Facebook Is Funding Mind-Reading Research

No, not its normal ad business. Facebook shared an update on its two-year-old quest to build a noninvasive device that will let you type directly from your brain. It’s been writing checks to UCSF neuroscience researchers developing a brain-computer interface (BCI).

The news: Using a BCI and machine learning algorithms, researchers decoded dialogue from brain signals, deciphering what someone was “saying” or “hearing” with up to 61% and 76% accuracy, respectively. The crazy part: The decoded activity appeared as a read-out on a screen in real time.

But tests were limited to predefined answers and questions, so only a small set of words and phrases were fair game. The research is still in early stages and it’s going to be a while before any mind reader is commercialized.

Endgame: Facebook’s eventual plan is to inject click-by-brain tech into augmented reality glasses. Sorry, smartphones, but if those are the computing platforms we’re headed toward, the future doesn’t need you.