Eight years ago during the F8 event, Facebook announced that they were developing a device that can type by reading human brain waves. It was developed for ALS patients like the late Dr. Stephen Hawkings to communicate without having to use a physical keyboard. After eight years, Meta finally succeeded in developing a "mind-reading machine" with an accuracy of up to 81%.
The device developed by Meta Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) only reads brain waves without implants directly implanted in the brain as done by Neuralink and by Facebook Reality Labs four years ago.
Brain waves are read using a Magnetoencephalography (MEG) machine with the data then processed by artificial intelligence (AI) Brain2Qwerty in real time. MEG captures brain activity at a rate of 1000 frames per second. In an experiment conducted at the Center for Cognition, Brain and Language Basque, Spain - the brains of 35 volunteers were scanned using a MEG machine while they typed. Artificial intelligence can detect what will be typed just by reading brain wave activity.
Although the machine and system for typing by just thinking have been successfully produced, they are not yet ready for public use because the MEG machine is a medical device that costs millions of ringgit. It is also large and heavy and can only operate in a room protected from external magnetic fields. The brain reading will also be disrupted if the user's head moves. At the same time, the 81% accuracy was only achieved by some volunteers with an average accuracy of only 68%.
Meta will continue research to further improve the accuracy of reading brain waves so that the dream of building a typing machine by just thinking without a physical implant that was promised eight years ago will become a reality.