A woman who lost her ability to speak due to a stroke was able to "speak" again with the help of AI

An American woman who lost her ability to speak due to a stroke was able to "speak" again thanks to an innovative implant. Artificial intelligence turned the woman's brain activity into words that were spoken and displayed by a digital avatar, reports the New York Times.

On August 23, researchers from the University of California at San Francisco and the University of California at Berkeley announced that they have made significant progress in the field of neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Electrodes implanted in the brain of Ann Johnson helped decode her brain signals, and a computer avatar pronounced them.

In addition, according to the signals received from the brain, the avatar showed appropriate gestures, smiled, pressed lips and showed other emotions. The results of the research were also published in the journal Nature.

The woman herself chose what her digital avatar should be like, and as a basis for the synthesized speech, the scientists used the recording of the woman's wedding, where she makes a toast.

The technology behind the implant is based on a predictive language model that predicts which word will come next in a sentence. So far it's throwing errors. However, in almost half of the sentences it tried to pronounce, the system decoded every word absolutely correctly.

In the future, the technology could help people who have lost the ability to speak due to paralysis or diseases such as cerebral palsy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Currently, the implant is connected to a computer via a cable from the patient's head, but scientists are already developing wireless versions.

Two years ago, the same team of scientists published a study in which a paralyzed man named Pancho spoke 50 basic words like "hello" and "hungry" with a simpler implant. The words were displayed as text on the computer. Additionally, the system could decode 15 to 18 words per minute, while the new system used in Ann Johnson's case can decode 78 words per minute. A person utters an average of about 160 words per minute.