(dr) UCSF
New device corrects failures from the previous innovation and accelerates 8 times the speech of those who think about what they say, but cannot say what they think.
Many times we have to think about what we say, but sometimes “we flee our mouths to the truth” without being able to control ourselves. This is not the case with several people who suffer from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or critical parts of the nervous system “They can’t produce sound while your brain thinks of some phrase they would like to utter.”
We only realize how uncomfortable this situation is when sound comes to us with a delay in a VideoChamada, for example, or our speech is translated by a translator, we realize the speed with which our speech happens to thought.
For thousands of people, it doesn’t happen – for now. The situation may be about to change.
In 2021, a brain implant was created that. But this one still had several flaws: according to the, so far the System was slowbecause it implied a part of the text before the transmission of thought began.
Now, in a published this week in Natureresearchers at the University of California presented a big step forward: a new process of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)which immediately translates thoughts, putting them into words.
“Improving speech synthesis latency and decoding speed is essential for dynamic conversation and fluent communication,” the authors explain in the study.
To overcome the obstacles that raised their previous innovations, the investigators trained a Flexible Neural Network and deep learning in the activity of the sensorimotor cortex of a 47-year-old participant, while this “Speaking” silently 100 phrases unique of a vocabulary of just over 1000 words.
The result? The speech is 8 times faster and increasingly natural. There is room for improvements, but scientists believe there is a light at the bottom of a (short) tunnel. The speech revolution may be very soon.
