Facebook learned to read human thoughts by implanting electrodes into the brain

Facebook has long taken control of the lives of billions of people, and after the launch of the cryptocurrency Libra will control their finances. However, this Zuckerberg, apparently, is not enough – in the social network they learned to read thoughts.

From reading correspondence to reading thoughts

The new mind reader was first successfully tested by Facebook Reality Labs. Despite the fact that the technology is still at an early stage, the reading accuracy exceeded 60% when working with real people.

How it works: electrodes are implanted into the human brain, which literally read thoughts and transfer them to a computer. There, the received data is decoded into the usual text and voila – people's thoughts are actually written in black and white. In the future, the company wants to abandon the implantation of electrodes and move on to wearable technology.

It is worth noting that Facebook makes a rather big bet on its development. This is evidenced by the fact that tests on living people were carried out for a whole year, and their results became known only now. The interest of the company is quite understandable: devices for communication between the computer and the brain will no longer be elements from science fiction films, which creates a potentially large-scale market right now.

Can I trust Facebook with my thoughts?

Another question is how Facebook will use such technology. Of course, on paper, everything is so good that a nimbus looms over Zuckerberg’s head: the device should help people who, for whatever reason, have lost their ability to speak. Imagine that the recognition accuracy will reach 100%, and the finished text will be voiced in real time. This will literally erase for the dumb people all kinds of boundaries that are present now.

However, we are well aware that any Facebook endeavor rests on earnings for its users. It is still difficult to imagine a scenario in which a device for reading thoughts could be massively used to earn money, but a huge social network team may already have its own thoughts. Nevertheless, it is worth recognizing one fact – despite dubious motives, Facebook pushes science forward, and in this matter their merits should not be belittled.

Publication date 09/01/2019
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