Facebook thinks the most useful digital assistant is the one that can read minds

At last year’s Facebook conference, Regina Dugan, head of Facebook’s moonshot division, recycled a well-known—in BCI (Brain Computer Interface) circles anyway—video of a woman in a Stanford lab moving a digital cursor with her mind. She did this to show that the bones of the technology that can give us mental control over our computers is already in place. She then explained that Facebook wants to take that technology and create a product to allow us to type more than 100 words with our minds. that’s even faster than we talk audibly. Even decoding audible speech from brain signals is at a very, very early stage.

For reasons of privacy or propriety, Mark Chevillet explained, people are loathe to ask Siri anything out in the open—uses at work and in public account for only 19% and 3%, respectively. you have to speak out-loud. Would you have privacy?

A digital assistant that can literally listen to your thoughts, anywhere and at anytime, and privately.

To make it more complicated, for Facebook’s idea to be marketable at all, the interface has to be non-invasive. The study made use of a neural implant, and the best results had the most electrodes on the most parts of the brain. No one wants their head drilled open to communicate on Facebook! On the other hand, in all of the sensor technology, there is no signal that provides good enough spatial (can read a small enough area) or temporal resolution (can do it fast enough) to even remotely make this possible.

Chevillet isn’t ignoring these obstacles. This project was just one year into the “is-it-even-possible?” phase. As to an actual, consumer-ready product, he cautioned that may be 10 or more years out. That said, Facebook’s skunkworx is partnered with research departments at 17 universities, including Stanford, Harvard and MIT, to help develop this technology. And with all the resources CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Dugan want to throw behind the effort, even Herff isn’t ready to limit what they’re capable of doing.”They are very secretive,” he said.

Resource : qz.com