AI Gives Paralyzed Person the ability to ‘Handwrite’ With His Mind

The brain is packed with trillions of information and data and by harnessing this with technology we can see some incredible technological advances, like giving a paralyzed individual the ability to write using its mind.

Electrodes implanted in a part of the brain involved in motion have allowed some paralyzed patients to move a cursor and select onscreen letters with their thoughts. Users have typed up to 39 characters per minute, but that’s still about three times slower than natural handwriting.

But through research and experiments, a volunteer paralyzed from the neck down, used the power of his imagination to imagine moving his arm to write each letter of the alphabet. This brain activity is then processed through a computer AI model known as a neural network to interpret the commands, determining the intended trajectory of his imagined pen stroke motion to create letters.

There are high hopes that the computer will eventually execute the volunteer’s imagined sentences with 95% accuracy. As the technology improves and refines over time, they will also use their neural recordings to gain a better insight into how the brain plans and orchestrates fine motor movements. The image below shows how accurate the technology is at interpreting the individual’s brain activity and replicating it.