Showerthought: I just read that a BCI can now type at 90 words per minute

I was looking at a study from Stanford University from last year. They had a person with paralysis use a brain implant to control a cursor and type on a screen. The speed they hit, 90 words per minute, is almost as fast as I can type with my thumbs on my phone. It really hit me how close this tech is to being a real tool for people, not just a lab experiment. The paper said they used an algorithm to read the brain signals for handwriting. Has anyone else seen practical speed numbers that surprised them?

3 comments

3 Comments

blake_smith18d ago

Dude, my buddy @the_dakota's cousin actually tried a consumer BCI setup last year for gaming. It was decent at first but after a few months the accuracy dropped hard. That 90 wpm speed is wild though, just feels like there's a long road from lab to living room.

baker.ben2mo ago

That Stanford study only had one person in it, right? 90 words a minute sounds great in a headline but how does it work after a year, or for a hundred different people? These lab demos always hit a wall when they try to leave the building. What good is 90 wpm if you need brain surgery and a supercomputer to make it work?

the_dakota2mo ago

Yeah baker.ben has a point about it working outside the lab. That 90 wpm is crazy fast but it's still one person in a perfect setup. The real test is if it works for my grandma without a team of engineers in the room.