic intellectual, determine the nature of the cultural hegemonies around you, and refuse to feed and try to subvert those that are immoral and tyrannical, it's just that easy.
Anyone saying with confidence that the united states, china and israel, in particular, are 'good' countries is woefully uneducated in history and ethics regardless of how densely packed their brain cells are.
Literally, don't be a tool.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday August 01 2019, @08:31PM (2 children)
If that's the case, then 1) why is academia so political and 2) why do they actually have entire political science degree courses in universities?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Thursday August 01 2019, @08:43PM (1 child)
This is a fair question, I overstated and I am over-generalizing.
'the purpose of college' is not singularly to discourage or prevent the political thought of intellectuals.
In my experience I encountered undercover repression on campus and found it difficult to learn about anything else in my coursework but technical subjects, and was discouraged every time I had an interest in anything else.
The way they filter people out who are not going to eventually be able to do kindof monstrous things without asking questions is passive and not overt, it's important to present a university as a place of freedom for the brochures.
In my engineering capstone class we had a day of ethics where we watched a video where an engineer was monitoring how much of some totally cancerous poison they were dumping in a river and he found the numbers were way to high and he had to decide what he would do.
I asked a question like, isn't it entirely stupid to be poisoning the river at all, that's water that we drink you know.
And at that point everyone kindof knew I was the sort of hippy who would ask this question but mine was the only question asked in a class of 20 or so. I would think every waste is a resource in disguise how can we use this extra poisonous chemical somewhere else? etc but that is just outright heresy.
For instance.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday August 01 2019, @09:02PM
That engineer ... should probably take an ethics course [youtube.com]. Engineers are kind of special in that they integrate natural laws (and ethical concerns) from multiple disciplines and produce real-world results, not just research papers. A single day and a handful of case studies isn't going to do it.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 01 2019, @12:26AM (1 child)
There is a corollary hidden away that we all tend to forget. All of government covets more power, and both parties tend to accumulate power in the various offices. Each forgets that sooner or later, the OTHER PARTY will wield that same power.
(Score: 1) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Thursday August 01 2019, @11:49AM
In a world where 'government' could be definied this might be nice.
But a government can't exist if infiltrated with superior technology, and the worst form of government of all might be the "Shamocracy", the completely fake government which like Schwarzenegger says is there for 'kabuki'.
The reason epstein is a big deal is before his arrest, it appeared to people like me that the governement *couldn't* arrest him.
This may still be the case, if he just outlived his usefulness or is more useful in prison, then it's just another puzzle inside another riddle.
However we should note that extreme wealth and effective government are as disfunctional as extreme poverty and effective government, and both reinforce each other. I am truly surprised how many supposedly patriotic people are allowing all of these 'directives' by people like Thiel and Mercer to effectively shape society. Plutacracy has been known for thousands of years to be a horrible type of system that also almost always results in tragedy for the people at the top, although after many hundresd of thousands of people have been tortured and killed.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Hartree on Wednesday July 31 2019, @08:42PM (2 children)
Please do not think about the numbers of your credit card and CVV code.
Thank you.
(Score: 3, Touché) by krishnoid on Wednesday July 31 2019, @11:24PM
Argh, now I can't stop thinking about a polar bear!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 01 2019, @03:13PM
Lucky me, I don't have those numbers memorized. ;-)