Scientists have developed the world's first mind-reading AI that translates brainwaves into readable text. It works using a sensor-covered helmet that looks at specific electrical activity in the brain as the wearer thinks, and turns these into words. The revolutionary tech was pioneered by a team at the University of Technology Sydney, who say it could revolutionize care for patients who have become mute due to a stroke or paralysis. A demonstration video shows a human subject thinking about a sentence shown on a screen, which then switched to what the AI model decoded - and the results are nearly a perfect match. The team also believes the innovation will allow for seamless control of devices, such as bionic limbs and robots, allowing humans to give directions just by thinking of them.

US military research body DARPA is funding a project to create a mind-reading helmet that could let soldiers fly drones and control robots telepathically. Led by Texas-based researchers, the project will start by trying to read the vision of one person and transfer it into the brain of someone who is visually impaired. The helmet works by using both light and magnetic fields to interact with specially-reprogrammed neurons in the brain of the wearer. The Magnetic, Optical and Acoustic Neural Access (MOANA) project is exploring a minimally invasive, nonsurgical approach to connect human brains with a machine via a special helmet. Users will undergo gene therapy that will make certain neurons absorb light when firing.