The future of brain interfacing Neural Speech Inc. aims to provide a link to the outside world for people who are unable to communicate. CEO and Chief Scientist, Philip Kennedy, explains the potential opportunities associated with brain interfacing. Brain electrodes that are implanted into or on the surface of the brain face an uncertain long-term future. This is because, firstly, no one wants their brain implanted if they could avoid it, and secondly, because external devices that record brain activity have improved immensely with the advent of AI and Machine Learning that brain electrodes may not be needed. These external devices can pick up EEG signals and drive devices to provide access to spelling words and phrases, or to access the Internet, write emails, and so on. Even Apple Inc. has entered the field by providing a Human Interface Device that can be controlled with external or internal signals. A recent Time magazine award to an external device company called Cognixion Inc. is highlighting the advances being made by external devices. Cognixion utilizes EEG from the visual cortex to detect eye movements, leveraging AI to enhance the signal. It has so far produced a word ‘speaking’ rate of 30 words per minute. However, this is not speaking at a conversational rate, which should be 80 to 150 words per minute. It does the ‘speaking’ by having the user focus on a screen with letters, words, or phrases and activate the phrase, for example. But this is not true conversational speech.
Philip Kennedy (Mon,) studied this question.