The speaker discusses a new research paper where researchers use stable diffusion, a type of generative AI, to reconstruct images based on brain activity. This technology is a significant advancement in neuroscience and has potential applications in reading dreams, thoughts, memories, and understanding animal perception. The speaker also mentions a startup that uses a device to measure brain activity and translate thoughts into text messages. Another startup called Next Mind has developed a headband that allows users to control a computer or a VR headset with their thoughts. The speaker concludes by discussing the potential future of human-machine interfaces, where devices could be controlled by our thoughts, and companies like Mata and Microsoft are preparing for this change.
1. The speaker is discussing a new paper where researchers use stable diffusion to reconstruct images based on brain activity.
2. Stable diffusion is a type of generative AI that can generate stunning images based on text prompts.
3. The researchers trained stable diffusion on thousands of brain scans, showing thousands of images to humans and locking their brain activity with a memorize cam.
4. The model learned the relationship between the patterns of brain activity and the images shown to people.
5. The algorithm was able to generate images that matched the position and scale of the original images, but the color was different.
6. The process involved a combination of neuroscience and latent diffusion models.
7. The temporal lobes of the brain get information about what's on an image, while the occipital lobe gets information about the layout, scale, and position of objects.
8. The models match the brain patterns to the brain patterns seen during training, and eventually, stable diffusion draws a similar image.
9. The algorithm is mostly successful, but it can struggle to recognize certain objects if it was not trained on a brain scan that corresponds to a pattern for that object.
10. To solve this problem, the speaker suggests training the stable diffusion on a larger dataset of brain scans.
11. This work will create many new opportunities for neuroscience research and has many mind-blowing applications.
12. The speaker mentions applications like reading dreams, thoughts, memories, and understanding how animals perceive the world based on their brain activity.
13. The speaker also mentions a startup that has a device that measures brain activity and features EEG and MEG sensors.
14. This device can read your thoughts and translate them into text messages.
15. The speaker mentions a French startup called Next mind that has developed a headband that allows you to control a computer or a VR headset with just your thoughts.
16. The speaker suggests that the next hardware interface will be controlling devices with our thoughts.
17. The speaker mentions companies like Mata and Microsoft that are already preparing for this change.
18. Mata is betting that the next hardware interface will be our thoughts.
19. The speaker mentions that all of this is done using non-invasive BCI interfaces.
20. The speaker mentions that there are invasive BCI interfaces which can already read your thoughts quite precisely, but this requires drilling a hole in your head.
21. The speaker suggests that we want to avoid this by all means.
22. The speaker mentions that we are not able to read our minds so easily yet, but if we consider the science and AI that are developing, reading our minds doesn't seem out of reach.