Japanese scientists know what you're looking at -- but don't worry, there's no need to close your other browser tabs yet. Using an artificial intelligence (AI) system alongside fMRI scans, researchers were able to create an apparently mind-reading AI -- "or perhaps at this point just mind skimming," said Umut Güçlü, a researcher at Radboud University in the Netherlands who was not involved in the research, to New Scientist. The system is actually similar to AI technologies that have been used successfully to caption images. To do this for someone's brain, the AI first needs an image of their brain taken with a fMRI scanner while the person is looking at an image. These scans show activity in the brain through blood flow.

A superhuman skill once the preserve of comic book heroes could soon become a reality. Scientists have used a combination of brain scanning and artificial intelligence to read the minds of'criminals' to determine whether they are guilty of knowingly committing a crime. This is the first time that neurobiological readings alone have been used to determine guilt, according to the study, and the findings could impact how we judge criminal responsibility in the future. A 2013 study found that researchers could predict how likely prisoners were to re-offend through brain scans. A team of neuroscientists at the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque studied a group of 96 male prisoners shortly before they were due to be released.