BrainGPT turns thoughts into text • Hacker News Board

Re: BrainGPT turns thoughts into text

#161

Post by oeeker » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 1:08 AM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #117

explaininjs wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting ploy. Present far-better-than-achieved results right on the front page with no text to explain their origin^, but make them poor enough quality to make it seem as if they might be real. ^ "Overall illustration of translate EEG waves into text through quantised encoding." doesn't count.

Urgh. And it gets worse from there. The bugs list on the repo has a closed and locked bug report from someone claiming that their code is using teacher forcing! https://github.com/duanyiqun/DeWave/issues/1 In a normal recurrent neural network, the model predicts token-at-a-time. It predicts a token, and that token is appended to the total prediction so far which is then fed back into the model to generate the next to…

how could such thing get published?

Re: BrainGPT turns thoughts into text

#162

Post by motohagiography » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 1:17 AM UTC

Maybe I'm missing something huge here but a blind controlled demo where the subject committed words to paper and then compared the results afterwards would be persuasive. Unfortunately, the demo as presented in the article seemed achievable by professional magicians and mentalists.

I'm sure we're close to brain interfaces, but something seems off about this one.

Let's say a couple years from now, someone invents an airport scanner that "detects" evil thoughts, except there is no way to verify it, and no accountability for false negatives. The result is whatever the operator says it is. If enough people accept it enough to not resist it, and even turn on the ones who are detected by it, it doesn't matter what's real because it's just a participatory ritual of sympathetic magic. I feel like there are examples of similar dynamics in recent memory.

Re: BrainGPT turns thoughts into text

#163

Post by logtempo » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 1:18 AM UTC

mikpanko wrote: post #136

I did a PhD in brain-computer interfaces, including EEG and implanted electrodes. BCI research to a big extent focuses on helping paralyzed individuals regain communication. Unfortunately, EEG doesn’t provide sufficient signal-to-noise ratio to support good communication speeds outside of the lab with Faraday cages and days/weeks of de-noising including removing eye-movement artifacts in the recordings. This is a phy…

Recently, a Swiss-French team made the communication between the brain and the legs possible, and the device looked relatively mature. I think patient had nerves damaged in the vertebral column. What do you think about it ? Looked like a promising development.

https://actu.epfl.ch/news/thought-controlled-walking-again-a...

Re: BrainGPT turns thoughts into text

#164

Post by godelski » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 1:18 AM UTC

explaininjs wrote: post #108

PaulScotti wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guys Figure 1 is not real results, it's an illustration of the "goal" of the paper. The real results are in Table 3. And are much worse.

Interesting ploy. Present far-better-than-achieved results right on the front page with no text to explain their origin^, but make them poor enough quality to make it seem as if they might be real. ^ "Overall illustration of translate EEG waves into text through quantised encoding." doesn't count.

What's interesting to me is that apparently a lot of people see nothing wrong with this[0]. That whole thread is wild and I'm just showing a small portion.

Also, @dang, can we ban links to iflscience? They're a trash publication that entirely relies on clickbaity misrepresentations of research works. There is __always__ a better source that can be used.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38565424

Re: BrainGPT turns thoughts into text

#165

Post by dexwiz » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 1:28 AM UTC

selcuka wrote: post #155

dexwiz wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every technology has its ups and downs. The same nitrates can grow plants or blow up a building. While blind optimism is bad, it’s depressing how negative discussion surrounding new technology has become. People have become literal luddites.

> Every technology has its ups and downs. The same nitrates can grow plants or blow up a building. This is like saying "thermonuclear weapon tech has its ups and downs". It is technically correct, but we are talking about the (lack of) balance here. Not being able to think privately could be the end of civilisation as we know it.

Nuclear technology does have its ups and downs as in power generation, medical imaging, and advanced physics experiments versus thermonuclear weapons. If anything you are only highlighting the negative variant in your argument.

Re: BrainGPT turns thoughts into text

#166

Post by SoftTalker » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 1:59 AM UTC

karaterobot wrote: post #101

> While it’s not the first technology to be able to translate brain signals into language, it’s the only one so far to require neither brain implants nor access to a full-on MRI machine. I wonder whether, in a decade or two, if the sensor technology has gotten good enough that they don't even need you to wear a cap, just there'll be people saying "obviously you don't have any reasonable expectation of not having your…

We are still operating computers the same way we did in the 1970s: keyboards and screens. I'm not holding my breath.

Re: BrainGPT turns thoughts into text

#167

Post by api » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 2:02 AM UTC

joenot443 wrote: post #7

Ground Truth: Bob attended the University of Texas at Austin where he graduated, Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies in 1973, taking only two and a half years to complete his work, and obtaining generally excel- lent grades. Predict: was the University of California at Austin in where he studied in Beta Kappa in a degree of degree in history American Studies in 1975. and a one classes a…

Just be sure to only ever use open source or paid commercial grade tech. I’m sure someone will release a “free” BCI that spies on you as much as possible.

Re: BrainGPT turns thoughts into text

#168

Post by MrGinkgo » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 2:21 AM UTC

karaterobot wrote: post #101

> While it’s not the first technology to be able to translate brain signals into language, it’s the only one so far to require neither brain implants nor access to a full-on MRI machine. I wonder whether, in a decade or two, if the sensor technology has gotten good enough that they don't even need you to wear a cap, just there'll be people saying "obviously you don't have any reasonable expectation of not having your…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hood_Maker

Re: BrainGPT turns thoughts into text

#169

Post by dsr_ » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 2:38 AM UTC

daniel_iversen wrote: post #144

mikpanko wrote: post #136

I did a PhD in brain-computer interfaces, including EEG and implanted electrodes. BCI research to a big extent focuses on helping paralyzed individuals regain communication. Unfortunately, EEG doesn’t provide sufficient signal-to-noise ratio to support good communication speeds outside of the lab with Faraday cages and days/weeks of de-noising including removing eye-movement artifacts in the recordings. This is a phy…

What’s your thoughts of Elon’s NeuraLink? Also, do you have an opinion on whether good AI algorithms (like in the article) can help filter out or parse a lot of the noise?

It was a little bundle of what looked like thin, glisteningly blue threads, lying in a shallow bowl; a net, like something you'd put on the end of a stick and go fishing for little fish in a stream. She tried to pick it up; it was impossibly slinky and the material slipped through her fingers like oil; the holes in the net were just too small to put a finger-tip through. Eventually she had to tip the bowl up and pour the blue mesh into her palm. It was very light. Something about it stirred a vague memory in her, but she couldn't recall what it was. She asked the ship what it was, via her neural lace.

That is a neural lace, it informed her. ~ A more exquisite and economical method of torturing creatures such as yourself has yet to be invented.

Re: BrainGPT turns thoughts into text

#170

Post by fragmede » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 2:56 AM UTC

opdahl wrote: post #32

It’s crazy to me that someone has developed a technology that literally reads peoples mind fairly accurately and its just like a semi popular post on Hacker News.

IFL science does a lot of science cheerleading, and I love them for it, but my (I can't speak for. others) enthusiasm is tempered by the number or times limitless nuclear power, cures for cancer, and flying cars have been promised. That's not to say this isn't impressive - it's nothing short of mind-blowing - but I'm not expert enough to evaluate how real this result is. I'll note the technology to communicate to coma patients has been showcased before but it turned out to be a hoax. not saying this is, but, again, this tempers my enthusiasm.