As computer scientists attempt to make machines think and learn like humans, the middle ground is being taken up by researchers attempting to use AI to read our minds. In the latest breakthrough, scientists at Kyoto University, Japan, have studied deep neural networks (AI) and discovered that computers wield the capacity to at least visualise what humans are thinking. Before we get ahead of ourselves, it's worth noting that the technology is nascent, and applies in only optimal conditions. If you recoil at someone's dubious new choice of profile picture on Facebook, your laptop isn't going to start registering your distaste and broadcasting it to the world. That being said, the new technology certainly has seemingly impressive – if ominous – potential applications.

Imagine a reality where computers can visualize what you are thinking. In late December, Guohua Shen, Tomoyasu Horikawa, Kei Majima and Yukiyasu Kamitani released the results of their recent research on using artificial intelligence to decode thoughts on the scientific platform, BioRxiv. Machine learning has previously been used to study brain scans (MRIs, or magnetic resonance imaging) and generate visualizations of what a person is thinking when referring to simple, binary images like black and white letters or simple geographic shapes (as shown in Figure 2 here). But the scientists from Kyoto developed new techniques of "decoding" thoughts using deep neural networks (artificial intelligence). The new technique allows the scientists to decode more sophisticated "hierarchical" images, which have multiple layers of color and structure, like a picture of a bird or a man wearing a cowboy hat, for example.