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23 August 2023 | 17:32
A woman who did not speak a word in years after suffering a stroke has regained the ability to speak through artificial intelligence.
The groundbreaking procedure uses 253 electrodes, which are implanted into the brain of Anne Johnson, 48, and then connected to a series of computers via a small port on her head.
The electrodes, which cover the area of the brain where speech is processed, intercept his brain signals and send them to a computer, which in turn produces a brown-haired avatar that represents Johnson.
The on-screen avatar—chosen by Johnson himself—can then “express” what he’s thinking, using a version of his voice recorded years ago during the 15-minute toast he gave at his wedding.
The avatar also blinks its eyes and uses facial expressions such as smiling, pursing its lips, and raising its eyebrows to make it look more realistic.
“We’re just trying to restore people’s identity,” said Dr. Edward Chang, chief of neurosurgery at the University of California, San Francisco. he told the New York Times.
Johnson – a high school math teacher who also coached volleyball and basketball in Saskatchewan – had been married for two years and had two children when a stroke left him paralyzed.
Johnson worked with researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, to train an AI system to recognize his brain signals and turn them into speech. Noah Berger/SWNS
Sean Metzger, who developed the decoder in a joint bioengineering program at UC Berkeley and the University of California, San Francisco, told Southwest News that “software’s accuracy, speed, and vocabulary are critical.
“This is what gives users the ability, at the right time, to communicate at about the same speed as us, and have more natural, natural conversations.”
The team is now working on a wireless version, which means users don’t need to be physically connected to the computer using wires or cables.
Zhang has been working on brain-computer interfaces for more than a decade, and hopes the team’s innovation will lead to a system that allows speech to be generated from brain signals in the near future.
“Our goal is to restore a complete and real way of communicating, which is actually the most natural way for us to talk to others,” Zhang told SWNS.
“This advancement brings us closer to making this a real solution for patients,” added Zhang.
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2023-08-23 22:11:46
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